People listen as Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton talks during a campaign stop at Merrimack Valley High School January 5, 2008 in Penacook, New Hampshire. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
by Mike Dorning
PENACOOK, N.H.—Striving to highlight her command of policy issues and perhaps cultivate an image of greater accessibility, Hillary Clinton is reconstructing her campaign style to open herself to lengthy questioning from New Hampshire voters.
At a rally this morning, she jettisoned most of her stump speech and instead opened the floor to questions, devoting more than an hour and a half to answering 22 questions posed by members of the audience.
Reporters who have been following Clinton campaign appearances regularly for the past year said they could not recall the last time the former first lady had allowed such extensive questioning at a rally.
Clinton has developed a reputation for wariness toward unfiltered questioning. Her campaign workers were caught planting questions with an audience in Iowa over the summer, an embarrassing incident was widely publicized.
She did not take any questions at most events during the final days before the Iowa caucuses, although throughout most of the campaign season she followed custom and allowed a short question and answer session at events.
Campaign aides stressed that Clinton would be opening herself to plenty of questions in the three days of campaigning left before the New Hampshire primary.
“The New Hampshire way is to take questions. She wants to take questions from everyone,” said Clinton spokesman Jay Carson. “She has the experience and knowledge to answer questions from everyone.”
So was her more scripted approach in Iowa a mistake?
“We’re in New Hampshire now,” Carson responded. “I’ll let you guys do a post-mortem on past elections.”
