Dozens of Arkansas people are headed to New Hampshire this week to campaign for Hillary Clinton.
Two former U.S. senators -- David and Mark Pryor -- will be among the 88 "Arkansas Travelers," as will many of the people who helped salvage Bill Clinton's 1992 bid for the presidency and boosted Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire win in 2008.
CORRECTION
The "Arkansas Travelers" who supported Bill Clinton's first presidential run went to New Hampshire in 1992. Clinton came in second in that state's voting that year. An advance team of the Travelers included eight people. Information in this column when it was originally posted was incorrect and those changes have been made.
This year, Hillary Clinton heads into the New Hampshire primary with the narrowest of wins in Iowa's Democratic caucus and national polls heavily favoring Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from neighboring Vermont.
She's not expected to win, but don't expect the polls to slow down the Travelers, who have seen what hard work and retail politics can accomplish.
It was the first of the Arkansas Travelers who descended upon New Hampshire in 1992, when Bill Clinton's campaign seemed to be on its last legs. The Arkansas people buoyed his spirits and defended his character in one-on-one interaction with New Hampshire voters.
They lined up along snowy overpasses and greeted arriving voters at town hall meetings, canvassed neighborhoods and did pretty much anything else they could think of to help Clinton survive.
When New Hampshire voted, he came in second, declared himself the "Comeback Kid" and moved on to win the Democratic nomination and the presidency.
Clinton largely credited the Travelers for helping salvage his 1994 campaign. Today's Travelers, still led by Sheila Bronfman, a Little Rock activist, will do much the same this year as they return to New Hampshire.
One group of eight Travelers went there earlier and laid groundwork for the campaign. But this contingent will be 88 strong and include many first-time Travelers, even a couple of second-generation Travelers who will campaign alongside their fathers.
As they tackle the challenge this year, Bronfman notes the current talk of primary voters choosing to vote with their heads or hearts in the Clinton-Sanders matchup.
"For us, it's both," she said.
Like others among the Travelers, Bronfman has long been friends with Hillary and Bill Clinton and draws on that history as she rallies yet another campaign.
There will be some new twists, including more exposure through social media. But the Travelers will mostly do what they do best, engaging voters wherever they go, answering questions and spreading a lot of Southern charm as they make the case for Hillary.
They definitely helped her win in New Hampshire in 2008. But that would be a tall order this year.
The latest polls out of New Hampshire give Sanders a huge lead over Clinton, as much as 33 points in one.
So it is unlikely she can overcome that kind of lead. What she might do, with the Travelers' help, is cut into those numbers and leave New Hampshire with a better showing than expected.
Then it will be on to South Carolina and the first test among Southern voters.
Sanders' near-tie in Iowa suggests this could be a long primary battle. Whatever he accomplishes in New Hampshire will be attributed at least in part to his being from Vermont, so the Iowa vote may be more telling.
Nevertheless, the landscape changes when the campaign moves south, first in South Carolina, then into the many states that will vote on this year's Super Tuesday.
That is March 1, when Arkansas and several other states hold the so-called SEC primary.
For their part, the Travelers will be back at work by then, too, campaigning for Hillary in Arkansas and in neighboring Tennessee.
Commentary on 02/03/2016