Mere miles from a recently shuttered mill, former president Bill Clinton yesterday proposed a pathway to the North Country's economic resurgence: Energy independence.

"How are you going to create new jobs? Can you get more tourism? Yes you can. Are there some other small-scale things you can do? Yes," Clinton said at a Whitefield school, which he reached after a snow-filled drive from the southern part of the state. "Want to create a huge number of jobs in a hurry? Decide the North Country will become energy independent . . . and a source of good viable fuels for this part of the Northeastern United States."

Clinton's North Country trek - his first solo trip to New Hampshire to stump for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton - mixed policy proposals, Hillary Clinton-filled anecdotes and nostalgia (If you're wondering, Clinton did, despite his recent push to combat childhood obesity, indulge in a donut from Dunkin' Donuts, a favorite stop during his 1992 campaign for president).

For Hillary Clinton's campaign, the visit also served as an opportunity to educate voters about the woman behind the candidate. At two North Country events, Clinton mentioned the couple's recent wedding anniversary, described his wife's efforts at education reform in Arkansas, and told a story about her push to get health care for emergency workers in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"If I had to go alone into a ditch and 1,000 people were after me and I could only take one person, I'd take her," Clinton said in Gorham, at the conclusion of his speech. "Because she'd never quit."

The speeches were, for the most part, low-key affairs. Clinton began in Gorham with a tone-setting remark - "I'd rather just sort of talk to you today and not give some sort of a big whoop-de-do speech" - and proceeded to deliver, without notes, a 50-minute-long address. Clinton lingered after the speech in Gorham, shaking every hand and holding lengthy conversations with those crowded near the podium. He later spoke at the Young Democrats of America's national convention in Manchester.

The North Country backdrop added a somber note, and provided Clinton a springboard to ruminate on the state of the national economy. Last year, the pulp mill in Berlin closed. Last month, more than 300 employees at the paper mill in Groveton learned they'll lose their jobs when the facility shuts down at the end of the year.

"You're hurting up here because of this mill closing," Clinton said. "But you should know just how close millions upon millions upon millions of your fellow Americans are to your experience. We've had now seven years of a radical experiment in extremism in domestic policy."

The past six years have been good to Clinton's wallet: In the past year alone, he garnered more than $10 million from paid speeches. When Bush administration officials needed to finance the military conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, they should have turned to the wealthy, Clinton said.

"I'm a lot more able to help pay for them than many of you are," he said. "They wouldn't let me do it. They kept throwing tax cut after tax cut after tax cut at me, running up the debt and then going to the Chinese and borrowing money to pay for that."

Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards seized on Clinton's trip yesterday, blaming the North American Free Trade Agreement - which was implemented when Clinton was in office - for the loss of 1 million jobs overseas.

In Thursday's Democratic candidate debate, Hillary Clinton said that NAFTA "did not deliver what we hoped it would," according to the Associated Press.

While Clinton didn't discuss NAFTA, he chided the Bush administration for failing to "enforce our trade laws."

The problem, Clinton said, is rooted in the nation's reliance on foreign lenders. "When's the last time you got tough on your banker?," Clinton asked, before telling the audience members to imagine traveling to their bank and slapping their bank president. "Think you'd get a loan the next day?"

Describing the potential of renewable energy to transform the North Country's economy, Clinton relied on his wife's energy plan. Hillary Clinton's proposal aims to cut the nation's reliance on foreign oil, and includes plans to curtail electricity consumption, increase production of renewable energy and a $50 billion fund for investments in alternative energy.

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