Just to add a little more to the "color" of the New Hampshire First-In-The-Nation Presidential Primary, I thought it would be good to mention a couple of my experiences today.
I visited Manchester around Noon, to fulfill some obligations I had previously committed to for interviews about our "lead--off" status. I've developed quite a bad cold since last Monday night when I spent an hour and a half on New Year's Eve in Concord when 37 couples joined in Civil Union. As I was speaking that night, or the next morning at 12:01 AM in a freezing chill, I felt something coming on. Well, it took hold.
So I would well have passed up talking much today, but i'm glad I kept my promises. In one case, talking with a BBC reporter for a live interview was most interesting, because I had a chance to ask some questions about how they view our process. It's really like night and day, and they were as fascinated about what we do as I was about the way they described what they do "on the other side of the pond."
Anyway, the area in Downtown Manchester between Bridge Street to Valley Street -- that's, I don't know, perhaps a mile or so -- was filled with sign-holders on intersections, camera people walking all around doing person-on-the-street interviews, and satellite trucks galore. Hundreds. Thousands. Amazing stuff.
Then I went to Concord. Wow. There was a John McCain rally about to start on the State House Plaza, but on two front corners of the State House there were Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton supporters, side-by-side, very friendly toward one another, having a great time. Passers-by in cars were honking as they passed their favorite candidates' signs. I saw a clump of John Edwards supporters, and a group that was more than enthusiastic for Dennis Kucinich.
I dropped into the State House to briefly visit Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who has a lot of ballots to count tomorrow night. He's anticipating a turnout of about 500,000 -- that's as in "half a million" -- and that will be a record for any primary or caucus anywhere, anytime. Since he and I had talked about the strategy on date-setting for well over a hundred hours during the past year, I thought a final hello would be appropriate.
As I was leaving, I quietly reminded him that he and he alone has the authority right now to cancel the Primary and set another date. He smiled. He shook his head. I left.
Monday was a quite wonderful day for New Hampshire, with Presidential candidates around our state talking about our future, America's future. The weather was nice too. And as a partisan, what impressed me most was that I saw the most activity by supporters of Democratic candidates. The enthusiasm seems to be with Democrats this year, and that bodes very well for November.
I've been involved at one level or another in every NH Presidential Primary since 1960, when as a young pup I passed out campaign flyers for John F. Kennedy. And that includes the very intense 1968 and 1972 Primaries which were held during years of returning body bags from Vietnam, including those of some of my friends.
But as I visited Manchester and Concord today and saw the past several weeks and especially past several days, I've never seen our Primary be this intense. Perhaps that's because of just the span of four full days between Iowa and New Hampshire, but it's probably more because a great deal is at stake, and this is the first time in over 50 years that both parties have very open races.
As I was walking back to my car to leave Concord, one thing symbolized to me the entire day, that among Democrats at least there is certainly a lot of division about who should be nominated, who's "on-first," so to speak, but that we'll quickly be able to unify afterward. It wasn't a big thing, perhaps, but it just seemed so nice:
One group of about six or seven Barack Obama sign wavers were on one side of Main Street in front of the State House. Just across the street were half a dozen Hillary Clinton sign wavers. All were rather excited, One of the Obama signs snapped and flew about 20 feet right into the middle of the street. A couple of cars ran over it.
From the other side of the street, one of the Clinton sign wavers ran over, picked up the sign and brought it to the Obama supporter as they together reassembled it. Lots of smiles, and a little applause from both groups after it was fixed.
Decent. Not Earth-shattering, but decent. It won't bring peace to the world, but it was nice. Actually, that kind of thing could bring peace to New Hampshire starting Wednesday morning.
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