January 3, 2008

Life of the party
For five days, New Hampshire is the center of the political universe
By Brian Early bearly@hippopress.com

By the time the next issue of Hippo hits the stands, the New Hampshire primary will be over.

By the time you read this, it’s likely that the Iowa Caucus will be under way or maybe even all done, with its potentially game-changing results known.

Right now, the final assault on New Hampshire is under way. Mike Gravel, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Vermin Supreme — they will probably all spend the five days between Jan. 3 and the close of the polls on Jan. 8 here in New Hampshire. For the next week, we matter, our opinions matter, our thoughts matter.

So how much do we matter?
No president running for reelection. No vice president running for the nomination. It’s wide open, the most wide open since 1952. Sixteen major candidates on two different ballots, as well as many other choices, including three vice presidential contenders.

Secretary of State Bill Gardner played primary chess like the world champion he is, stomping down threats from larger, more populous states that, in a thirst for power, grabbed wildly and uncontrollably in efforts to pull New Hampshire’s primary rug from under it. They, of course, failed.

“There’s a consensus that New Hampshire and Iowa matter more than they ever mattered before,” said James Pindell, who writes the blog “The Primary Source” for the Boston Globe, often breaking the New Hampshire primary news of the day. “There’s no question that New Hampshire and Iowa emerged in a process that was supposed to make them less important. That idea backfired.”

After a year of heavy campaigning, and with still almost a year to go before the general election, and dozens of political signs congregating at major traffic intersections, New Hampshire voters are still undecided. Yet a year ago pundits labeled candidates first-tier, second-tier and fringe, even before any votes were cast, before most voters finally started listening to the drone of campaigns around them.

“We’ve never had a better primary,” Pindell said. “We have no idea who is going to win. That’s never happened for both parties.”

The dog fight on the Democratic side is focused on three candidates, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, and much of the fight is taking place in Iowa. The Republicans have no front runner, with five candidates potentially doing well in the state.

“For the Democrats, the defining race is going to be Iowa,” Pindell said. “For Republicans, it’s going to be New Hampshire.”

John Edwards has staked his claim in Iowa, where he finished second four years ago. Most pundits agree that his chances for the nomination are greatly diminished if he doesn’t pull out a win in Iowa, as he’s spent much of the last four years there building his campaign. Likewise, if Obama pulls off a win in Iowa and a win (or even a close second) in New Hampshire, it could spell doom for Clinton.

For the Democrats, it all depends on Iowa. Recent polling suggests that New Hampshire Democratic voters are inclined to switch their vote depending on the results of Iowa.

“Two thirds of voters are prepared to make a different choice,” said Arnie Arnesen, host of “Morning Chowder” on WCCM-AM, about the Iowa vote.

UHN professor and pollster Andy Smith agrees that Iowa will have a lasting impact on the Democratic side.

“Voters are looking to see who is going to do poorly in Iowa,” Smith said. “Losing an election is not a sign of electability.”

The Republican story is much different. The race appears to be wide open in both states. In March of this year, Giuliani led in the New Hampshire polls, and in April, McCain led. Then Romney took over, leading dramatically as McCain’s campaign imploded and Giuliani continued a descent in state polls. But recently, McCain rebounded and he’s leading the march on Romney, once again becoming the underdog, a position he likes far more than being a front runner. He is picking up numerous newspaper endorsements as he tries to woo back voters who vaulted him to a win in 2000.

“It’s hard to call at this point,” said Dean Spiliotes, former professor of politics at Saint Anselm and Dartmouth who now writes for NHPoliticalCapital.com. “There really is not a front runner. It’s wide open. It may take some time to sort that out.”

The Ron Paul folks hope for a major upset in New Hampshire, seeing the state as one they can win. Currently he polls at around 10 percent. Smith thinks the upset is impossible; Arnesen thinks it’s possible, but only if the campaign is able to drive out new voters.

“He’s the most honest of them all,” she said. She points to Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter’s surprising win last year, where she was able to tap into discontent about the Iraq War to propel herself to victory.

Issues? What issues?

For Arnesen, the race has been uninspiring. The Clinton/Obama storyline, change versus experience, has overshadowed the larger issues.

“Hillary was the machine and Barack was the magic,” Arnesen said. “We never got to issues. When Barack entered the race, it became easy not to talk about issues. Issues are harder to cover.”

The consequence, she said, is that the people with the most experience, Senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd and Gov. Bill Richardson, are all pushed to the side because they are neither Clintons or young and hip Obamas.

“Nobody gave them the time of day,” Arnesen said.

Andy Smith agrees.

“Issues aren’t nearly as important as the characteristics of the candidates,” he said. “Voters are looking for candidates who can win in November. They want an electable candidate.”

Last week’s assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s opposition leader, may wake up the debate on issues. The Iraq war was a centerpiece of many campaigns in the last year but has dropped to the side in recent months as the number of U.S. military deaths has dropped from this year’s high in May, when 126 service men and women were killed, to 19 in the month of December.

“Does this benefit Bill Richardson?” Arnesen wondered about how the assassination will affect the race. But in the end, she thinks there is little chance that issues candidates will make a surge on the Democratic side.

“But there might be regret later,” she said.

Some pundits thought the recent assassination in Pakistan might prove beneficial to McCain with his strong military background.

“Why did we date him back in 2000, and should we consider dating him again?” Arnesen said.

It’s hard to say who’s winning the electability war. Spiliotes says the Democrats are much more focused on electability, while the Republicans are more concerned with who is more conservative than the other.

“Clinton has the strongest electability numbers,” he said. “But there are questions about her negatives.”

Ah, here are the issues
While the primary is mostly focused on the different candidates strutting around the state trying to woo voters, there are others in the process looking to push issues to the forefront of the presidential discussion, like New Hampshire for Health Care (the purple-shirt people), ED in 08 (the education people), One (the poverty people), StepItUp (the global warming people), AARP (the senior people) and Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana (the medical pot people).

Many of them try to show up at as many candidate events as possible to ask their questions and hope for a straight response from the candidates. It’s called bird-dogging.

Lauren Thorpe of StepItUp has tried her best to shed her nice personality to get tough with different presidential candidates over the issues of climate change. She’s learned how to focus her question to get a better response from the candidates. She’s had a positive experience with most campaigns, but sometimes she has to work extra hard. She retold the story of bird-dogging former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. At one event, she wasn’t called on, she suspected, because she was dressed as she normally is, which some might call crunchy. For the next event she spruced up a bit, dressing as a business professional. She raised her hand, looked cute, and the mayor called on her. She started out commenting on 9/11 but quickly switched subjects. She noted that most scientists believe that global warming is a serious threat to the world and asked Giuliani what would he do about it. That was the last question she was able to ask the former mayor.

“Once you get marked, you never get picked again,” she said.

Pindell, of the Globe, said the interest groups started back in 1996 and were most effective in 2000.

“There’s such a [glut] of them now. I don’t think they’ve had much effect or any effect on the race, with the exception of AARP’s ‘Divided We Fail,’ They were able to bring the candidates to them instead of going to the campaigns,” he said. “A smart organization is one that figures out the new model.”

The last hurrah?
The show will be over, as it always is, the day after the election. Campaign staffers of the winners will quickly exit for another state, and the losers’ staffs may as well, depending on what kind of loss they receive. Kathleen Strand, communications director for Clinton, said she will be gone Wednesday morning. All the temporary offices set up, most of them not in the greatest shape to begin with, will be quickly stripped down. There have been reports in the past that losing campaigns trash their offices in a fit of anger.

Also on Jan. 9, as in years past, the speculation about the next primary, the one in 2012, will begin. With states frontloading the primary and caucus schedule and with 2008’s primary pushed up so far in the year, what will the next go-around look like? Will 2008 be the last hurrah, the last time New Hampshire really gets to play a big role?

Brian “Cosmo” Lawson went from Saint Anselm college student to presidential primary watcher extraordinaire with his blog, “New Hampshire Presidential Watch,” which tracks presidential politics in the state. He thinks future primaries might be different and that more diverse states might try to muscle in on the early primary action.

“If you want your candidate to appeal to a certain ethnic group, New Hampshire is not the necessary the place that you want your candidate to be at,” he said. “I think you could make the argument that if the first primary was held out west, Bill Richardson might have done better.”

But others are not so sure. Gardner is quick to make the argument that although New Hampshire is mostly white, the state took a lead in trying to end slavery and integrated people of different racial backgrounds into baseball before most others.

Dante Scala, professor of politics at University of New Hampshire, thinks the primary is here to stay. With its one statewide TV station and its relatively small land mass, New Hampshire provides candidates (particularly candidates with less money) more of a fighting chance.

“Given that the primary survived the biggest challenge it’s had in the past quarter century,” he said, “it’s going to take a concerted effort on both political parties’ efforts to stop the primary from having the significance it usually has in 2012,” he said. “The best argument in favor of the primary is that it remains a level playing field. Big money is not necessarily dominant as it is elsewhere.”

The prospect of New Hampshire not having the first-in-the-nation primary is not as worrisome as it used to be. Mitch Sawaya, who owns Strange Brew Tavern, said that in the past he would have felt losing the primary would be a big deal for him. In 2004, MSNBC’s Hardball broadcast live from the Tavern, as did Mike Barnicle when he was host on Boston’s WTKK-FM talk station.

Sawaya also shared beers with John Kerry and met most of the presidential candidates as they toured the city. This year, he hasn’t had any requests for news shows to use his facilities and hasn’t met any of the candidates.

“Every time I read about the primary, it’s always about Iowa,” he said. He gets some business from campaign workers, but it’s not a huge money-maker. But even without direct primary interaction, business is good.

What now?

What happens to the primary in the future is in doubt. There are some bills in Congress that would attempt to legislate the primary process. One would keep Iowa and New Hampshire first; another bill would rotate the primary to other states. Fergus Cullen, chair of the state Republican Party, said what’s important is that all candidates feel like they had a chance, no matter what the outcome of the primary.

“We’ve done everything right in this cycle to prove to the country why the New Hampshire primary works and why it should be maintained,” he said. “There will be many candidates unhappy with the outcome, but they can’t be unhappy with the process.”

That process is that any candidate can come to New Hampshire without a lot of money and have a go at it. And that’s why many politicians, local and national, hold the New Hampshire primary as so important: the little guy has a shot here.

In the end, only two candidates will win the primary, and only two candidates can win the nominations. Our part will be over next week, and all we can do is watch what happens next. But in the meantime, pick up those political signs. You’ve got a week to get them gone before it’s against the law.

And also...
Although there are 15 fairly well-known candidates in the running in next week’s primary, there are still 25 other candidates on the ballot. It doesn’t take much to be included in the primary. First, you need to meet the qualifications set out by the U.S. Constitution; second, you need to be either a Democrat or Republican, and third, you need $1,000.

Q&A with Dr. Mark Klein
Dr. Mark Klein is a Republican presidential hopeful and is on the ballot in New Hampshire. He is a physician and psychiatrist who lives in Oakland, Calif. He has never served office, which he feels will be an important attribute for a successful administration. For more information, see klein4change.in2006.us/page.php.

What made you think you should be president?
We need a grown-up in the White House, a fiscally prudent grown-up whose priority is taking care of the children first. I think we need a national shrink.

What would you diagnose?
American policy behavior brings to mind addiction disorders, like alcoholism, drug abuse and habitual gambling. We’ve lost all control of budget. I’m now in the middle watching the third major failed war in my lifetime. Korean War, Vietnam, and now Iraq. We keep doing the same thing over and over again. It’s like the patient who comes to me and says, I always pick the wrong guy, I always pick the wrong guy. I really think we need a national shrink.

You said they need a grown-up in the White House. How are they not dealing with the children?
We have to live within our means, because the country now is actually functionally bankrupt. The government is very deeply in debt. There are very few Americans that have any savings of any consequence. The buying power of wages have fundamentally collapsed.

What would be the one thing you would do as president?
The first thing I would do would be to withdraw our forces from Iraq. It was wrong to go in there. The war cannot possibly be won because we are attempting to impose a political solution the parties don’t want. Iraq is really about finding a solution to the First World War. We never solved the problem of what to do with Ottoman Mesopotamia. My solution would be to do what the British did in India when they left in 1947, which is to set up an equivalent of a Muslim Pakistan and an Hindu India.

What domestic policies would you support?
A Klein administration would live within its means. We are going to have a budget and keep within the budget. I plan to be a strong chief executive. We can’t throw money at everything.

What’s your campaign strategy when you don’t get much media coverage?
I’m going to go out town to town, and anybody with a heartbeat I’m going to talk to. I have the resources to do Iowa and New Hampshire.

What’s your public office experience?
I’ve never held office before.

Why do you think you can go from nothing to president?
I think not having any experience is a very strong qualification. I can go into this like doing a second opinion in medicine. Totally fresh. We really need a true outsider that isn’t beholden to anyone.

Q&A with Daniel Gilbert
Daniel Gilbert is a Republican presidential hopeful who is on the ballot in New Hampshire. Gilbert has never held office before, which he views as a positive attribute. He lives in South Carolina with his wife Linda. He’s the owner of Pintech USA, which manufactures electronic musical drums and percussion instruments. His Web site is www.wethepeopleforpresident.com.

Why do you think that you should be president?
About a year I ago I realized that the Republicans were not going to ever do what they were elected to do. We elected Bush in 2000. We got control of both houses in Congress. We went from 4,000 pork barrel projects in 2000 when Clinton was in control. In 2005 there was 14,000 pork barrel projects. They were obviously going in the wrong direction. Politicians aren’t doing what they should be doing: what’s best for the country, what’s Constitutional, what’s best for our kids and grandkids. Six grandkids and two kids is the reason I’m here. I felt we were going in the wrong direction. I’m trying to set an example.

What experience do you have that makes you think you should be president?
Common sense, logic. Wanting to do what’s best for the country. You’re going to say that the politicians have the experience. That’s true, but what are they doing with it? But if you know the Constitution, if you know what’s right and what’s wrong and you love your country and you want to do what’s best for your children and you grandchildren, you can’t go wrong.

Right and wrong are sort of ambiguous terms. Right and wrong could be viewed differently by different people.
I’ll give you a general example. With gas prices at $3 a gallon, oil almost a $100 a barrel, Dennis Kucinich thinks that we ought to be talking about whether or not to impeach Dick Cheney. That is not the right thing to do at this time. What they aren’t talking about is opening up ANWR [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] to safe environmental oil drilling that would put downward pressure on the oil market.

Kucinich would argue that the impeachment is based on the Constitution and that he’s following his Constitutional duty to uphold the Constitution, which you say you also support. How is that not right in his eyes?
Let’s you say have a list of ten things that you want politicians to accomplish. Is it on your list? It’s not on anybody’s list. We have to control the borders. We have to force the immigration laws.

You haven’t been in any of the debates and are very unknown. Do you realistically think you’ll have a chance to win the primary?
I started from scratch. Other than my church, I’m not well known. We’ve put out a lot of op-eds. One was “Threats to New Hampshire.” The greatest threat to New Hampshire is the politicians not doing what they should be doing. Politicians have got out of control because of the Supreme Court. In the 1780s when the Supreme Court was set up, they adopted several rules to guide them. One of their rules was that they would not render a decision without a case in front of them. What does that mean? That means that legislators pass the laws and the president signs it. Down the road, me or you have to sue the government for a case to come to the Supreme Court. We need to have a timely determination of whether or not a law is Constitutional or not.

Q&A with Vermin Supreme
Vermin Supreme has run for the New Hampshire primary since 1988, although this is the first year he’s actually paid money to be on the ballot. This year he is a Republican. He’s a street performer who lives in Massachusetts. Often he has a combat boot strapped to a helmet he wears. He’s a firm believer that everyone should brush their teeth and that the government should enforce that mandate. He called the Hippo looking for an endorsement. “If the Hippo won’t endorse Vermin Supreme, who will?” he said. More info: www.zerohits.com/vermin/

What makes you think that you should be president?
I should be president because I am the most awesome candidate in the race.

What makes you awesome?
To the best of my knowledge I’m the only living organ donor in this particular presidential race and of course I’m making the kidney challenge to all the other candidates, and I say give it up, you’ve got two, I had two, now I just have one and the world’s a better place for it. Seventy thousand people are presently in a state of serious medical need because of failing kidneys. All of these candidates have two, and they should only have one.

Why did you give up yours?
My mother was needing a kidney and so I gave mine up.

On your awesome platform, what would you do?
I would dismantle the federal government, just for fun.

Just for fun? How long? A day?
We’ll see how it goes. A little shock therapy.

How many times have you run for president?
I’ve been running since 1988.

But this is the first time that your name is actually on the ballot?
It just seemed like the natural next step?

What’s your goal?
Social change through shameless self-promotion?

What are you promoting?
More fun, more fun in America.

How do you differ yourself from other candidates?
Free everything for everybody.

And that’s it?
Increase the minimum wage to $50 an hour would make everybody happy. Water boarding in public schools. A robot in every garage. If elected president, I will stop evolution.

When you come up with your platforms, do you put a lot of thought into it, or is it just by a whim?
A lot of thought. Focus groups, study groups, advisors, all sorts of good stuff like that.

Who would you say your political heroes are?
I have to give a nod to Dan Ruberti — he was a mayoral candidate in Glouster, Mass., for many years and still is. Ronald Reagan, the great communicator, George Bush, the great decider. All the other fringe candidates in the world. All the people with the strength of their convictions or their delusions are going forward with the process.

What’s yours?
A little bit of both. It’s my strength through my delusional convictions.

How do you campaign?
Usually with a bullhorn. I randomly call people on the phone, and I hope to get up to Dixville Notch and shovel people’s driveways.