Freshman congressman sees "transformational moment"

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

CONCORD, N.H. -- US Representative Paul Hodes, Democrat of New Hampshire, stood outside a voting precinct at St. Peter's Parish Hall today and predicted that Barack Obama’s expected victory in his state’s Democratic primary would be no ordinary political event.

“I think we are in the middle of a transformational moment,” said Hodes, who has represented this part of New Hampshire since defeating Republican Charlie Bass in the 2006 mid-term election.

Hodes reflected back to July 2007, when he endorsed Obama and became one several “national co-chairs” for the Illinois senator’s campaign just a few months after coming to Washington. At the time, Obama trailed New York Senator Hillary Clinton in polls of both national and New Hampshire Democratic voters.

But the freshman congressman said he had felt no compunction at bucking the apparent choice of the party establishment and instead backing a fellow relative newcomer to the national political scene.

When he ran for Congress in 2006, Hodes said, he had argued that it was time to reduce the “partisan bickering” in Washington and to draw on “good ideas no matter where they were from on the political spectrum to solve the problems we faced.”

“We needed a change in leadership, certainly, but we also needed someone who would change the way politics is conducted,” Hodes said.

Of all the candidates, Obama seemed the most likely to “bring people together,” Hodes said, basking in the snowbank-melting sunlight.