Originally published in the Valley News on December 2, 2007
Clinton Walks a Fine Line
Candidate Works to Show She’s Both ‘Battle-Hardened’ and Warm
By Susan J. Boutwell — Valley News Staff WriterConcord — Hillary Clinton is speaking to more than 1,000 people outside the Statehouse on a warm November day. Most in the crowd are listening intently, but not Jeff Lewis. He's watching the body language of the Democratic senator from New York.
"Hillary is different. She has special energy. The gleam in her eye," says Lewis, a highway worker from Henniker, N.H.
Clinton is calling for universal kindergarten and decrying the high cost of college in New Hampshire as she tells the crowd why she should be president. She jabs a finger in the air.
"Look at the power she has," says Lewis, smiling broadly.
In a long day on the campaign trail, Clinton, 60, is both sparkling campaigner and powerful politician. As the day wears on, two different sides of the Democratic front-runner reveal themselves. There is Hillary the crowd-pleaser. She dives into throngs of admirers in Manchester, Concord and Claremont, shaking hands, flashing her toothy smile, making small talk. She seems warm and complimentary, genuine and interested.
"I love your pin," she says to a woman in a Manchester diner, leaning over in a big-sisterly way to look at the bright bauble.
On her next-to-last stop of the day, an hourlong meeting with the Valley News editorial board, another side of Clinton emerges. She is serious and well-prepared, recalling decades of facts and figures to buttress positions on Iraq, Social Security and health care. Gone is the crowd-pleaser. This is the candidate who says her most important personal quality is that she's "battle-hardened." She seems a bit tired after a long day and weary of seven years of George Bush and of Republican dismantling of programs and accomplishments put in place during her husband's presidency.
"I can't stand what these people have done to our country. I cannot tolerate it. It is beyond our worst imagination," she says, her voice growing stronger. "And I know our country's better than that.
"I have a lot of experience and my husband and I have a proven track record of knowing how to beat (the Republicans). ... Other candidates will be subjected to the kind of withering attacks I have been subjected to for 15 years. One thing you know about me is that I'm still standing.
"And I am resilient and resourceful and effective in taking that on," she continues. "It is not an intellectual exercise. It is visceral. So I think I have better policies and all the rest of that stuff, but at the end of the day, I think I'm in the best position to win."