Interview with Hillary Clinton

Brian Williams: I want to take you back to the last rally of the New Hampshire campaign.  An executive fitness center.

Hillary Clinton: Yes.

Brian Williams: Indoor tennis courts.

Hillary Clinton: Right.

Brian Williams: We were there. We waited for you to arrive. And—and correct me if I’m wrong. I, having covered your husband’s presidency and having become familiar with the Clinton family political dynamic.  All of us who were there sensed something in the air. One of our producers said that it looked like your daughter, Chelsea, had tears in her eyes.  It was an air of sentimentality.

Maybe a little, sadness. And I said to someone, “Maybe they’ve seen some internal. Maybe there’s word within the campaign that New Hampshire isn’t going to go well.” Is my hunch correct?  Did you think on the night before the vote that maybe it was going another way?

Hillary Clinton: You’re right, I didn’t think that. I think that you did correctly see a lot of emotion from all of us because obviously, New Hampshire is a place that we have a lot of affection for. We had been waging the most intense four-day campaign that I’ve ever seen or heard about.

I felt it moving toward me. I just didn’t know whether there’d be enough time. I was saying to people if we had another week, I think we would really be able to pull this off, even another couple of days. The crowd that turned out there in Manchester was far bigger and more enthusiastic than we had anticipated. That had been happening every day.

Brian Williams: (UNINTEL) traffic for miles.
               
Hillary Clinton: It was unbelievable.  And it’s one of the reasons why we were a little late because you couldn’t get in. And we had to let as many people actually come in and park and get into the facility. I felt it. I could feel the movement.

Now, it was a short night. You know, we finished that rally, shook thousands of hands it felt like, and had very little sleep. And I got up the next morning and I went to polling places—before dawn. Went to a number of them. Brought coffee to my volunteers. Met a lot of voters. You know, I’ve never been one who really paid much attention to polls because they are such snapshots.

And, you know, the methodology and all the rest of it, you’re never quite sure what’s going on behind the numbers that come out. I trust my instincts. I trust my feeling that, okay, I’m looking at somebody and they’re looking back at me. Their handshake is firm. They’re not sliding away because they’re embarrassed because you’re not supporting me, you’re not voting for me. I came back from being out there at these polling places early afternoon on that Tuesday. And I knew we were gonna do much better than anybody anticipated.

Brian Williams: What was it you felt turning in New Hampshire?  Enough with the analysis.  Let’s hear it from the candidate. What do you think happened in New Hampshire?

Hillary Clinton: I think the election in a very real way started with the New Hampshire debate. I felt like that debate really began to draw the comparisons and contrasts, among us as candidates.  As soon as I left the stage, I was walking out, a cameraman grabbed my hand and said, “That was great.”

I began to hear from people that, you know, didn’t have any stake in it one way or the other that, you know, they agreed with me on the issues. They thought that I had really put forth a strong—argument for my candidacy. I went door to door in Manchester, in and out of people’s homes. I could feel the sense that people had that this election needed to be about them.

You know, enough with the, with all due respect, the people on TV and being told what’s going to happen.  You know, New Hampshire voters are notoriously independent.  They wanted to make their own judgment.  I answered hundreds of questions.  I saw thousands of people. I think I began in a much better way than I had previously in the campaign, you know, connecting with people on all levels.

You know, as a woman, I may have gone a little overboard in the beginning of this campaign to really make my case to be commander-in-chief. Because I know at the end of the day people look at who’s running for President and they have to ask themselves, “Is this somebody who will protect and defend us?”  And I didn’t spend as much time talking about why I’m motivated to do what I do, what I’ve done for 35 years. All of that came together in New Hampshire. And I felt really good about it.

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