Everyone was suspect. Landing in Manchester directly from DC, everyone on the plane seemed to be a campaign worker or a tourist like us – even the ones talking about Britney Spears’ suspiciously rotund sister. Even if the 20ish kids in front of us were talking about how they weren’t going to attend the University of Maryland after seeing it – I knew they were actually campaign volunteers talking about transferring. The guy next to me who swooped to the Business section of the Journal as soon as he got on the plane – he had to be a campaign strategist. And on it went, my excitement overriding any idea that someone would fly from DC to Manchester four days before the primary, and as Iowans were just starting to shuffle into churches and elementary schools, for any reason besides the upcoming election.
And the airport in Manchester was bustling with activity. Snippets of conversation at the baggage terminal alluded to people’s anxiousness about Huckabee possibly taking the Iowa caucus – just an hour or so before he actually did. A large display in front of the bank of car rental companies showed historical moments in New Hampshire’s primary history, from Reagan to Clinton to McCain, as well as snippets of the current candidates engaged in town halls and rallies across the state.
We were here because we knew that, even in DC, we could never get as close to the candidates as we could here. We certainly would never see a Presidential candidate in my home state of California without being a major donor or campaign worker. But that didn’t give us the opportunity to engage in a conversation with the candidates and develop our opinions from that interaction. Anyone can sound good on their website or in sound bites. And the little bits of the speeches we do see are often edited in pursuit of the story by media gatekeepers pushing a specific story. Either way, there’s no way of knowing whether Obama is really inspiring – whether Clinton is really cold – whether McCain is really too old – whether Romney is as slippery as his grasp on positions – whether Huckabee is as much of a goof as he seems. The only way to tell is to participate in the retail politics New Hampshire prides itself on. A
Which, of course, is the overriding question of the process: why does New Hampshire deserve this honor? Do they really vet the candidates as much as they claim – or did they just spend 2007 fighting for their spot on the schedule in order to keep the last vestige of their economy alive? It comes down to basic sense of fairness and equality. In a momentum election – one where a candidate wins simply by building a sense of inevitability through wins in the first few contests – less than 1% of the country decides the nominee for each party. Before the field was cleared completely, we wanted to at least get a chance to see all the candidates. Our votes probably wouldn’t have any impact, but at least we’d have a chance to understand why we were casting them.
Nobody tells the story of the politically motivated citizen: the one who views it as their personal responsibility to learn as much as possible about each candidate before casting their vote, before volunteering their time, or trying to educate their family and peers. Since the candidates weren’t coming to me, I was going to them. I was going to determine my choice, and amplify my role in the system we use to elect a President.
