Opinion: Hillary Clinton campaigns in her hometown -- and Obama’s

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Sen. Hillary Clinton celebrated a double-homecoming of sorts in Chicago today, visiting the city where she was born and paying homage to the American Federation of Teachers, which endorsed her unsuccessful run for the Democratic presidential nomination way back in October of last year.

Was it only 2007?

‘I’m here to say thank you for the privilege of working with you in this presidential campaign,’ she told an enthusiastic crowd of more than 3,000 delegates at the union’s convention on Chicago’s waterfront Navy Pier.

‘It was a remarkable journey, one that I would not have wanted to make without you, and I feel very privileged that you went with me as we crisscrossed America.’

But more than just offering her appreciation, Clinton received a standing ovation as she played the role of campaign surrogate for the man who defeated her for the presidential nomination, presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, more specifically now of the city’s South Side.

‘I bear such a sense of debt to those who gave me so much,’ Clinton told the crowd, discussing the teachers she had while growing up in suburban Park Ridge. Our blogging colleague David Pearson has the rest of the story on the New York senator’s campaign day in Illinois.

--Andrew Malcolm