Clinton trying to recapture that old New Hampshire magic

KEENE, N.H. -- Road tripping for her new campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton is in New Hampshire to try to recapture the magic of the 2008 Democratic primary victory that gave that year's faltering effort a second wind.

As she did in Iowa last week, Clinton is forgoing the packed rallies that marked her previous presidential campaign and focusing on smaller roundtable events with supporters.

And, also like last week, she traveled from her New York home in a van nicknamed Scooby, though not nearly as far.

She arrived in the pouring rain Monday for a stop at a bakery in the liberal enclave of Keene, where she ordered black tea with milk and signed "I love you" to a deaf server while settling down at a table with patrons.

She was also visiting employees of Whitney Brothers Inc., a small business that makes wood furniture, before a roundtable event today with students and teachers at New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord.

Clinton, who eventually lost the 2008 Democratic nomination to Barack Obama, came to New Hampshire this time as the party's leading candidate and so far faces little opposition.

Nevertheless, her campaign is determined to show early-state voters she is taking nothing for granted.

New Hampshire long has been fertile ground for the Clinton family.

In 1992, a second-place finish in the New Hampshire primary made Bill Clinton the "comeback kid," refueling his effort to capture the Democratic nomination and, eventually, the White House.

Sixteen years later, a win in New Hampshire salvaged Hillary Clinton's campaign after a third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and propelled her into a months-long battle for the nomination finally won by then-senator Obama.