NASHUA, N.H. (Jan. 6) — With two days left until the primary, Democrat Hillary Clinton is working to sell herself as the candidate both of change and of experience.
“We want a president who can go to work on the first day and make action happen,” Clinton told a cheering crowd at a rally on Sunday. As she has since her third-place finish in Iowa on Thursday, she took aim at Barack Obama and John Edwards as they tried to stake a claim to the title of change agent.
On the weekend before Tuesday’s primary, Clinton campaign organizers intensified their efforts, with thousands of volunteers knocking on more than 100,000 doors. In the last few months, campaign organizers have said, they made more than 1.4 million calls to voters and 100,000 neighbor-to-neighbor letters the last few months. But they’ve picked up pace since the debates on Saturday night.
In one sign of the emphasis on her experience, the Clinton campaign on Sunday plastered roadways with nine new billboards boasting one word:“Ready.”The same slogan also appeared on new posters passed out to voters.
For others, Clinton represented the status quo, and change is hard to emerge from that.
“Not that she’s going to govern like Bill Clinton, but it’s hard to separate the two,” said New Jersey voter Peter Economous, who had come to check out the campaigns of several candidates. After her event, he said, he ruled out Clinton as his presidential choice.
For Economous, who is leaning more toward Obama, Clinton’s record on taking corporate money and her support from lobbyists presents several complications. “I want real change. If she wanted to stress this ‘change’ thing, she should have been the first person to mention it. Now she’s just jumping on the bandwagon because it appeals to voters,” he said.
Throughout the campaign, Clinton has taken criticism for appearing to be remote and cold. In New Hampshire, she is continuing to try to change that impression. Campaign volunteer Sue Manzo from Springfield, Maryland, acknowledged Clinton’s chilly image.
“I think she needs to make her messages more crisp and clear. At times she comes across as a bit testy. She needs to soften that image and let people see the other sides of her,” said Manzo. She believes Clinton has a shot at winning New Hampshire, she said. And, Manzo said, most of the phone calls they’ve made to voters this week seem to be positive.
To get people out to the polls, campaigners are offering voters rides on Tuesday. Clinton also launched “Honestly, all the candidates seem to be saying and doing the same thing,” said Nashua resident Sue Carty, who receives mail and calls from Clinton everyday. “I just want a strong leader for this country.”
(Koren Temple, a magazine-newspaper-online journalism graduate student, is covering the New Hampshire primaries for Campaigns&Elections magazine.)
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