The political parade to the Upper Valley continues, and a very big name is headed to Dartmouth College next week.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be speaking on Wednesday at an annual “great issues lecture” sponsored by the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding and also meeting with students in some foreign policy seminars at Dartmouth.
Dartmouth is currently home to two former top staffers at the State Department who would most likely be holding major foreign policy jobs in Washington had Clinton won a couple of key Rust Belt states in 2016.
Her former deputy chief of staff and director of policy planning at the State Department, Jake Sullivan, is now a “distinguished visitor in international affairs” at the Dickey Center. And the center itself is run by Daniel Benjamin, who served as the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism under Clinton.
“In both American politics and in American foreign policy, Hillary Clinton has been one of the pivotal figures of our time,” Benjamin said in an announcement of her appearance on Dartmouth’s website. “Working for her at the State Department was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I’m thrilled that Dartmouth students will get an opportunity to experience her in person.”
Clinton’s talk, billed as a conversation with Benjamin and Sullivan, will run from 4:45 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday in the Spaulding Auditorium at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. Priority for seating will go to Dartmouth students and staff, with the general public then admitted on a first-come, first-served basis for any seats that may still be open, Dartmouth said.
An overflow room will also be available, and attendees will have to pass through a security check. No bags are allowed in Spaulding for the event, Dartmouth said.
In a joint appearance with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, in Washington last weekend, Hillary Clinton said, “I think what everyone is hoping for is a nominee who will win both the popular vote and the Electoral College,” according to The Atlantic.
She also said of the current, large field of Democratic candidates, “It’s really, really early in the process, and there’s so much that is yet to be revealed about each of the candidates. But we have so many very exciting, energetic candidates.”
On the campaign trail Andrew Yang, a former entrepreneur who went on to found the nonprofit Venture for America and is now seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, will be campaigning in Hanover, Lebanon and Claremont next week.
After an appearance at the Dartmouth Beta fraternity on Thursday, May 9, Yang will hold a town hall forum that evening at 7 p.m. at the gazebo outside the CCBA Witherell Center in downtown Lebanon.
He’s also got an event in Claremont at 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 11, at 111 South St.
A bigger event that day is likely to be a forum sponsored by VtDigger featuring former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who has announced he is challenging President Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primaries.
The Saturday, May 11, talk, co-sponsored by the Valley News, will be held at 3 p.m. at the Hartford High School gym, 37 Highland Ave., White River Junction. To register, go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/vtdigger-in-conversation-with-presidential-candidate-bill-weld-tickets-60877153204.
Weld, a former U.S. Attorney in Massachusetts who later headed the U.S. Department of Justice’s criminal division during part of the Reagan administration, said yesterday that he would have pursued an indictment of Trump for obstruction of justice given what was in the Mueller report. In a statement, Weld said Attorney General William Barr “has erred in both his opinion that the President could not be indicted and in his clear attempt to frame a narrative that favors and protects the President.”
Fun trivia — as young lawyers, Hillary Clinton and Weld both worked for the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate investigation.
Briefly noted ■Senate President Donna Soucy, D-Manchester, on Wednesday signed a bill that would repeal the death penalty in New Hampshire, giving Republican Gov. Chris Sununu five days to act on the matter. Democrats could use broad support for repeal as a wedge issue in 2020 if Sununu vetoes the measure.
■Former U.S. Sens. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., and Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., who both lost their seats in the 2018 election, are heading up a new clearinghouse called the One Country Project. Their goal is to help Democrats do better among voters in rural America.
■Grantham attorney Sheridan Brown, a conservationist, former U.S. Senate aide and avid birder, has launched a primaryfeathers.org website in which he hopes to convince presidential candidates to go on a bird walk to emphasize environmental protection.
“As John Muir pointed out, everything is interconnected. Birds are, in my opinion, the greatest example of this, traveling many miles between their wintering grounds and their summer home here in New Hampshire,” Brown said via email.
John P. Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com.