The War She Hasn't Won

She was playful and self-deprecating in a way that has not always come naturally to her in public. In Concord, she invoked an old Girl Scout song but promised not to sing it. "You go to YouTube and you'll know why," she said, referring to her less-than-Grammy-caliber national anthem performance.

"Don't look," she teased as she flipped up the back of her jacket to fiddle with her body mike. One difference between 2008 and 1992 will be "not so many Dunkin' Donut stops," she vowed. "I can't afford that, so I'm going to really need a lot of monitors in the room."

But if Clinton presented herself as another regular gal watching her weight, she also wielded her tough and confident political veteran persona. Obama, launching his presidential campaign the same weekend, acknowledged "a certain presumptuousness" in running. Clinton displayed no such diffidence, referring repeatedly to "when I'm president."

Asked how she'd stand up to GOP campaign tactics, she replied, "I'm the one person they're most afraid of because Bill and I know how to beat them and we have consistently."

As it turned out, Clinton's performance helped her with one struggling voter: Cesna, the Franklin Pierce law student. Cesna, whose Marine son is headed to Iraq, wasn't entirely satisfied with Clinton's stance on the war.

But Clinton in person seemed "much more inspirational and much more genuine," Cesna said, complimenting her willingness to stay more than an hour after the meeting, answering questions and posing for pictures. "She's willing to do her job to meet people in the state and maybe dispel some of the coldness and harshness that people feel about her."

In other words, campaigning in person Clinton can win over skeptics. But her nuanced position on the war, at a time when base voters are impatient with nuance, means laying off the doughnuts isn't going to be her biggest challenge here.

marcusr@washpost.com