New Hampshire Today, July 13

In New Hampshire today campaign stops from Hillary Clinton and her husband as well as John McCain will dominate news coverage and discussion.

While a Senate vote on a defense bill may delay the start of Hillary's first event in Keene, John McCain apparently will not be voting since he is already in Concord.

Hillary will bring along Bill Clinton for three events today. While both were in the state last month individually this is the first time they have appeared on the same stage in the state in over a decade.

They will have stops in Keene, Nashua, and Manchester. Previewing her trip, Hillary gave interviews to papers in those three cities here and here. (The Keene Sentinel article is not online yet.) A second day of campaigning Saturday with the pair was canceled so they could attend the funeral of Lady Bird Johnson in Texas. This morning the Globe's Scott Helman wrote from Detroit about Clinton and Barack Obama's effort to court the black vote.

But many eyes in the state will be on John McCain. He is scheduled to do an hour on New Hampshire Public Radio in the morning and follow that up with a policy speech in Concord. It will be his first public campaign event since his staff shake-out this week.

The Associated Press reports that Thursday was another rough day for McCain with the loss of top staff members in Iowa and that he actually only has $250,000 in the bank compared to the $2 million they said last week. But while Iowa was losing staff, New Hampshire strategist Michael Dennehy will become McCain's national political director.

Calendar

Today:
- 9am, John McCain, New Hampshire Public Radio, Concord
- 10am, McCain, foreign policy speech, Concord
- 10:45am, Hillary and Bill Clinton, campaign rally, Keene
- 3:30pm, Hillary and Bill Clinton, campaign rally, Nashua
- 6:30pm, Hillary and Bill Clinton, campaign rally, Manchester

Tomorrow:
- John McCain, town hall meeting, Claremont