The applause was long and loud. Not nearly as long and loud as what greeted her at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but there was no doubt Thursday night that Hillary Clinton was among friends at the Bushnell in Hartford.
Clinton is on a book tour like no other, nearly filling theaters with fans willing to pay upwards of $100 for the opportunity to cheer the woman who won the popular vote for president by 2.9 million in 2016 but still lost to Donald J. Trump.
Not every author of a political memoir gets an introduction by a governor, a courtesy extended Thursday by Gov. Ned Lamont, or a gentle Q&A from a sitting United States senator, as Sen. Chris Murphy provided.
Clinton is selling books, settling scores and capitalizing on the synergies of touring America at a moment when another woman, Kamala Harris, is knocking on the glass ceiling that Clinton could not break. And, once again, Trump is the opponent.
She finished the edits on her book, “Something Lost, Something Gained,” on May 31, the day a New York jury pronounced Trump guilty on 34 felony counts related to hush money paid to keep a porn actress from talking during the campaign about an affair.
“I actually got a little teary, because I thought, ‘Wow, you know, finally, finally, he’s being held accountable.’ And the system did actually work,” Clinton said. She acknowledged enjoying the meme that quickly went viral: an old picture of Clinton and Barack Obama laughing, as though reacting to the conviction.
“I wish I can remember why we were laughing so hard,” she said. “I mean, I’m laughing and he’s bent over laughing, and neither of us can remember what it was, but the internet doesn’t care.”
Clinton was unstinting in her criticism of Trump as a would-be authoritarian willing to use the powers of government to crush opponents.
“I kind of want to get Trump out of the way here so we can talk about nicer things later on,” Murphy said.
It was a solid applause line but one that Clinton quickly topped with a wicked smile.
“It’d be better to get him out of the way on Nov. 5,” Clinton said.
The theater rocked with cheers and laughter. Murphy smiled and waited for the applause to subside.
“I was sitting backstage when I realized that this wasn’t really a book talk. This is a rally,” Murphy said.
And it was.
Hartford was one of a dozen stops on a tour that will predominantly keep her in blue states like Connecticut. She goes to Boston on Friday and Denver and San Francisco next week. But four swing states also are on the schedule: North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan.
Her audience Thursday included women like Pat Metz, one of a group of retirees from Heritage Village in Southbury who voted for Clinton and still struggle with her loss to Trump.
Amanda Alessandrini of Simsbury said she bought her ticket in June when the tour was announced, long before Biden would end his campaign and give way to Harris. She was one of the Republicans who could not abide Trump in 2016.
“I’m still a registered Republican,” she said.
But she is voting for Harris.
Barbara B. Kennelly, the former congresswoman who nominated Geraldine Ferraro for vice president in 1984 and applauded Clinton’s nomination eight years ago, sat in the second row after attending a VIP reception.
Foreign policy is a central part of Clinton’s book, including a chapter on the importance of standing by Ukraine against Russia.
Murphy noted that Trump declined to say during his debate with Harris if he wanted Ukraine to win the war, which renewed Democratic claims that Trump would be a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
“We can’t let this happen, because knowing Putin, he’s not going to stop with Ukraine,” Clinton said. “Putin thought that he could roll through Ukraine, literally in a week, and then install a puppet government. Ukrainians fought back.”
Clinton said Ukraine deserves American support.
“It’s Ukrainians fighting, and they’re fighting for their freedom. And I would add, they’re fighting for our freedom and the freedom of others in Europe,” she said.
It was an opening for Murphy, who is mentioned as a possible secretary of state in a Harris administration, to explore further with a former secretary of state: Did she favor authorizing the use of American missiles for attacks deeper into Russia?
Murphy never asked. Nor did he ask Clinton her thoughts on America’s support of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. A handful of pro-Palestinian protesters greeted Clinton as she exited a stage door, chanting, “Free Palestine!”
Murphy extolled Clinton’s book, singling out a chapter about her back-channel efforts that helped 1,000 women exit Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal and takeover by the Taliban.
He said it read like a thriller.
Clinton said intelligence sources had given her a list of women who were likely to be targeted by the Taliban but did not qualify an American airlift focused on Afghans who had assisted the U.S. military.
“This list was women that the Taliban would target, and it became known as ‘the kill list.’ And some of the names on that list were women I knew, women that I had worked with, women that I had been at conferences with,” Clinton said.
Murphy turned the conversation to “the stakes of this election for women, girls and families in the United States.”
Harris favors the passage of a law resurrecting national access to abortion, even if it means weakening the need for a super majority to avoid a filibuster. Clinton said Trump cannot be trusted on abortion.
“Trump will do whatever his base wants him to do on this issue. And do you agree with that, Chris?
“I do, absolutely,” he replied.
Clinton told her Hartford audience to consider volunteering in Pennsylvania or one of the few other states that matter in a system where presidents are elected on the basis winner-take-all contests in each state for electoral college votes. It’s how she won the popular vote but lost the election in 2016.
“So you’re not a fan of the electoral college?” Murphy said.
“I’m not a fan,” she said. “I don’t think we can get rid of it, so that’s where we are.”
Lamont and Murphy lavished praise on the book, which is Clinton’s 11th and her fourth memoir, a form that requires a degree of intimacy that the much-examined former first lady and secretary of state admits does not come naturally.
In an early review, the Washington Post was less kind than Lamont or Murphy.
The Post noted that Clinton prefers writing about politics to sharing personal reflections but intended to combine the two in her latest effort — hoping that a metaphorical mix of broccoli and ice cream, in her words, would make a rewarding literary meal.
“Well, no,” wrote the reviewer, Karen Heller. “It’s as unappetizing as that image makes it sound. This is an eat-your-broccoli sort of book. So much broccoli, so little dessert.”