Frantic Pace of Candidates Belies the Calendar
MANCHESTER, N.H.—In a cold and steady drizzle early this week, the high hopers and lost causers lined the road to St. Anselm College, pumping signs for Obama and Hillary and Mike Gravel, clapping thundersticks, and decrying the war and global warming and genocide.
Further on, a crush of supporters chanted for the eight Democratic candidates who would be debating on campus minutes later, threatening to overwhelm the waist-high metal gates that kept them corralled like cattle—in this land of "Live Free or Die."
Even the damp chill conspired to make it feel as though there were just a few frantic weeks to go before the state's first-in-the-nation primary in January establishes early winners and losers. But, this year, June is the new October—maybe even November—and though votes here won't be cast for seven months, the circus has officially begun.
The boarding gates for Southwest Airlines flights from Washington to Manchester are already peppered with political and media types converging on the state—Hillary Clinton adviser Mandy Grunewald, Republican political consultant Michael Murphy, Washington Post columnist and television pundit E.J. Dionne, and scores of other famous-for-Washington types were spotted at the terminal last weekend.
And JD's Tavern at the Manchester Radisson—as in past presidential primary battles—has once again become the place to find both David Bonior, former Sen. John Edwards's national campaign director, and Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post. After Sunday's debate, Donna Brazile polished off a sandwich at the bar while Richard Schiff, another alumni of The West Wing—the television show, not the White House—hung out across the way.
Jill Hazelbaker, communications director for Sen. John McCain's campaign, said that when the Republican senator made his last White House run in 2000 it was August before most staffers were being hired.
"Now, we're already on our third debate," she said this morning while her boss answered questions from a couple hundred folks who crowded the Gilford Fire and Rescue station to see him before tonight's GOP debate at St. Anselm.
More than 700 credentialed members of the media had descended by Sunday for the Democratic debate—many stayed on, and in the packed post-debate "Spin Room"—an unfortunately accurate description—the quote-harvesting spectacle was in full gear. There was syndicated columnist and PBS political analyst Mark Shields surrounded by foreign press interviewing him about the debate. Candidate Dennis Kucinich—his towering, knockout wife, Elizabeth, attached at the hip as she has been since their August 2005 marriage—talking about a department of peace. Elizabeth Edwards spinning for her husband and pollster Celinda Lake talking about how well her guy, Sen. Joe Biden, had done and their "slow building" strategy.
And, finally, there was Sen. Barack Obama's top adviser, David Axelrod, whose poor minder, one of the guys who hold up the sign-on-a-stick identifying their spinner, had to keep the press at bay for the late-arriving guru.
This part of it can look a bit ridiculous. And, indeed, it can be a fast-moving, somewhat cynical free-for-all. But at the McCain fire hall event in Gilford, what's right about this strange process in this small New England state was on full display.
At 9 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, the place was packed with serious people holding McCain accountable—on immigration, the war, taxes, global warming, and healthcare. A military wife took exception to the senator's assertion that military men and women receive fair compensation. A local woman pressed him on what he means by "affordable" healthcare—suggesting he might have a different concept than she has. And an Iraq vet told the senator, a Vietnam vet and former P.O.W., that it vexed him to see how unaffected most Americans are by the war.
"They don't let candidates get away with talking points," Hazelbaker said. "This is a savvy and sophisticated voting pool."
And voters like Edward Grevatt, who buttonholed the senator after the firehouse meeting to ask about nonmilitary ways to combat terrorism, say they take their first-in-the-nation role seriously.
"I'm an enthusiastic New Hampshire voter,"said Grevatt, a retired minister," and understand we have a unique place in choosing the president. Nothing comparable to this exists."
Amen, reverend.
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