NH Obama crowd

11:58 AM – Today

Obama Sets New Hampshire Political Record

The first stop of the second-to-last day of the presidential campaign brought with it a new political record in the politically-rich state of New Hampshire.

The Obama campaign drew 14,000 people to an outdoor rally in Concord. That was the biggest crowd for a campaign event in Granite State history, the Obama campaign said.

The prior record seems to have been the 8,500 people that Obama drew to an Oct. 27 rally in Nashua. Following that rally, WMUR political analyst James Pindell reportedly said it was the largest campaign gathering the state had ever seen.

Obama's Sunday morning event -- which featured speeches from both him and former president Bill Clinton -- shattered that total.

New Hampshire is a small state. The capital, Concord, has a population of less than 43,000. But it has also witnessed its share of campaign moments, owing to the tightly contested primaries every four years and its status as a toss-up state in the general election. So for Obama to have set the record there says something about his continued appeal in the state, especially since he has had difficulty drawing crowds of the size he drew as a presidential candidate four years ago.

For the record, the weather in Concord on Sunday morning was cold, but not painfully so for that part of the country. At the time that Obama started speaking, weather.com had the temperature at 48 degrees Fahrenheit.

-- Sam Stein of Huffington Post