Inside an old airplane hangar at what used to be Pease Airforce Base in Portsmouth, Barack Obama made his first New Hampshire appearance since his Iowa victory.

He recited his standard stump speech, but there was a confident, almost giddy, spirit in his voice and among the crowd of a few hundred supporters.

Obama did work a new joke into his speech. Referring to his new status as the Democratic front-runner, he said: “This feels good. It’s just like I imagined it when I was talking to my Kindergarten teacher.”