A Sort of Homecoming

By Julie Bosman

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had a teary-eyed moment on the campaign trail today during a nostalgic visit to Yale, where she graduated from law school nearly 35 years ago.

Mrs. Clinton had arrived for a roundtable to discuss children and health care at the Yale Child Study Center, where she had volunteered as a law student. She was introduced by Penn Rhodeen, a child researcher and her former boss at the Yale Child Study Center.

Standing next to the table where Mrs. Clinton sat, he told the story of how she had arrived at his door “dressed mostly in purple” in a sheepskin coat and bellbottoms. “So 1972,” he said, to laughter.

“Now we hope that you, the incomparable Hillary,” Mr. Rhodeen said, “will be president of the United States.”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton, looking teary, raised her left hand to her cheek and brushed something away with her finger.

“I said I would not tear up,” she said. “Already we’re not on that path.”

The emotional moment echoed a similar one in New Hampshire last month, when Mrs. Clinton’s eyes welled with tears as she talked about the tensions of running for president.

Mrs. Clinton was wearing the rigors of the campaign trail on her sleeve, speaking in a soft, hoarse voice, and frequently interrupting
herself by coughing and sipping water.

She reminisced about her “nostalgic” law school days, when she arrived in New Haven “in an old beat-up car with a mattress roped to the top.”

And before delving into a discussion about health care, she talked about why she wanted to win the Democratic nomination. “It does matter who our leaders are and what they do,” she said. “I’m now running for president because I think we can do better than we have.”

New Haven should have been friendly territory for Mrs. Clinton. After all, Yale was where she graduated from law school, met Bill Clinton and, by all accounts, developed a devotion to public service.

But Senator Barack Obama has drawn a considerable share of support around New Haven. Not only is he intensely popular among college students, but last week he won the endorsement of the Yale Daily News, the student newspaper.

“It would seem natural for us to endorse Hillary Clinton for president,” the editors wrote, noting that Mrs. Clinton graduated from Yale Law School in 1973. But “to endorse her would be to endorse intelligence and preparedness, but also divisiveness and the politics of manipulation.”

And on Saturday morning, Rosa DeLauro, the Congresswoman who represents New Haven, announced that she was throwing her support to Mr. Obama.