Democratic favourite deflects attacks on her family’s overseas fundraising record – to be published in controversial book – at meet-and-greet in New Hampshire

Hillary Clinton deflected attacks on her family’s overseas fundraising record on Monday, as aides erected a carefully staged, and largely policy-free, bubble around their candidate during her first visit to New Hampshire.



With new polling showing the Democratic frontrunner leading challengers by nearly 50 percentage points, her campaign adopted a safety-first approach during the hour-long visit to a children’s furniture factory in the small town of Keene.



“We will be subjected to all kinds of distractions and attacks,” she replied when asked to comment on fresh allegations that foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation coincided with favourable treatment while she was secretary of state.



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“I’m ready for that,” added Clinton, without responding in detail to the charge. “I know that comes, unfortunately, with the territory.”

Precisely what the allegations were a distraction from was hard to judge, however, during Clinton’s carefully managed roundtable discussion with factory employees.

In contrast to Iowa, where Clinton began her campaign last week with a number of new policy statements and clarifications, the start of her two-day visit to safer territory in New Hampshire was a less specific affair: aimed mainly at demonstrating her sympathy for the difficulties faced by small businesses.

“It’s not enough just to tread water,” she said, pointing out the lack of growth among small businesses nationwide.

Avoiding contentious topics, such as the free trade negotiations which are dividing her party and have proved a big issue for the furniture industry, Clinton instead championed less divisive policies such as better vocational skills training and action to deal with the problem of drug-abuse and mental health issues in rural communities.

But the former New York senator was also at pains to position herself as a supporter of union favourites such as social security and she reiterated recent criticism of lax tax treatment for the very wealthy – populist themes intended to prove to sceptics on the left of the party that Clinton is not in thrall to Wall Street donors.

“I don’t know how people can make some of the arguments they make [about social security],” she said. “It’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity.”

The dynamics of next year’s primary election have already created a familiar set of of challenges for the campaign team, who face the twin problem of showing Democrats that she is not taking the race for granted while not giving unnecessary ammunition to the hordes of Republicans vying for their more contested primary race.

“Republicans seem to be only talking about me,” she told reporters who asked about their already intense criticism over the weekend at a conference in nearby Nashua. “I don’t know what they would talk about if I wasn’t in the race.”

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Instead, the theme of Clinton’s New Hampshire visit is intended to be her ease and empathy with “everyday people” rather than political point-scoring.

“I think this is going to be one of those moments in our country’s history where we’ll either ratify the positive steps taken under the Obama Administration or we will change radically in ways that will further tilt the playing filed in favor of those already at the top politically and economically,” Clinton said at a house party after her first stop. “The deck is stacked in their favour.”

“My job is to reshuffle the cards and to get those cards back in your hands so you can make those decisions for yourselves.”

Once again she was driven to the venue of her public campaign event, making a four-hour drive from her home in Chappaqua rather than flying into the local airport. She stopped off this time at a bakery in Keene rather than the Chipotle which caught media attention last week.

But sitting somewhat awkwardly among the pallets and forklift trucks of the children’s furniture factory, Clinton at times looked more like a shopper in Ikea than a factory worker and seemed to struggle to stretch her answers out to fill the time allotted.

On Tuesday, she heads to a community college in Concord, New Hampshire, for an even smaller-scale event, where empathy rather than political entertainment is once again likely to top the agenda.