by John McCormick, updated at 3:18 p.m.
NASHUA, N.H. – Although she did not directly name them, Sen. Hillary Clinton just delivered an extended riff where she mocks the “change” message of Sen. Barack Obama and to a lesser extent, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.
“If you give a speech saying you’re going to vote against the Patriot Act, and you don’t, that’s not change,” she said. “If you say that you’re going to prevent members of Congress from having lunch with lobbyists…but they can still have lunch standing up, that’s not change. If you say that you passed the Patient’s Bill of Rights, but you forget to add that it never got signed into law, that’s not change. If you rail against the special interests, like the oil companies and all the giveaways and tax breaks they’ve been given, but you voted for Dick Cheney’s energy bill, that’s not change. If you gave a speech, and a very good speech, against the war in Iraq in 2002 and then by 2004 you’re saying you’re not sure how you would have voted, and by 2005, 2006 and 2007, you vote for $300 billion for the war you said were against, that’s not change.”
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Speaking in the same high school field house as Obama the day before, Clinton appeared this afternoon before a crowd roughly the same size as the one that the Illinois Democrat attracted.
“They say there are about 3,000 people here,” she said as she took the stage about an hour behind schedule, perhaps a slight exaggeration of the actual count.Political reporters and the campaigns had been eagerly awaiting a crowd comparison between Saturday’s event and the one today.
Obama’s campaign said yesterday that he drew about 2,500 to the high school. The crowd looks about the same today.
As Obama did, Clinton’s campaign is using an overflow gym to pack in the people who waited outside in a line that stretched about a quarter mile. And traffic was just as bad, as people fought over parking spots in the school lot and along neighboring streets.
In a swipe at Obama, Clinton said Democrats need to nominate a “a doer, not a talker.”
While she said there are “good, good, people” in the race, she stressed that there are “differences and those differences are important.”
In a veiled reference to Obama’s eloquence as a speaker, Clinton said politicians need to “campaign in poetry, but govern in prose. And we need a president who can govern.”
She said she wants to be liked, but that voters should not base their decision on who is more enjoyable to be around.
“We all want to be likable, and I think it’s good to have a likable president,” Clinton said. “But if I remember…a lot of people said they were voting for George Bush because they wanted to have a beer with him. And maybe they should have left it at that. Have a beer, don’t vote him in as our president.”
One voter asked her what her husband would be called if she is elected.
“I’ll call him Bill,” she deadpanned, adding there might have to be a naming contest. “He’ll still be Mr. President. He could be first mate. Our Scottish friends have suggested first lady.”
This morning, meanwhile, the New York senator stopped at a bank parking lot in Manchester, N.H., to rally with about 100 volunteers, including some who planned to go knock on doors today on her behalf.
“Wow it’s a great morning,” she said as she stepped off her campaign bus. “I’ve got about three days of voice left.”
But the stop had some sound glitches.
First, the microphone didn’t work, so Clinton tried a bullhorn that was handed to her. But that was only making a siren sound, not broadcasting her voice. Next, someone handed her a microphone again. It still didn’t work.
Noting her hoarse voice, the senator started speaking without amplification, before she was handed a microphone again. It worked this time, but repeatedly cut out as daughter Chelsea Clinton looked at a staff member with disapproving eyes.
“I promise we will have a better sound system the next time I see you,” the senator said, before heading out to knock on a few doors.
Also this morning, Clinton’s New Hampshire co-chairwoman, Kathy Sullivan, held a conference call with reporters to challenge the change credentials of Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.
Sullivan suggested Democrats cannot win a general election with “someone who has one set of positions four years ago, and almost an entirely different set of positions four years later.”
The former state party chairwoman said there is plenty to time to blunt any momentum Obama had from his win in Iowa.
“We make our own minds up,” she said. “If you look at the history of this thing, you’ll see that Iowa typically does not have much of an impact on New Hampshire.”
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Sullivan also criticized Obama for having a lobbyist as a leader of his New Hampshire campaign. Obama’s campaign, meanwhile, maintains that the involvement of Jim Demers, a state lobbyist, does not violate his self-imposed ban on accepting contributions from federal lobbyists.
She said Obama and Edwards had ganged up on Clinton in last night’s debate. “Barack Obama and John Edwards had to get together to go after her, while she stands on her own,” Sullivan said.