KEENE, N.H. -- Calling for broad changes to current policy in healthcare, education, energy and taxation, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., spoke to an audience of several hundred people at Keene High School Sunday as part of her first trip to the state in 11 years. The event, which wrapped up a weekend of speeches throughout New Hampshire, also served to clarify the Senator's position on current efforts to increase the troop presence in Iraq.
"I am against this escalation strategy," Clinton said.
The town hall-style discussion, in which audience members were given the opportunity to pose questions to the presidential hopeful, provided an opportunity for Clinton to enlist contacts in this important Democratic primary state prior to the arrival of her political adversaries.
Sen. Barack Obama. D-Ill., who announced his bid to run for the presidency on Saturday, will be visiting the University of New Hampshire on Monday.
He will be followed by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, at Dartmouth on Feb. 18.
On Sunday, however, Clinton was alone in the state -- and she took advantage of it.
Both in her opening remarks and in response to audience questions, Clinton touched on the variety of litmus test issues that have come to define the 2008 elections even before the candidates have been chosen.
Discussing an issue unique to her campaign, Clinton asserted her viability as a female candidate.
"I'm sure there are some who might think or even say that they are not sure about a woman president -- I say, we will never know unless we try," she said. "I am not running as a woman -- I am running because I believe I am the person best qualified to take on the responsibility of leading our country into the future."
On the Iraq war, which, during a question-and-answer session proved to be an issue on the minds of many audience members, Clinton balanced criticism of the Bush administration's policies with an explanation of her own plans.
"We have to face up to the fact that the last six years have created a world that doesn't respect us, doesn't like us and doesn't want to work with us, and we cannot afford that," Clinton said. "The president's recent strategy of escalation cannot bring an end to the violence of sectarian divides."
Clinton explained her desire to pass legislation that would cap the number of troops that can be in Iraq.
She also suggested that the United States follow a more diplomatic process in addressing the conflict by working together with Iraq's neighbors. This suggestion parallels one of the main recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan committee formed by President Bush to analyze the current situation in Iraq.
"[The president] has rejected diplomacy," Clinton said, in reference to the fact that President Bush has openly stated that he will not seek diplomatic discussions on the conflict with nations bordering Iraq. "We will not be there to baby-sit a multi-pronged war."
Ultimately, though, the senator said that the key to drawing down U.S. involvement in Iraq is to hold the Iraqi government accountable for making progress.
"In addition to what I want to do on capping troops, another part of my proposal is to try to cut the funding of the Iraqi security forces and the private contractors who guard the Iraqi government unless they commit to take the steps they have promised to take," she said. "That is how I think we will get their attention."
Time spent discussing Iraq, however, was eclipsed by the time spent discussing domestic issues.
The senator was asked repeatedly, and often in a raised voice, by audience members to explain her stance on college affordability, taxation, global warming and one of the principal issues of her political career, universal health-care.
"With the present administration, they seem to look down on the working class people," one member of the audience said. "We have a tax structure that favors the rich -- when you are president, how are you going to change that structure and what is it going to look like?"
Clinton, in response, called for a return to focusing on the middle class and fiscal responsibility.
"Income inequality is growing so much greater that it is a threat to the American way of life," she said. "It is not the rich who made America great; it is the middle class who made it great."
Still, some of the most emotional questioning centered on the No Child Left Behind Act, a federal program aimed at improving performance in schools by increasing accountability, an act that has attracted criticism on both sides of the aisle.
"My sister-in-law was a teacher and she retired because she couldn't put up with No Child Left Behind because it doesn't teach the children in the classroom," Val Lang, a resident of Troy, N.H., said after Clinton was leaving the auditorium. "It is teaching the children the test."
Courtney Merrill, vice-president of Dartmouth's College Democrats, called Clinton's discussion of education the highlight of the event, specifically her stance on the No Child Left Behind Act.
"[Clinton explained] that the idea of it might have been good, but that it was implemented incorrectly and that we really need to re-access that."
Despite thunderous applause throughout the event, not everyone agreed with Clinton. One man was escorted from the building by security officers after he unfurled 9/11 conspiracy theory banner.
