WASHINGTON – The five days in 2008 between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary were Hillary Clinton’s crucible. They showed what she’s made of and that she should never be underestimated.
After Barack Obama’s overwhelming victory in Iowa, the polls all suggested he was about to deliver the second shot of a one-two punch that would have crippled Clinton’s campaign.
Clinton’s comeback was powered by characteristic moves, and then a big surprise.
Reflecting what some praise as her persistence and others see less charitably as doggedness, she loaded her schedule with town halls that wouldn’t end until she had answered every voter’s question.
At a high school in Penacook, a colleague turned to me to dismiss her offerings as “a laundry list of wonkery”- fair enough if the standard of comparison was Obama’s prophetic rhetoric.