New Hampshire Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter threw her support behind Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama yesterday, saying that the "winds of change" are in the Illinois senator's sails.

The announcement brought Shea-Porter's neutrality in the presidential race to an end - while other state politicians aligned themselves with campaigns over the past year, she concentrated on hosting presidential candidates and promoting the primary. Shea-Porter joined various candidates on stage at numerous events, and was the subject of much presidential campaign courting.

But after months of staying on the sidelines, Obama offered a "compelling reason" to step into the race, she said. "I spent a year doing what I said I would do, which is being the ambassador and standing beside them, and I stood in the hot sun, I stood in the cold," Shea-Porter said in a telephone interview yesterday afternoon. "But as we approach the end of it, I can see that there are some critical differences here."

"I respect all of them," she said of the Democratic presidential candidates. "But watching him and listening to and watching how people respond to him, he is, and can really be, our future." Shea-Porter will serve as a national co-chairwoman of Obama's campaign.

With Gov. John Lynch staying out of the presidential endorsement game (although his wife, Susan Lynch, recently endorsed Hillary Clinton), Obama now has the backing of several of the state's most prominent Democratic politicians. In July, the state's other U.S. representative, Concord Democrat Paul Hodes, signed on to Obama's campaign. Hodes was also named a national co-chairman.

Speaking with reporters yesterday, Obama and Shea-Porter described each other as agents of change, office-holders who speak to voters' hunger for a different sort of politics. Shea-Porter's low-budget, grassroots campaign was largely ignored by national Democrats, and her victory against First District incumbent Jeb Bradley, a Republican, was seen as a major upset.

"Nobody spoke louder for change in 2006 than Carol did," Obama said on the brief conference call. "There wasn't a pundit in Washington who predicted that she was going to win. And the fact that she not only ran a successful campaign uphill against the polls and the pundits, but that she did so with the kind of grassroots organization and support that has become her hallmark, makes this endorsement especially important."

The war in Iraq - both Obama and Shea-Porter were early opponents of the conflict - provided another tie. From the beginning of her 2006 campaign, Shea-Porter called for setting a date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Obama was an Illinois state senator in 2002, when federal lawmakers voted to authorize President Bush to go to war in Iraq. But while many of his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination voted for the resolution - including Clinton, Sens. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd and former senator John Edwards - Obama spoke out against the conflict.

Obama chalked up Shea-Porter's victory to the fact that voters "weren't interested in the same old conventional thinking that led us into the war in Iraq."

Shea-Porter, meanwhile, said that Obama "brings a coolness" to political decisions. "He's the one who, when all the Iraq evidence was being presented, put that cool eye at it, looked at it, and decided that it wasn't enough."

Shea-Porter described feeling a sort of "kinship" with Obama. "I know that he went back to Main Street to help people, and I know that his style is to reach out and paint with a broad brush a vision for people," she said. "He's not trying to drag people into the weeds of policy right now. What he's doing is giving them this vision, because if people don't have hope and inspiration, they're not going to engage."

It's unclear whether Shea-Porter's endorsement will have an effect on the presidential race. Many of Shea-Porter's supporters have likely already settled on a presidential candidate, said Dante Scala, an associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire.

But for both Obama and Shea-Porter, the connection has benefits.

"What he gets out of it is another prominent woman in New Hampshire," said Wayne Lesperance, an associate professor of political science at New England College. "When you add that to the growing trend, it looks like Obama's goal of cutting into women supporters for Hillary is increasingly successful."

Single page