What do Jeb Bush and Pat Benatar have in common?
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Jeb Bush was facing questions about Donald Trump and fielding unsolicited advice about his campaign on Friday when he decided to call on a woman with a gaudy graphic T-shirt with sprawling '80s-style neon pink script splashed across the front.
"What's on your T-shirt?" Bush shouted from across the room at a town hall in Hollis.
"PAT BENATAR," Leona Clough yelled back in a thick New England accent, drawing an eruption of laughter.
Clough, a 65-year-old from Hollis, was one of the last people Bush called on at his final event of the day, with the New Hampshire primary rapidly approaching.
She was also a committed Bush supporter -- loyal, brimming with advice and the kind of Republican that Bush is clinging to here as polls show Trump and Ted Cruz running away with the nomination.
Clough asked Bush about term limits and listened intently as he gave his answer. Bush said the Florida legislature had term limits while he was governor and that they encourage people to serve with principle.
But Bush couldn't escape the national backdrop of the race. In Hollis, there were questions about Trump and words of advice from finicky New Hampshire voters who always seem to know better.
"I've attended five or six of your events, and I've seen you grow pretty significantly as a candidate, and I'm very happy to see that," said Bob Beckett, a Hollis resident who passed out business cards identifying himself as "Registered New Hampshire Voter."
Beckett asked Bush how he would "break through the personality noose" in the final weeks before Iowa and New Hampshire.
Another supporter identified himself as a mental health professional and told Bush that he needed to call out and name Trump more accurately. He is not a "jerk or unhinged" -- as Bush has been saying -- but rather "a person with a personality disorder ... narcissism, a sociopath."
"We write off Trump as a quack, that he is preying on emotion only, no substance," another voter stated. "Guess what? The numbers right now aren't lying, and we don't have a lot of time left. I'm wondering how electable smart people like you can overcome the reality of this success that he has attained so far?"
Bush's response to these queries was the same as it has been for months. He positioned himself as a sensible antidote to his opponents.
"I think talking about ideas and experience and leadership, I think, is the path out," Bush said. "And if it isn't, I'm not going to change who I am. I'm just not going to do it, I'm not going to play the game. I'm not going to insult someone just because I'm told that's the way to connect with voters. Really... really?"
"So if I am the anti-Trump, if you will, that tries to restore some level of decency and policy orientation and character and true leadership, servant leadership, I love that role. Because that's who I am. Thank you."
Clough liked his answer, though it may prove fruitless in a political season that's rewarded noise over reason.
"He just needs to keep doing what he's doing," Clough said. "And I think he'll surprise a lot of people here in new Hampshire next month."
While Clough appreciated the commentary about Trump and certainly had her own -- "Trump is an ass****," she said after the town hall -- she wasn't worried about Bush's increasingly doomed fate.
"He can't insult his way to the presidency," she said, reciting one of Bush's favorite lines. "That can only last so long, and he's going to fall on his face. I do not think Trump can do it."
Clough then wandered back to the moment when Bush called attention to her shirt, pointing out that she shared a birthday with Benatar on Jan. 10.
"I'm so glad he noticed it," she said.