UNITY (New Hampshire), June 27: Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton made a show of unity on Friday in a hamlet named for it, their first joint public appearance since the divisive Democratic primary race ended.

A big crowd was gathered to watch in one of the wide-open fields of the tiny town of 1,700. It’s a carefully chosen venue in a key general election battleground state: Unity awarded exactly 107 votes to each candidate in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary in January.

“Hello, Unity! Hello, New Hampshire!” Clinton said as she and Obama took the stage together. “Well, Unity is not only a beautiful place as we can see, it’s a wonderful feeling isn’t it? And I know when we start here in this field in unity, we’ll end on the steps of the Capitol when Barack Obama takes the oath of office as our next president.”

In turn, Obama praised both Clinton and her husband, Bill Clinton, as allies and pillars of the Democratic Party, saying: “We need them. We need them badly. Not just my campaign, but the American people need their service and their vision and their wisdom in the months and years to come because that’s how we’re going to bring about unity in the Democratic Party. And that’s how we’re going to bring about unity in America.”

Clinton, for her part, needs Obama’s help in paying down $10 million of her campaign debt, plus an assurance that she will be treated respectfully as a top surrogate on the campaign trail and at the Democratic Party convention later this summer.—AP