But the image Clinton projected during this rare glimpse as a candidate away from the podium seemed to reinforce how very different she is from the voters she was courting. She marched briskly down Main Street in a cocoon of campaign staffers and Secret Service agents. Hecklers followed her, shouting epithets. The former secretary of state enthusiastically shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with supporters — “Good to see you!” “I need your vote.” “Let’s make it happen!” — but only occasionally slowed down to chat, such as when aides directed her to a Marine Corps veteran in a wheelchair.
The media, meanwhile, was kept at a distance and mostly out of earshot of Clinton’s interactions in this rural, working-class community. A few minutes into the parade, her aides unfurled a long rope across the street to physically block journalists from getting too close to the candidate.
“It feels like a coronation, doesn’t it?” one man shouted. “God bless the queen!”
Clinton, smiling in a red-white-and-blue pantsuit and navy Salvatore Ferragamo patent leather flats, pretended not to hear him and remarked, “I actually love parades.”
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