As New Hampshire race tightens, Clinton goes door to door

LAT: As N.H. race tightens, Clinton goes door to door
She promises a 'new beginning' as she drops in on homes along Montgomery Street.
By Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 16, 2007


(Jim Cole/AP)
A CHILLY TRAIL: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton trudges the snowy streets of Manchester, N.H., in search of votes. Warmly received at town hall meetings, she faced tough questions from the audience.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — After a difficult week in which Hillary Rodham Clinton weathered the embarrassing resignation of a top state campaign official and faced new polls showing Barack Obama pulling even with her in New Hampshire, the senator from New York went door to door telegraphing the message that she wasn't taking a single voter for granted.

The stakes for her campaign were highlighted by her husband, former President Clinton, who suggested in an interview with PBS's Charlie Rose that the senator from Illinois was a symbol of change rather than "a change agent," and said voters who chose Obama's freshness over Clinton's experience could be taking a risk with the country's future.

In Manchester, more than 30 members of the media stumbled through the snowbanks beside Clinton as she walked the icy sidewalk of Montgomery Street with supporter Lou D'Allesandro, a state senator, clutching her elbow to make sure she didn't slip in her boots. With a Secret Service detail driving alongside, she popped in on more than half a dozen homes to the delight of some, but to the bewilderment of others unprepared to meet her. One woman in the midst of a conversation on a hot-pink cellphone kept it to her ear even as Clinton shook her hand and asked for her vote.

Later, in town halls in Plaistow and Nashua, Clinton promised "a new beginning in America" and expanded her argument that she could be a "change- maker" based on her more than three decades of experience working for children's rights, for women's rights and for the middle class.

Unlike her husband, Clinton did not criticize her chief rivals, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and Obama by name -- but she expanded on a dig she made earlier on their respective messages. It isn't enough to demand change or hope for change, she said, and added: "If you are too unyielding then you are likely to end up with nothing to show for it. If you are too compromising, you may very well give up your principles. . . . We need a president more than ever with a lifetime of experience making positive change for people."...

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