The drive to Tuesday

(Globe photo)

QUAKERTOWN, Pa. -- Gretchen Baer spent four months pimping her ride, and she created a beauty: The Hillcar, a 1989 Toyota Corolla refashioned into a roving shrine to Hillary Clinton.

Baer, a 45-year-old artist and waitress from Bisbee, Ariz., parked the thing outside Bill Clinton's campaign stops today north of Philadelphia. She plans to drive it around Pennsylvania to draw attention to Clinton ahead of Tuesday's primary. It's a stunt one expects more on Elm Street in Manchester, N.H. than on the backroads of the Keystone State, but such is the nature of the 2008 campaign.

"It works," said Baer, who studied at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. "It's just another way to get people to think about Hillary."

She was certainly drawing attention -- voters streaming out of the campaign events were stopping to ogle, and shoot photos. Baer also used the car in Arizona and Texas, where, coincidentally or not, Clinton won primaries. For symbolism's sake, Baer better hope the Hillcar -- rickety enough that she had to ship it out here -- keeps running through Tuesday. A stall would not be the imagery she's going for.