LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Hillary Clinton sharply rebuked Donald Trump on Saturday for his “shameful” comments that Sen. John McCain was not a war hero because he was captured in Vietnam.

Clinton also moved quickly to erase any daylight between Trump and the rest of the GOP field, where the real-estate mogul and reality television personality has moved from sideshow to the current leader in the polls.


“Donald Trump, finally a candidate whose hair gets more attention than mine,” Clinton quipped at a Democratic dinner here. “But there’s nothing funny about the hate he is spewing at immigrants and families — and now the insults he has directed at a genuine war hero, Sen. John McCain.

“It’s shameful, and so is the fact that it took so long for his fellow Republican candidates to start standing up to him,” she said. “The sad truth is if you look at many of their policies, it can be hard to tell the difference.”

Clinton made her comments at the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Little Rock, in front of a crowd of about 1,500 Democrats. It was a brief, half-day homecoming for Clinton, her first visit to her de facto home state since she announced her candidacy in April.

In her keynote address, she gave an impassioned version of her stump speech, talking about paid leave, childcare, equal pay for equal work, universal preschool, and refinancing student debt. She reiterated her promise to hold individuals on Wall Street accountable for actions that lead to economic crises.

And she criticized the Republican field as a generic whole. “They may have some fresh faces, but they are the party of the past,” she said. “Trickle-down economics has to be one of the worst ideas of the 1980s. It is right up there with New Coke, shoulder pads and big hair. I lived through that. There are photographs. And believe me we’re not going back.”

After arriving in town late Saturday afternoon, Clinton visited the house she and Bill Clinton lived in when they first moved to Little Rock from Fayetteville, after Bill Clinton was elected state attorney general in 1977. She also made a brief stop at the Clinton Presidential Center, and drove by their old 1992 campaign headquarters, before arriving at the Verizon Center to keynote the dinner. She was scheduled to fly out Saturday night after her speech, an aide said.

Arkansas has changed dramatically since the Clintons were the stars of the state’s Democratic Party more than three decades ago. Democrats have been trounced here in recent elections, where the GOP now holds a majority at all levels of government in a state that used to be a Democratic stronghold. In his 2012 reelection campaign, President Barack Obama lost Arkansas by 24 points. Former Democratic governor and close Clinton ally Mike Beebe, the one stalwart Democratic survivor, left office in January after he was term-limited out.

The changing politics of Arkansas were on display Friday night, where Trump was warmly received by a crowd of over 1,000 Republicans at a GOP dinner in Hot Springs, Bill Clinton’s boyhood home.

But inside the overly air-conditioned Verizon Center, state Democrats were trying to keep both the pounding heat and the bleak political map out.

“I’m here to tell you the Democratic party is alive and well in Arkansas!” said state Democratic Party chairman Vince Insalaco.

For her part, Clinton acknowledged that last year was “a hard one for Democrats” in Arkansas. But she put a positive spin on it. “Don’t forget, voters did come out and pass an increase in the minimum wage,” she said. “Arkansas voters know paychecks need to grow. We just have to offer a plan for more growth and more fairness they can believe in and vote for.”

The arena was filled with longtime Clinton allies like Beebe; Mack McLarty, who served as White House chief of staff; former Sen. Blanche Lincoln; former Sen. David Pryor; Gen. Wesley Clark; and Lynda Dixon, Bill Clinton’s former personal secretary during his years as Arkansas governor, among others. The crowd was thrilled to welcome Clinton home — a large portrait of the former Secretary of State was sold at a pre-dinner auction for $19,000.

Speaking to reporters before Clinton took the stage, Beebe said Democrats are suffering because Arkansans are “mad at the White House. They’re mad at the president, in Arkansas.”

But he said Clinton can distance herself from Obama without being disloyal to a president she served under. “She can row her own boat,” he said. “She will be loyal, as she should be. She has her own plans, her own policies.”

He also acknowledged that Trump’s entry into the race is good for Clinton. “Good, I hope he wins,” he said when asked about Trump’s large and supportive crowd here Friday night.

As for whether Clinton could win here, he acknowledged in today’s environment, “it will be difficult, but yes. If anyone on that side of the aisle right now [has a chance,] she does. but it will be an uphill battle because the state has gone significantly red.”