By Bea Loughnee
Washington Reporter
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Jerome Lavalle, 55, who plays Santa four evenings a week at the Mall of New Hampshire here, says he's pretty sure Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign staffers have begun planting gift ideas with the children waiting in line to see him.
"At first I just thought I'd gotten a couple of idealistic four-year-olds," said Lavalle, who has a day job as a pizza store manager. "But about the sixth time I got a kid asking for "true universal health care -- not a plan that leaves millions uninsured, like Barack Obama's," I started to get suspicious.
Lavalle said so far he's had kids between the ages of two and seven ask for universal health care, free college tuition, the U.S. out of Iraq, a Democratic president already experienced at getting things done in Washington, and "our first woman president."
"I know politics is like the official sport of New Hampshire and all, but I wasn't born yesterday" Lavalle said. "Someone's telling these kids to say this, and it's not Mitt Romney."
A Clinton campaign spokesman in an elf suit denied the allegations.
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