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Donald Trump's New Hampshire victory lap

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Donald Trump speaks to reporters at the Portsmouth airport in New Hampshire, April 27, 2011. | AP Photo
Trump speaks to reporters in Portsmouth, N.H., Wednesday. | AP Photo Close

“Now that Trump has gotten the president to clear the air on this, I think he’ll move on to an issues discussion centering on gas prices, China, OPEC — all of the issues he was hammering before the distraction of birtherism,” said Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime lobbyist who is spearheading one of two Trump draft efforts, but who has said he’s not speaking for or working for the developer.

Still, for all his protestations, Trump was hardly surrendering “birtherism” lightly, raising it himself several times and discussing how “proud” and “honored” he was for “accomplishing something really, really important,” insisting, without offering proof, that Hillary Clinton’s camp had made the same attempt in 2008. Clinton aides denied that they made the attempt.

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At the Roundabout Diner in Portsmouth, he shook hands with the crowd — the vast majority of whom were tourists from across the Maine border — and stopped to watch an MSNBC newscast on a large TV screen, where David Gregory was talking about the birth certificate developments.

“I know what I think, he only did it because of Trump!” Trump told reporters. He said Obama’s dig that he’s a “sideshow” indicates that “he’s very concerned.”

At the Wilcox Industries manufacturing plant, one stop on a tour whose details were kept secret until the last minute and which were a frenzy of scrambling reporters and photographers, Trump crowed.

“Did you hear?” he asked a group of about 50 workers at the Wilcox plant outside of Portsmouth. “I am so proud of myself! I got this guy to show his birth certificate!”

Told later in the day that former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs had asked when he will be releasing his tax returns, Trump snapped, “Gibbs is a loser.”

He was greeted by throngs everywhere he went, mobbed as he walked down Market Street in Portsmouth. One onlooker screamed, “You’re a bigot!” But most shouted their approval, with one man calling out, “Get the grades!”

Whether the remnants of “birtherism” — or its progeny, the “grades” discussion — will be enough to give Trump traction with voters was murky.

Guinta gently suggested that the president’s birthplace is not something most voters here are focused on, and added that Trump earlier in the day “conveyed he would like to move on … I take him at his word.”

“I’m a conservative Republican, and I wouldn’t vote for him,” said Lynn Gull, of Portland, Maine. “I don’t care where (Obama) was born. It’s not an issue for me at all. I don’t know who it’s an issue for. I just don’t think (Trump) has any qualifications for the job. He’s a good businessman, but I don’t think that’s enough to be president.”

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Daybook

Friday, Apr. 29, 2011
8:00 AM
Ron Paul
Washoe County Republicans Breakfast
3652 Virginia St., Washoe, Nev.
12:30 PM
Speaking to National Rifle Association conference
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John Bolton
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Newt Gingrich
Rick Santorum
3:00 PM
Chris Christie
Question and answer session with Harvard's Askwith Forum lecture series
Askwith Hall, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge, MAAskwith Hall, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge, Mass.
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Mitt Romney
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6:00 PM
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The Yard Restaurant, 1211 South Mammoth Road, Manchester, NH
Michele Bachmann
Herman Cain
Tim Pawlenty
Mitt Romney
Rick Santorum
7:00 PM
Newt Gingrich
Premiere of "A City Upon a Hill" movie
Carnegie Institute for Science, 1530 P Street, NW, Washington, D.C.
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