Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton talks with Whitney Brothers employees in Keene, New Hampshire, during a tour with company president, Dave Stabler, right. Hillary Clinton on GOP field: They only want to talk about me “I don’t know what they’d talk about if I weren’t in the race.”

Keene, N.H. — Hillary Clinton on Monday attacked the crowded field of Republican presidential contenders for making her the focus of their campaigns.

“I think it’s worth noting that Republicans seem to be talking only about me,” she told reporters after her first roundtable in New Hampshire, which took place at a family-owned wooden toy company in Keene. “I don’t know what they’d talk about if I weren’t in the race.”


Clinton arrived in New Hampshire Monday — she drove from her home in Chappaqua, New York — following a two-day gathering in the Granite State of 19 Republican presidential contenders who appeared to be workshopping their best shots. They spent the weekend blasting Clinton on everything from Benghazi to the State Department email scandal to the highly choreographed roundtables to her roadside lunch stop at Chipotle.

In contrast to the other side of the aisle, Clinton had the whole stage here to herself. During the event, she tried to present herself as above the political fray, while making a few subtle digs at the Republican field and veering into a couple of policy areas.

She swatted away attacks due to be published in a book out next month, “Clinton Cash: the Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer. “[I’ll be] subjected to all kinds of distractions and attacks, and I’m ready for that. I know that that comes, unfortunately, with the territory,” she told reporters.

Before addressing the new book, Clinton toured Whitney Brothers, the toy company, and then sat down for an hour-long roundtable discussion with the CEO and six employees.

Sitting in the chilly warehouse where wooden step stools were being assembled nearby, Clinton twice mentioned that she was not going to be an ideological candidate — an implicit jab at the Republican Party. “I want to embed what I propose as policies, not in ideology, not in some philosophy, but in the real daily lives and experiences of American workers and business owners, and everyone who has a stake in making sure the economy is working again,” she told the group of her early campaign strategy.

Answering questions about the future of Social Security, Clinton said she wanted to avoid getting into arguments “about ideology and rhetorical attacks and claims.” She said she is fully committed to ensuring that people who have worked hard can enjoy security when they retire. Clinton also said those who think the government should privatize Social Security are “just wrong.”

Clinton arrived in New Hampshire planning to speak about the importance of small business to helping rebuild the country’s middle class.

But she quickly found herself on what appeared to be an unplanned subject: drug addiction and substances abuse in rural communities, which multiple participants in the roundtable brought up. “There is a hidden epidemic … whether it is pills or meth or heroin, is not as visible as 30 years ago when there were all kinds of gangs and violence,” Clinton said. “This is a quiet epidemic. And it is striking in small towns and rural areas.” She called substance abuse a “perfect storm” and an “increasing problem that is only beginning to break through the surface.”

Treating mental health issues, including substance abuse, will be “a big part of my campaign,” she said.

Clinton — whose win in the New Hampshire primary in 2008 resuscitated her campaign after a bad loss in Iowa — told the group assembled she was “thrilled to be back in New Hampshire … the first place I ever came for any political campaign was in 1991, when I was here campaigning for my husband.” It was the first time Clinton has mentioned the former president in her public remarks on the campaign trail this time around.