The Telegraph of Nashua (N.H), July 9:

Maybe the relationship between the Hillary Clinton campaign and the press really is that frayed.

Her campaign for president topped itself over the holiday weekend when Clinton aides tagging along as she walked in Gorham’s Fourth of July parade pulled out a rope and herded reporters away from her.

Read that again. Campaign aides herded members of the press away from the former New York senator and secretary of state using a rope.

The optics, as they say, were terrible. Maggie Haberman, a presidential campaign correspondent for The New York Times, tweeted a photo of CNN reporter Dan Merica standing up against the rope looking toward Clinton with an expression that can only be described as consternation on his face. To Merica’s right, you can see the 20-something campaign worker pulling on the end of the rope.

We understand there’s not much sympathy for the media out there, but the scene was embarrassing.

It’s embarrassing to the reporters simply trying to do their jobs and cover a candidate to have been wrangled in such an unprofessional manner. And it’s unbecoming of a major and experienced candidate like Clinton that she would allow such treatment.

What next, lassos at 20 paces?

After months of holding only carefully controlled, locked-down, scripted events with wide-eyed supporters ”“ and avoiding the difficult questions voters might want answers to ”“ Clinton has recently started to loosen the reins on her campaign and hold events that are more in keeping with the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation tradition.

Kind of ironic, then, that she tightens the noose on reporters covering her campaign just as she seeks to broaden the reach of her message.

Journalists may not be popular, but they serve as the eyes and ears for countless numbers of folks who can’t make it to $100-a-plate dinners or invitation-only house parties.

Perhaps the rope-a-dope incident was but an anomaly, but it creates the impression that the Clinton campaign is lacking a certain something in the judgment department.

More and more, you read headlines like “Bernie-mania running wild as Hillary Clinton sputters.” That’s how the Boston Herald put it Tuesday in referring to independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has been talking ”“ and actually saying things ”“ to huge crowds in many states.

We hope Mrs. Clinton spends a lot of time in the state running a traditional New Hampshire campaign.

But she should leave the rope at home.