Democrats plan eponymous event in Unity, N.H.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will attempt to bring the Democratic Party together on Friday with a rally in a tiny western New Hampshire town with a perfectly on-message name - Unity.
If that weren't enough, Unity's voters gave the two senators exactly the same number of votes - 107 - in the January presidential primary.
The less-than-subtle subtext behind the choice of location for the former rivals' first joint rally since Obama clinched the nomination June 3 and Clinton endorsed him four days later underscored the concern among Democrats that the party remains fractured after a long, tough nomination battle.
But many residents of Unity greeted yesterday's announcement by the Obama campaign with enormous enthusiasm - and some wonderment. The town, home to barely 1,700 people, has no high-speed Internet, no restaurants or gas stations, not even a traffic light.
"I think it's marvelous," said Ethel Jarvis, a Sullivan County commissioner and co-chairwoman of the county Democratic Party. "I think we're going to have a grand time in Unity on Friday."
Others are bracing for an invasion. The event will be open to the public, though the precise site and time haven't been announced.
"I don't know where they're going to put them," said Roberta Callum, vice president of the town historical society.
Local politicians, perennially fighting to maintain their primary's first-in-the-nation status, gloated at the prospect of another affirmation of the state's political prominence.
"Most of all, I think I feel a sense of gratitude for the recognition that New Hampshire has played such an important role in the election of presidents," said state Senator Peter Burling, a Democrat from nearby Cornish who is the state's Democratic National Committeeman-elect.
Burling added: "Clinton won New Hampshire, so I think it is an appropriate hat's-off to her candidacy and the superb job she did."
There are also Unitys in Illinois, Oregon, Wisconsin, even Maine. But the one in New Hampshire has the edge of being in a battleground state in the November election.
This region of New Hampshire has been the scene of political reconciliation before. In 1995, President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich famously shook hands in nearby Claremont on a pledge to seek campaign finance reform. In 1999, presidential primary candidates John McCain, now the Republican nominee, and Bill Bradley, a Democrat, promised to refuse to let their parties spend "soft" money if they became their party's nominees.
"We're building a political legacy here," said state Senator Bob Odell, a Republican who represents Unity.
Unity got its name in 1764, after a dispute over land grants was settled amicably among inhabitants of neighboring Hampstead and Kingston, according to Edwin A. Charlton's mid-19th-century history book, "New Hampshire As It Is."
For most of its history, it was largely a farming community, Callum said. These days, most residents work in the Upper Valley's medical and technology industries, or in Claremont, a working-class city, or in Newport, home to a firearms manufacturing plant.
Unity's claim to fame is that it is the location of the county jail and nursing home. There is one general store, Will's Place.
The largest event ever held in Unity, by local recollection, was quite large - a Woodstock-esque concert in the late 1970s that featured an assortment of performers, including Taj Mahal and Arlo Guthrie, and attracted upward of 15,000 people.
Steve Taylor, the state's former agriculture commissioner, was a cub reporter at the time and covered the event. He recalls seeing a huge, wild crowd complete with biker gangs and drugs.
"I was just a farm boy; it was kind of a shock," he said.
The event did not go over well with local law enforcement, he said, and there were no more big concerts in Unity after that.
Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com.
