I have a new story up on Hillary Clinton campaigning in Ohio, where it’s safe to say that few Democrats are very impressed with her claim to be a better commander-in-chief than Barack Obama. Other than getting out of Iraq, Clinton, at least until a couple of days ago, really hasn’t talked about anything else the commander-in-chief would do. Nor do voters seem to care very much — none I talked to, and few who talked to Washington Post/ABC News pollsters, who recently found that one percent of Democrats in Ohio named terrorism and national security as their top priority. And then there was this odd episode:

Her event before coming to St. Clairsville was an “Economic Solutions for America Summit” in Zanesville, about 60 miles away. The event was by nature about the economy, but there was a weird, inadvertent moment when one of the participants made a little speech that was a perfect preview of the “3 a.m.” ad the Clinton campaign would release little more than a day later. And Sen. Clinton appeared to have no interest in it at all.
It happened when Clinton called on Florine Mark, who is the CEO of Weight Watchers, Inc. Clinton wanted Mark to talk about health care, weight control, and disease prevention, but Mark seemed more interested in fawning over Clinton and describing what a marvelous president she would be. At the end of her remarks, Mark said, “I will tell you one other thing. I will only feel safe is this woman becomes president of the United States of America. If, God forbid, that phone, that red phone in the White House, rings, I want her there to answer it.”
Nobody paid any attention to it at the time — by the time Mark spoke, the crowd was thinning pretty fast and reporters were checking their BlackBerries — but in retrospect, Mark had hit the Clinton theme for the last days of the Ohio campaign. Except that Clinton wasn’t interested. “We’re going to put a moratorium on compliments,” she said curtly as the remaining crowd applauded Mark’s words. “I’m very grateful for those kind remarks, but I really feel that what you have done to emphasize prevention is key…”

Now, I don’t think Mark had any inside knowledge of the Clinton campaign’s coming ad campaign. It’s possible that Clinton wanted her to be quiet because Clinton didn’t want any early previews. But the fact is, the commander-in-chief issue is just not something many people are interested in on the day before the big March 4 primaries.