UDON THANI, Thailand -- In a clearing shaded by rubber trees, Paetongtarn Shinawatra was greeted with applause by hundreds of her family's most ardent supporters -- the farmers of Udon Thani.
Sitting on the grass among them, the 36-year-old prime ministerial hopeful called the province her party's "capital in the northeast" and recalled her self-exiled father, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, founder of the party now known as Pheu Thai.