Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton found common ground on a stage yesterday in Unity, N.H., their first public appearance together since she suspended her campaign for the Democratic nomination for president after their divisive primary contests.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

UNITY, N.H. — Putting their contentious primary campaign behind them, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama embraced yesterday at an outdoor “unity” rally suffused with mutual praise and with Clinton unequivocally urging her supporters to vote for Obama in his fall campaign against Republican John McCain.

The moment Democrats worried would never happen mostly went according to script as 4,000 people flocked to a sun-dappled meadow in this speck of a village in the New Hampshire hills to cheer the show of peace between the two combatants who clashed for 16 months in the longest and closest nominating campaign in American political history.

“Today we are coming together for the same goal, to elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States,” said Clinton to an enthusiastic round of cheers. “I know what we start here in this field in Unity will end on the steps of the Capitol when Barack Obama takes the oath of office as our next president.”

More importantly for Obama, Clinton went further, firing salvos at McCain and telling supporters still angry at her narrow loss to the Illinois senator that voting for McCain would mean four more years of the policies associated with President Bush and the Republican Party.

For her ardent primary supporters who are thinking of sitting home on Election Day or casting a McCain ballot, Clinton said, “I strongly urge you to reconsider. I urge you to remember who we’re standing for in this election.”

Clinton returned to a theme sure to be launched often this fall by Democrats — that McCain is a great patriot and public servant but he is on the wrong side of such major issues as the Iraq war, health care, the economy, the environment and women’s rights.

“Barack and I both have a great deal of respect for Sen. McCain and his heroic service to America,” said Clinton. And in a phrase that contains the seeds of a bumper sticker slogan, Clinton said, “But if you like the direction America is going in, vote for Sen. McCain because you’ll get more of the same.”

To her supporters, Clinton said, “I hope as many of you will work as hard for Senator Obama as you did for me.”

Obama was content to lavish praise on his former foe and give Clinton the spotlight yesterday. His speech was subdued and focused on little except traditional stump themes and the need for Democrats to unify.

“She rocks, that’s the point I’m trying to make,” said Obama. Of Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, Obama said, “We need them. We need them badly.

“Not just my campaign, but the American people need their service and vision and their wisdom in the months and years to come,” said Obama. “That’s how we are going to bring about unity in the Democratic Party and that’s how we are going to bring about unity in America.”

Obama and Clinton battled to a near standoff before Obama claimed enough delegates 3½ weeks ago to clinch the nomination, which will be ratified at the Democratic National Convention in August in Denver.

Since then, there have been attempts to heal the wounds from a bruising series of nominating contests that rubbed raw the emotions of two of the backers of the Democratic Party’s foundation — blacks and women. Clinton won almost 18 million votes in the primaries and caucuses and did especially well in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Rhode Island with large numbers of traditional blue-collar and lower-educated workers and older women.

Yesterday, Obama tried to address the sexism that many Clinton supporters believed was spread by some in the media and the Democratic Party hierarchy.

While the United States still has a long way to go on women’s rights, Obama said, Clinton’s campaign broke a path for women everywhere and he mentioned his two daughters as beneficiaries of her example.

In New Hampshire, recent public opinion polling shows that women have turned emphatically to Obama’s campaign since Clinton’s departure from the race. Yet, even Obama’s high campaign command acknowledges that the healing is not complete.

“It is going to take some time for people to get through this,” said David Axelrod, a top Obama strategist, in an interview yesterday. “There are a lot of people out there who are invested in Hillary.”

Obama and his wife, Michelle, have both sent checks of $2,300 each — the maximum donation allowed under federal law — to help Clinton pay off campaign debts left over from her quest.

But yesterday was the first public meeting between the two senators. The event was held in Unity, a town of about 1,600 in rural Sullivan County, not far from the Vermont border, because Clinton and Obama split the vote there — each with 107 — during the January New Hampshire primary.

“There are 214 votes here for change in America,” said Obama.

IN AN AGE when running for president is a genre of performance art, the trophy shot came shortly after 1:30 p.m. when the Irish band U2’s “It’s a Beautiful Day” blared from the speakers. Obama and Clinton took the stage together and waved to the crowd, his arm around her shoulder.

Conspicuously absent was Bill Clinton, who, according to national media reports, is having a more difficult time than his wife putting the emotions of the campaign behind him.

There were Clinton adherents who showed up carrying campaign placards and cheering for her. Most Clinton supporters interviewed at random yesterday said they would vote for Obama over McCain, but there were some holdouts.

“I figured she was the best qualified and the most experienced person for the job,” said Carol Bramblett of Rindge, N.H. “And I was partial to seeing a woman in the White House.

“But I’ll support him in the fall. It really is important that we have a Democrat in the White House,” said Bramblett. “I think he is a spiritual man, he has good values and he cares about the people the Republicans seem to have forgotten about.”

Yet Obama has a ways to go to convince voters like Wendy Thomas of Merrimack, N.H. “I’m very disillusioned. I’ve had people accuse me of being bitter because my candidate didn’t win, but it isn’t that. I just feel this guy wasn’t a good choice. He is a very good motivational speaker, but he hasn’t spoken to a lot of issues, like education, that I care about.”

It was Lisa Campbell of Claremont who had the attitude the Obama campaign wanted people to leave with. “I’m feeling the love,” said Campbell. “I have the utmost respect for John McCain as a person but he is a Republican and he’s getting closer to Bush every day. If he gets in he won’t be able to do anything — the Republican Party won’t let him.”

Said Obama, “I could not be happier or prouder or more moved to be sharing this stage as allies.”

smackay@projo.com