By J. Patrick Coolican

Published Sunday, Jan. 6, 2008 | 11:09 p.m.

Updated Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 | 2:14 p.m.

This Washington Post story is fascinating for a number of reasons. It details how perturbed Clinton supporters in New Hampshire are with the rise of Obama.

The subtext is this: Who are these people? And where do they come from?

It’s a very New England thing I can testify to. For instance, my parents moved into my boyhood home when my mom was pregnant. When they sold the house after I left for college, there were still people in my working class, quasi suburb of Hartford calling our house “the old Allen house,” because some family named Allen had owned it for a hundred years before we moved in. My family was considered “new” even after living in this little town for more than a decade.

As the Post piece notes, New Hampshire, unlike every other state in New England, has actually grown in the past seven years, with one-quarter of voters new since 2000. Many are educated, independent suburbanites commuting to Boston. Listen to this description from an old Yankee:

“Mary Louise Hancock, the 87-year-old grande dame of the state's Democrats, said she ‘resented’ that independent voters were poised to influence the outcome of the Democratic primary, saying it turned the vote into a ‘personal-liking affair’ dominated by ‘students and the trendies.’”

Oh the horror!

Overall, the story suggests Clinton supporters are shocked and nervous about what’s happening here, where Obama is drawing crowds twice and three times the size of Clinton’s.