Senator Hillary Clinton was reaching out with a show of unity in Unity, bestowing a warm endorsement on her Democratic rival, now the party's presumptive White House hope, Barack Obama.

The former primary adversaries were to hold a 'Unite for Change' rally on Friday at a school in the aptly named community, where each candidate got exactly 107 votes in New Hampshire's January primary.

On the eve of the rally set in Unity's rolling, verdant hills, Clinton addressed Hispanic leaders in Washington to thank her supporters for their "passion and determination."

"But every issue you care about personally... is really at risk. We cannot afford four more years of the same," the New York senator said.

"And therefore we have to be determined to chart a new course, and we cannot do that without electing Senator Obama our president," she said to a standing ovation.

The higher forms of political calculation at play in the Clinton-Obama tango, including what role she will take in his campaign and what help he will extend to repaying her debts, were not preoccupying Unity folks.

"It's kind of exciting, because we've never had anything like this before," town treasurer Mary Hall told AFP.

She wore a T-Shirt reading "Unity: The Biggest Little Town in New Hampshire" and listed the town's population at 1100 - although the 2000 census placed it at 1535.

"That's if you include all the cows," her husband Ken said.

Clinton won the New Hampshire primary, after a moist-eyed moment in a coffee shop, to come back after Obama's early January victory in the Iowa caucuses. This set in train five months of coast-to-coast battles that ended with Obama only just ahead.

According to Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe, explaining the choice of the New Hampshire venue, the two Democrats split their vote totals in several other US towns.

"But none were called Unity," he said.

The former first lady had kept a low profile since conceding the Democratic nominating contest to Obama on 7 June, after a bitter campaign that split Democratic loyalties down the middle.

In Washington Obama dug deep into his own pocket late Thursday to help out Clinton as the pair met with her top fundraisers as part of an emotional unity drive.

Obama gave Clinton a personal check for the legal maximum of 2300 dollars, aides said, to help towards cancelling campaign debts of 22.5-million dollars racked up in her ultimately doomed bid for the White House nomination.

Introducing Obama to more than 200 of her leading money people, Clinton lamented that the Democrats had won only three of the past 10 presidential elections.

"That is a sobering thought," she said. "For me this is intensely personal, because I want to see our country once again not just solving problems... but lifting up our sights and finding the promise of our country.

"We have to make it a priority in our lives to elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States," the New York senator said, to sustained applause.

The Arizona senator meanwhile played spoiler by announcing a new group called "New Hampshire Democrats for McCain," led by two state party luminaries who say Obama is too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief.

In the parking lot of Will's Place, a Unity convenience store that advertises "worms and crawlers" for fishermen, Bucky Demers showed off his 2008 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, adorned with "Obama '08" stickers.

The Cornish, New Hampshire resident has been a professional race-car driver for 22 years, but had never been involved with any political campaigns until he saw Obama speak on television.

"I would travel to half a dozen tracks around New England for him," Demers said.

Further south on the turnpike lies Unity Elementary School, the site of Friday's rally.

The school year ended just a week ago, and principal Maynard 'Chip' Baldwin had been looking forward to "a beautiful, quiet week" of filling out end-of-year paperwork.

Then, Baldwin said, "I look up and I see this tall guy making his way into the building."

The stranger was Obama staffer David Cusack, who asked Baldwin for permission to use the school.

Outside, workers have already installed orange plastic fencing on the school's lawn to accommodate Friday's crowd of party supporters and hordes of reporters.