In New Hampshire, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is embracing her front-runner status.

Each endorsement from a prominent New Hampshire lawmaker is well-publicized: Clinton picked up her 50th legislative supporter, state Sen. Molly Kelly, this week and is handily beating other candidates in the endorsement race. And Clinton's staff is quick to point out polls, many of which have shown Clinton opening a lead over other candidates. A recent e-mail from former president Bill Clinton urged voters to donate to his wife's campaign ("we can't afford to lose momentum now," he wrote).

It's a strategy designed to position the campaign for the months-long primary race ahead, to create a sense of political inevitability, Democratic and Republican strategists said. But in New Hampshire, lesser-known candidates sometimes win the primary, as Patrick Buchanan demonstrated in 1996 and Gary Hart showed in 1984.

The Clinton campaign's approach "is a common strategy, and it can backfire," said Democratic strategist Sue Casey, who ran Bob Kerrey's national campaign in 1992 and worked for Gary Hart in 1984 and 1988. "But it certainly has benefits, and she'd be silly in many ways not to use the advantages of what all those polls can bring. It brings money. It is very discouraging to other candidates."

In the past, well-known candidates have occasionally failed to campaign New Hampshire-style. In 2000, for example, George Bush lost the New Hampshire Republican primary to Arizona Sen. John McCain, who ran a grassroots, shoestring campaign. Bush, meanwhile, was criticized for bypassing the traditional living room chats and town-hall-style events, and for his rare visits to the state.

"I was offended that the powers that be had anointed him; I like to see them earn it," said former House speaker Donna Sytek, who worked on presidential campaigns for George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. "He did do a series of fire station visits, but almost everybody had signed up with him before."

But Clinton's New Hampshire supporters argue that she's a different breed of candidate, and that she'll avoid the downside of high early poll numbers.

"We work every day as if we're behind," said Kathleen Strand, Clinton's New Hampshire spokeswoman. "We operate as if the polls don't exist."

Although Clinton is a household name - and she's frequently trailed by a swarm of reporters - many of her New Hampshire events have been town-hall-style "conversations" (as the Clinton campaign calls them), giving voters an opportunity to ask questions. And Clinton hasn't been a stranger: Since announcing her candidacy in February, she's visited the state nine times.

"She started off with the town hall meetings, and she tries not to leave until every question has been answered," said Bill Shaheen, co-chairman of Clinton's state campaign and of her national campaign.

Shaheen pointed to Al Gore as an example of a leading candidate who, at least at the beginning, ran a poor New Hampshire campaign. "I told him, 'You've got to get away from all this pomp and circumstance when you come to town,' " said Shaheen, who supported Gore in 2000. Gore, who as vice president was the heir apparent to the Democratic nomination, narrowly defeated Bill Bradley in New Hampshire.

"There's a rocky history for the institutional front-runner in this primary, so you don't want to seem like you're serenely taking it all for granted," said Dayton Duncan, who is supporting Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and who in 1984 served as a press secretary for Walter Mondale. Duncan recalled that Mondale "was the front-runner until the last week of the primary." Former Colorado senator Gary Hart, who entered the campaign as a self-described "long shot," beat Mondale in the primary, although Mondale went on to win the party's nomination.

But New Hampshire's bias isn't for the come-from-behind candidate, said former New Hampshire GOP executive director Charlie Arlinghaus. Rather, he said, it's for smaller events, where voters can ask candidates questions. "New Hampshire's one of the last places where you're allowed to watch candidates unfiltered," Arlinghaus said. "That's why it's different. It has nothing to do with romantic revolutionary attitudes."

So long as candidates don't appear to take the primary for granted, they should tout their endorsements and poll numbers, strategists said.

"I think it's usual and typical and what every front-running candidate does if they can. If you are inevitable, then the press starts to treat you that way, the town chair people treat you that way," said Casey, who hasn't signed on with a candidate in this cycle. And although primary backers herald the independent-mindedness of New Hampshire voters, "people on the fence want to go with a winner."

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