KEENE, N.H. -- Hillary Rodham Clinton offered a dark assessment of a "stalled out" U.S. economy Monday, a judgment at odds with President Barack Obama's brighter view of what the nation has achieved on his watch.
Clinton toured a wood furniture factory in Keene in her first visit to the early primary state since she launched her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
As she did in Iowa last week, Clinton highlighted the struggles of "everyday Americans," even if her remarks undercut the message of Obama, a fellow Democrat.
Clinton said she came from a small-business family and that the country must do more to help entrepreneurs. "It's not enough just to tread water," she said.
Clinton also voiced her strong support for Social Security, a program some Republicans are eager to trim back, describing it as "not a luxury" but "a necessity."
As in Iowa, Clinton is forgoing the packed rallies that marked her 2008 presidential campaign and focusing on smaller roundtable events with supporters. She again traveled from her New York home in a van nicknamed Scooby.
She arrived in the pouring rain Monday for a stop at a bakery in Keene, where she signed "I love you" to a deaf server while visiting with patrons.
Later she visited employees of Whitney Brothers Inc., the furniture maker. She will appear today at a roundtable event with students and teachers at New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord.
Clinton, who lost the 2008 Democratic nomination to Obama, went to New Hampshire this time as the party's leading candidate and so far faces little opposition. Nevertheless, her campaign is determined to show early-state voters that she is taking nothing for granted.
On Monday, Clinton also criticized potential Republican candidates for focusing so much of their attention on her.
"It is, I think, worth noting that the Republicans seem to be talking only about me," she said. "Hopefully we'll get on to the issues."
Nearly two dozen Republicans have expressed interest in pursuing the party's presidential nomination. On Monday, one of those Republicans, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, announced that he has created a committee that lets him raise money to promote a potential campaign.
A 527 committee and website for New Day for America were launched Monday. A 527 committee lets a prospective candidate raise and spend unlimited cash to promote policy, but the money can't be used explicitly for a political campaign or shifted to a presidential run.
On Sunday, Kasich said he was getting "more and more serious" about jumping into the Republican race.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has taken a similar step in preparing for a presidential campaign. On Monday, conservative donors Charles and David Koch said Walker is their pick for the Republican nomination.
At a fundraising event in Manhattan for the New York Republican Party, David Koch told donors that he and his brother, who oversee one of the biggest private political organizations in the country, believed that Walker was the Republican Party's best hope for recapturing the White House.
"We will support whoever the candidate is," said Koch, according to two people who attended the event. "But it should be Scott Walker."
Most of the leading Republican candidates have aggressively courted the Kochs, who control a network of political nonprofits, super PACs and hundreds of like-minded donors, all of which are planning to spend almost $900 million over the next two years to advance conservative candidates and policies.
But while the Kochs are influential among their peers, it is unclear whether they will favor Walker with more than good will.
In his remarks, made after Walker had addressed the group, Koch suggested that the political organizations they oversee might not intervene in the Republican primary process on behalf of a single candidate.
But according to the two attendees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely describe the remarks, Koch indicated that his family might personally offer financial support to Walker.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is also likely to run, is planning a policy trip to Europe this summer, to speak to an economic conference in Germany and meet with business and defense leaders, among others, aides said Monday.
Bush is planning to travel in June to Germany, Poland and Estonia.
Bush plans to speak at an economic conference in Germany and hold meetings in Estonia and Poland with government and business leaders, civic groups and nongovernmental organizations.
The trip is intended as a study of what is working in the parts of the European economy that are growing, spokesman Kristy Campbell said.
"He will also be listening to their perspectives on growing security challenges in the region," Campbell said.
Bush has said in the lead-up to a likely campaign that the U.S. must nurture its relationships with allies, such as the three European nations he plans to visit.
Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Lerer, Kathleen Ronayne, Ken Thomas, Julie Carr Smyth and Thomas Beaumont of The Associated Press; and by Nicholas Confessore of The New York Times.
A Section on 04/21/2015