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On the presidential campaign trail, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has changed her stump speech as the race for the Democratic nomination has tightened. She was the prohibitive front-runner last spring, now some polls show her trailing Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire and even Iowa. But there is one constant wherever she goes. As NPR's Tamara Keith has noticed, Clinton always takes questions from adorable kids.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: It happens almost like clockwork. Hillary Clinton casts her gaze out over the crowd looking for someone to call on, and then she spots cuteness.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)
HILLARY CLINTON: There's a little hand right there, that little girl right there.
Yes, this young man right here.
Oh, this young man, right there.
This young lady right here.
This young man.
Yes, this young woman right here.
Yes, what about this young woman right here?
This young man is very excited. OK. Here you go.
KEITH: The young questioner who's gotten the most attention - a little girl with curly hair and a white dress in Las Vegas.
UNIDENTIFIED GIRL #1: Do you think when you are president, you'll be paid as much as if - it were a man - male?
(APPLAUSE)
KEITH: For the Clinton campaign, this question hit a trifecta. It was cute, it highlighted the fact that Clinton would make history as the first female president of the United States and it set the candidate up to talk about something that is a regular fixture of her stump speech - gender pay equity. Both the question and Clinton's answer almost immediately showed up in an ad.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CLINTON: I'm going to do everything I can to make sure every woman in every job gets paid the same as the men who are doing that job.
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: I'm Hillary Clinton, and I approve this message.
KEITH: In Grinnell, Iowa, in November, Clinton called on a Girl Scout.
CLINTON: I see your badges. That's so neat. Are you a Brownie? Yeah, that is terrific.
KEITH: Clinton was a Girl Scout growing up, and based on an NPR review of Clinton town halls, this is at least the third time Scouting has come up with a child questioner.
UNIDENTIFIED GIRL #2: What made you decide to become president?
(LAUGHTER)
CLINTON: Well...
(LAUGHTER)
CLINTON: It started when I was a Brownie.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: Actually, no.
JEFF BECHDEL: You're not going to be getting the hardest hitting question from, you know, from a fourth-grader.
KEITH: Jeff Bechdel is communications director with America Rising PAC, a Republican opposition research operation.
BECHDEL: Just a few days ago, where she was asked if she had any dogs or cats - you know, it's that kind of thing, the kinds of questions that kids ask.
KEITH: And sometimes, he says, the questions are just a little too convenient.
BECHDEL: Things that maybe are not discussed on the playground.
KEITH: Like the boy who read off a note card while asking about guns and mental health.
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: When you become president, what is your plan to connect mental health problems and guns to make sure that me, my brothers and my friends are safe from violent at school?
CLINTON: Oh, wow.
KEITH: Or the 7-year-old who asked about college affordability.
ELLA BRIGGS: I think that there's a lot of people who don't have enough money for college and schools and that kind of stuff. So how can we help that?
KEITH: The occasionally way-too-convenient questions from the elementary school set have led quite a few people, including Donald Trump, to speculate that the questions must be planted. So I put that question to Clinton campaign communications director Brian Fallon.
Are the questions planted?
BRIAN FALLON: Absolutely not. Some of the most unscripted moments come from the kids asking the questions.
KEITH: My colleague, Asma Khalid, tracked down 7-year-old Ella Briggs after that event where she asked about helping poor people pay for college. It turns out Ella's parents are both teachers. They are still paying off their college loans and say they talk around the dinner table about the struggles of their low-income students. Briggs says she thought ahead of time about what she might ask and she stood on her seat waving her hand to get Clinton's attention.
ELLA: Like, I've always wanted to ask that question to someone who could help it, and I thought why not just ask Hillary Clinton?
KEITH: And when you're young and cute, you may just get an answer. Tamara Keith, NPR News.