On Super Tuesday of the bitter 2008 Democratic primary campaign, a group of Barack Obama supporters riding the New York City subway noticed Audrey Gelman wearing a Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign button on her jacket.

They berated Ms. Gelman, then a junior staff worker on the Clinton campaign, for backing a candidate standing in the way of the first black president. At another point, the button invited mocking inquiries at a Lower East Side cafe as to whether Ms. Gelman was a Republican.

Now a 27-year-old public relations consultant with one foot in Democratic politics and the other in New York’s hipper-than-thou fashion, arts and music scene, Ms. Gelman is feeling more confident in her Clinton accessories this time around. “If you go to a party in Williamsburg or Bushwick now and wear a Hillary pin,” she said, “people are going to be like, ‘Right on.’ ”

“Cool Kids for Hillary.” You may be able to imagine it on a campaign button, but would any of them wear one? Whereas Mr. Obama’s 2008 candidacy organically prompted excitement on college campuses, the country’s skinny-jean citadels and celebrity hangouts, the candidate Clinton seems to be trying awfully hard to be down with the in crowd.