The drive from Portland, Me., to Boston takes less than two hours, but when Hillary Clinton made the journey in October, she flew.
To do otherwise would have violated what has become the central taboo of her independent political career: It would have put her, for 14 miles, on the soil of the State of New Hampshire.
Mrs. Clinton’s New Hampshire taboo is the physical form of her refusal to discuss what has become, for supporters and critics alike, an assumption: her bid for the Presidency in 2008. But it isn’t just that she hasn’t, unlike every other Democrat seriously eyeing the nomination, visited New Hampshire this year. She didn’t visit it during the 2004 election, because the Kerry campaign—based on its own polling—didn’t want her there. She didn’t visit during her first four years as a Senator. And she didn’t even visit during her last four years as First Lady.
All told, Hillary Clinton hasn’t set foot in the capital of American primary politics for more than nine years.
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