SubscribeNew Hampshire Special
Update
Here is the Cav Daily story that we got from the trip.
Also, I made a ton of grammatical changes to this posting, as I got done with it at 3:30AM this morning.
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The New Hampshire Primary is upon us and I think that it is imperative for me to give you an inside look at what's going on in the Granite State. This is going to be a rather long, but very entertaining entry. This is the entire New Hampshire story from this weekend. It's fun stories mixed with campaign analysis -- read on.
After arriving in Manchester, NH on Friday morning the kids we brought all went to work for the candidates that they chose and we checked into our luxurious Motel 8. After that we went out to pick up a rental car. The car was to go from campaign to campaign and see how our kids were doing and to take care of emergencies should they arise. After getting the car we went to the Manchester Public Library so that we could get internet access to look up candidates' schedules and events to which we would go.
The first event was for John Kerry. On the way to the event we saw our friends doing visibility for John Kerry on the street corner, holding up signs to inform people about the nearby town hall meeting that would take place in a matter of minutes. We parked and grabbed signs to help out in exciting motorists. After being scolded by a petty campaign organizer for not going all the way down to the corner as she demanded and talking briefly with the press, we went into the event. Kerry was speaking about his military experience to local veterans. In the course of this, Senator Fritz Hollings made a joke about a "chinaman" sabotaging the campaign event because a microphone cord was loose. Kerry followed suit when it was his turn to speak. Now, if any other candidate had done that the press would have been all over it. It was offensive and he should have got some bad press for it. Other than that, the speech was pretty good, as Kerry generally is at giving talks.
At this point we were pretty hungry so we went to the famous Merrimack restaurant, which presidential candidates frequent. As we were walking in I saw Rob Corrdry from the Daily Show sitting in the front window. I was really stoked about that. After we sat down and were eating our meals, former presidential candidate and CO Senator Gary Hart stumbled by our table and our server said to him, "Gary, are you lost?" To which he replied, "No, no." The food wasn't great, but the experience can't be beat.
After this we headed out to find a New Hampshire state run liquor store to get alcohol for the Friday and Saturday night parties. Dave led us in the wrong cardinal direction 15 miles out of town looking for a store. On the way back I insisted that someone call and find out if there was one in Manchester, as I was sure there was. I was right. Imagine that, they put a store in a major metropolitan area. Hmmm... Anyhow, I bought so much alcohol for the 50 kids in attendance. I spent $210 on 4 handles, at least 6 cases of beer, a couple 12 packs of malt liquor, 3 bottles of champagne, mixers, and cleanup supplies. That took a lot of shopping.
We took it all back to the hotel and went out to a Clark event. The event was setup really well. The visibility outside was good and the gymnasium holding the event looked absolutely great. Before the thing got started, I noticed that Judy Woodruff from CNN's Inside Politics was walking around. Everyone got excited. Then we spotted Paul Begala and Bob Novak from CNN's Crossfire. Ben McGinnis went to talk to Paul Begala. He ended up talking to Judy Woodruff for a while first, though. After he was done he asked Begala to come to a UDems meeting and he scored his business card. I really hope he comes. The start time for the event was rolling around and Clark wasn't there. So they sent out a juggler to entertain the crowd. Now, I'm not saying I know how to juggle or anything, but I've seen good jugglers in my time and this guy wasn't one of them. He kept on doing the same tricks and messing up. Then, to keep the crowds further "entertained," the campaign sent up two of Clark's West Point room mates for an impromptu speech about how great Clark is. I wish the campaign had known that the two guys only kept "sporadic" contact with General Clark over the years, because all they talked about was how he was first in his class for like 10 minutes. Clark finally got there about 1/2 hour late. He came on and I really wasn't digging his stump speech. Before I could hear the whole thing we got a call from the kids working for Kerry. They got back to the hotel early and didn't have keys, so we had to go back.
After everyone got back we started hearing accounts of how peoples' days were. Everyone had a good time except for the Dean kids, who got worked like animals. They were sent to rural precincts with houses 1/2 mile apart from each other to do the Get-Out-The-Vote tasks of knocking on doors and persuading people that Dean is the best candidate for the entire day. They weren't afforded a lunch break. They had to plead with the volunteer coordinators to get some food to go. There was then talk about forming a volunteers' union to get some basic workers' rights, like lunch breaks. Kind of ironic, since the two largest unions backed Dean. Later that night we threw a party despite being surrounded by prude Republicans. Amazingly the front desk never called to tell us to be quiet.
The next day we woke up and went to another Clark event. It was a pancake breakfast at a fire station in Derry, NH. The event, like the other one, was setup really well. I got in and couldn't move, the place was packed. The pancakes were pretty good. After a while Clark came out and flipped a whopping 5 pancakes for the press to get a shot of. He then made his way to a podium where he could give his stump speech. The speech wasn't too good. He needs some lessons on becoming a rhetor because right now he isn't doing it. He seems like a nice guy, though, and that is really important in presidential politics. During the Q&A session, Ted Danson walked up behind me and started giving a live TV interview to MSNBC. I was in the background of the interview for a few minutes. I saw myself on CSPAN later that night, too. I've been in the background of national TV too many times to care, though. On Clark's way out I managed to get a picture with him.
After that was done, we went back to the library to find candidates' schedules. There wasn't a lot going on but Allen K did find out that there was a huge fundraiser being put on by the New Hampshire Democratic Party that day, where all the candidates would be. We decided we would try to volunteer for the event. We tried calling the NHDP's office, but no one answered. So, we decided to drive 15 miles North to their office in Concord. After finding the run down place to be closed, we saw a local Kerry office. Allen K went in, worked some magic, and got the location of the fundraiser. After eating lunch and seeing the Kucinich psychedelic democracy bus, we set off for the fundraiser, which was 35 miles away. After finally finding the Sheraton that it was being held at, which looked like a scary German castle, we found the check-in table and asked if we could volunteer. We were given a flat "No." We hung around for a while to see if we might be able to sneak in. It didn't look to promising, so we decided to leave.
Next on our trip was "Cup o' Joe with Joe Lieberman," which didn't actually offer any coffee. It was a town hall style meeting about 10 minutes away from the evil German castle. We arrived and managed to get seats. The place filled up pretty quick and was overflowed to the city hall's lobby. Pretty amazing, for Joe Lieberman and all. Although I disagree with Joe Lieberman a lot, I do have a newfound respect for him after hearing him speak. He takes his moderate position, defends it really well, and won't back down. Anyhow, the Q&A session arrived and this crazy woman hurled this first question at Lieberman: "I saw on TV that you know about Al Quada before 9/11. How did you know about them? What are your ties to them?" Lieberman went on to explain that Al Quada had been around for a long time and that he was on the Senate Intelligence Committee after the 1993 WTC bombing, etc. She kept pressing him until people started to grumble and she abruptly left. While all this was going on, one of Lieberman's staffers asked Allen K to ask a question to change the subject. He threw Lieberman a bone by asking how his tax plan varied from the other Dems' plans. Lieberman then went on to talk about how much "Joe-mentum" his campaign has. After the event was over Allen K, Ally, and Sam were talking to Hadassah Lieberman, his wife. They were pretty nice and had to leave pretty quickly. Dave and I were eying the 4x8 foot Lieberman signs at the event and thinking about snagging one. No dice, though, as they were being watched pretty well.
On to "Bowling with Edwards," a rally at a local bowling ally. We arrived and not many people were there yet. The place got packed soon, though. Imagine a bowling ally with as many people as it could possibly fit and that is what the place looked like. The woman managing the place started flipping out at how many people had showed up. She started screaming on the loudspeaker that she had called the police and fire marshall. It didn't deter anyone, though. I thought for sure that the event would get nixed because management was flipping out, but Edwards did show up and gave a very quick 4 minute speech.
After leaving, the plan was to go back to Motel 8 and start the party. Allen K had a different idea, though, telling us that he heard about a Daily Show party at the Holiday Inn. We figured that we would go check it out, despite it being an invite-only party.
Note: We kept the following story was on the D/L so that people wouldn't get angry at us. Please keep in that way.
We got to Holiday Inn and were wandering around the hotel looking for the supposed party. After wandering around one wing of the hotel we came back to look on the other side. We got back to the lobby and I noticed that Chris Matthews from MSNBC's Hardball was standing there. I notified the others and Dave ran to get a camera from the car. Soon after this Ally and Sam went to the other side of the hotel looking for food. Allen and I followed the two girls because we didn't want to get split up. As we were walking down a hall Allen and I turned our heads at a passer by and then I asked him, "Was that Carol Moseley-Braun?" We backtracked and discovered that it was her. We waited for her to get done talking to Chris Matthews and we started talking to her. She's really nice. Too bad she dropped out of the race. We got a picture and went over to investigate the party. Not far from where we first saw Carol Moseley-Braun, we saw the entry to the party, but it was indeed ticket only. I was looking at ways to sneak in, but it was pretty useless. All of the doors were guarded. After poking around for a while we decided to leave. We walked out to the lobby and there was Joe and Hadassah Lieberman again. We decided to go say hello. The campaign staffers recognized us immediately and said, "Hey, you're the one that saved us from that nutty woman!" We then talked and got a picture with Joe and Hadassah. We walked toward the door and saw people congregating near the party and somehow we got the idea that Howard Dean was there. We went over to check it out and it just turned out to be Lieberman getting a crowd. Lieberman started to walk into the part with his entourage and we instinctively hopped on the back of it and slipped past the security guards. After regrouping we saw Jon Stewart talking in a corner to some people. We were trying to get a picture and he was trying to have none of it. I heard him grumble to himself, "I've gotta get out of here." Determined, we finally got him to take a picture with us and he bolted. We also met Stephen Colbert and Rob Corrdry. Those two guys were pretty cool -- and nice enough to talk to us lame college kids. After that we decided we needed to go. We got our coats and began walking toward the back of the room to leave. Upon doing so, the guard came up to us and accused us of coming in a side door. We objected saying that we didn't, which was the truth. We came in with Senator Lieberman. It didn't matter anyway, we got one more picture and took off.
The Daily Show thing was kind of cool but it kind of sucked at the same time. I've always wanted to meet someone from the show and have an intelligent conversation with them. I realize that a press party is not a place conducive to that sort of thing, but it will probably be the closest I ever come. Instead I looked like a loser who wanted a picture. Super.
We got back to the hotel to find a party going on in our room. The story we gave people was that we were at a press party because we heard there were some cool press people there. The first thing that dear Kate Beddingfield said was, "Was it the Daily Show party?!" I caved in and she wasn't too happy. It turns out that she had a ticket, since her dad works for CNN. I felt bad as hell for that. Maybe I can somehow make it up to her. Probably not, though.
The next day I shuttled some Clark kids to their campaign office while others got the hotel ready for checkout. I got back and Dave wanted to go check out the Dean rally. I assured him that we'd never get a seat since the event was in 25 minutes and taking place across town. He insisted, so we went and were of course turned away due to no seats being left. After being turned away Dave and I noticed a 4x8 Dean sign standing next to the door of the event. Dave said, "Why don't we go do some visibility with this sign up on the hill?" We did, briefly, and then made off with the gigantic sign. I ended up presenting it to the Dean kids later as a kind of consolation prize for all their hard work. No one picked it up after the bus got back to Charlottesville and it is now sitting in my room until the Dean kids pick it up. If they don't take it, I'll use it as a sled or just go lay it against a tree on the Lawn.
