Primary Day: New Hampshire picks a President

Here we are on primary day, the culmination of this entire journey to New Hampshire. Our day started VERY early; Jim, the easy-going volunteer driver from yesterday, picked us up outside the hotel around 4:30 this morning. We made it into the VFW hall around 5AM and received our orders. The staff gave us a ward map and a stack of door hangers that reminded supporters to get out and vote for Hillary. In the dark, cold morning hours, we walked the streets of Nashua trying to pull every vote we could. Nearly two hours later, we headed over to Fairgrounds Middle School, a polling place where Hillary was scheduled to appear. In advance of her arrival, a campaign staffer met us at the site with boxes of coffee and donuts. Our instructions were to distribute them to everybody who wanted them, whether they were supporting Hillary or one of her opponents. None of the other Democratic candidate supporters accepted our offering, but the McCain sign-wavers were more than happy to partake.

Moments later, Hillary and Chelsea showed up and greeted everyone on the scene. The middle school students and teachers came out of the building to meet our future president. Then, when Senator Clinton came over to personally thank the volunteers and supporters, I was able to speak to her and tell her how happy I was to have come from Florida to support her campaign. She thanked me for my work, and posed for a quick picture with me.

The sun had come up, and it was time to get back to canvassing. We finished up with the door hanger assignment, and went back for another task. This time, we were sent to a more affluent part of town. We were pulling votes from all over Nashua, and getting great responses from everyone with whom we spoke. After finishing a few more ward maps, Jim decided to take us out for lunch at a place called Shorty’s, a Mexican restaurant with some of the best food I have had in a long time.

After lunch, our next job was to hit some of the neighborhoods in central Nashua, once again pulling all the voters we could find. Most of the people we talked to at this point in the day had already voted, but we did not get discouraged. We continued to knock on every door on the list, and with Jack driving us from street to street we were able to get more accomplished. With only minutes left until the polls closed, we finished the last house on our list and headed back to the VFW. We received an invitation to Hillary’s victory party in Manchester (sure the polls had just closed, but we were confident that Hillary pulled off a win); however, Adam, Damaris and I returned to the Radisson instead and had our own party while we watched the results coming in on TV.

It is official, Hillary has won the New Hampshire primary! It was a close race, but Hillary has garnered 39% of the vote compared to Obama’s 36% and Edwards’ 17%.

Last day before the election

There are now less than 24 hours until the polls open in New Hampshire. Today was our last real day for voter contact. The campaign has kicked into high gear, and the Nashua office has outgrown its leased space. With so many volunteers coming in to help out on the campaign, the staff has moved the canvassing operation over to the VFW hall, a large open building just a few blocks away. Our first assignment today was to canvass the neighborhoods on the south end of Nashua, near the Massachusetts border. Not many people answered their doors, but of those who did it was clear that they were leaning towards Hillary.

At first I couldn’t understand why so many people said they were undecided as to whom to support, but I have seen now why they hold off on making the decision. The voters here in New Hampshire have this wonderful opportunity to get to ask what they want to know about their presidential candidates. I mean, any of them can go to any of the several events that the candidates hold, and they can meet the candidates in person and judge for themselves who they want to support. They take their vote seriously, and they do not want to cast it until they know that it is going to the right candidate. I think that is why we have been getting such positive responses lately, Hillary is here and the voters have met her and like what they see and hear.

After canvassing our neighborhoods in south Nashua, our volunteer driver, Jack, took us out to lunch at a very nice restaurant, Michael Timothy’s. The lunch was amazing, and it was great talking to and getting to know Jack a little bit. We have been getting so much appreciation from the volunteers on this campaign; not only do they drive us around all day, they bring us food and coffee and sometimes treat us to lunch or dinner. In the afternoon, we met another volunteer who drove us to our canvassing locations in the north part of Nashua. We canvassed these neighborhoods for a few hours, and got similar responses regarding Hillary. Many people were not home, but those who were (and even a few passers by) were happy to share with us their support of Senator Clinton.

We returned to the office and helped clean up and organize a bit, but the buzz was that Hillary was holding another rally in Manchester and that the interns were invited if we wanted to go. Our volunteer driver, Jim, wanted to attend and offered to take us up to Manchester and then back to the hotel after the rally. After an intense day of door-to-door canvassing, Adam, Damaris and I opted out of attending the rally, preferring instead to get some rest for the chaos that will be election day. In just a few hours, the town of Dixville Notch will cast the first votes in New Hampshire. This small town opens it polling station at midnight and then closes it minutes later when the 50 or so registered voters have all cast a ballot. Perhaps when I wake up, Hillary will have already won her first New Hampshire contest; it’s all up to you, voters of Dixville Notch!

A new phrase in my political vocabulary...."counter-vis"

First of all, I must say I love the Radisson in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Not only is the room clean and comfortable, the breakfast buffet is scrumptious and includes some of the greatest bacon I’ve had in a long time—plus scrambled eggs and fresh fruit. Today after a delicious breakfast and class meeting, we headed into the campaign office to start another day of canvassing. Steve and I rode with a Nashua local named Kim, a woman in her late 30s who shared with us the fact that this primary election will be the first time she’s voted in her life. According to Kim, she never really felt the need to be politically involved. Then recently a friend of Kim’s edified her of the importance of voting, particularly as a resident of the nation’s first primary state. She decided to support Hillary Clinton and has been volunteering at the Nashua office ever since.

After canvassing our first ward map, or neighborhood, Kim decided to take us to a Hillary Clinton rally at Nashua High School North. This was an amazing event which media reports estimated had an attendance of more than 1,000 people. For nearly two hours Hillary took questions from audience members and gave sincere, passionate answers on issues including her health care proposals, universal education, employment and trades training, job growth, and malpractice reform, just to name a few. This is the third time now that I have heard Hillary speak in person, and with each event it becomes clearer to me what the American people will get with a Hillary Clinton presidency: a leader who cares about the issues that truly are important to us, and who will fight for those issues on our behalf.

We canvassed again for another few hours and then headed back into the campaign office, just in time to meet up with the other three USF interns who had been canvassing with a grad student that came up to volunteer for the weekend. We were also just in time to find out that there was a “counter-visibility” event planned a few blocks away outside of Martha’s Exchange. One of the other Democratic candidates was scheduled to rally his supporters in a reception at the restaurant, and our campaign had organized this counter event in which about 50 volunteers and supporters stood across the street waving our signs and chanting our favorite Hillary cheers. We clearly had the opposition outnumbered, they only had maybe 10 or 15 people on their side, plus they only had two 4’x8’ signs, while we had six of the high-visibility 4x8s.

After about 40 minutes at the “counter-vis” event, we returned to the campaign office and learned that there was much work to be completed that night and the staff wanted the interns to stay as late as possible; I remember the number 1 or 2 AM being used. Even though we were all pretty tired after several long days of canvassing, the five of us agreed that we would stay as long as the campaign staff needed us. We filled up on coffee, brownies, pizza and all the other staples of a campaign office. Around 10 PM there was a conference call from the campaign headquarters in Manchester. According to the canvassing tallies, support for Hillary is steadily growing. It seems all the canvassing and “get out the vote” activities are moving more of the undecided voters to our side; of course having Hillary here in New Hampshire, with Bill and Chelsea by her side, may be having much more of an effect than anything else.

After the conference call we folded literature for a couple of hours. New flyers had arrived and they need to be folded and prepped for canvassers to distribute in the morning. Because of a printer problem, it was taking much longer to produce canvassing lists than had been anticipated. Since there was no immediate work to be done, our office manager Saul thanked us for our hard work and arranged a ride for us back to the hotel. Tomorrow, the final day before New Hampshire votes, will be a hectic day. I am looking forward to changing a few more minds, and moving some more undecided voters into the Hillary camp.

Hotel catches fire, but still a great day in New Hampshire

Okay, this day started out pretty normal and uneventful. We were scheduled to meet with Dante Scala, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire who authored one of our course textbooks. Breakfast went well, and the meeting with Professor Scala was going well until the fire alarms started going off in the hotel. The staff tried to reassure us that everything was under control, but within minutes the story had changed and we were all forced to evacuate. Firefighters and police arrived on the scene, and it seemed as if the fire had been isolated and would not spread beyond the small area in which it had started, thus our rooms would be safe. With this in mind, we loaded into the vans and headed out to the campaign office. Once there, we were assigned to canvass with a group of volunteers that had brought a bus up from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Their driver was not familiar with the Nashua area, and had some difficulties finding the neighborhoods assigned to our group. About an hour later, we received a call from Dr. McLauchlan informing us that we needed to come back to the hotel immediately because it was being closed pending inspection and we would only have a short window of time to get our stuff out. When we returned to the hotel all the utilities had been shut off, so we did our best to find and pack all our clothes and stuff in the dark. I know I must have left things behind, but as of now I haven’t noticed anything missing.

Luckily, we were able to find a hotel with enough rooms available to accommodate the entire class for the duration of our stay; unfortunately, it was located about a half hour away in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Our second hotel, a Radisson, seemed so luxurious compared to the Best Western. Once we all got settled in, the Clinton team (me, Adam, Steve, Debbie and Damaris) decided to grab a bite to eat. We walked over to a Chinese restaurant adjacent to the hotel and, for the first time all day, got to relax for a minute. Dinner was pretty good and it gave us all a chance to reflect on our day as well as the internship experience so far.

Later, Debbie, Damaris, Adam and I attended a debate watch party for Hillary supporters in Manchester with a gentleman they met on Friday at the 100 Club dinner, Mike Martineau. Mike was kind enough to drive all the way down to Chelmsford and take the four of us to Manchester and back. The debate was amazing; Hillary knocked all her opponents down, although there were only four candidates in the debate. Once the debate was almost over we began to see Secret Service agents coming into our debate watch party. Then we noticed that a stage and rope line had been set up in the back of the room. It was obvious to us that we were going to be receiving a very important visitor soon; sure enough, about twenty minutes after the debate ended Hillary showed up with Bill and Chelsea. Hillary spoke to the crowd for a few minutes and then began the traditional “grip and grin” along the rope line. This was the second time I had seen the Clintons in person, and it was still just as exciting as the first. Both Hillary and Bill are such wonderful people, and when you meet them in person it is really easy to feel the warmth and compassion they feel for others. Just before they left for the night, I was able to get a picture with Bill.

All in all, this day went from stressful and chaotic to blissful and exciting. This will be a day I never forget.

Meeting the Clintons

Today was absolutely the most exciting day of the internship so far; not only did we finally get to meet Hillary, we also met Bill and Chelsea. The day started extremely early, as we had to be at the Nashua Airport by 6:30 in the morning. Our assignment was to stand along the road leading into the airport and hold signs and wave to people as they showed up to the rally event, which was open to the public. We stood in the frigid cold for almost two hours, but it was completely worth it because for the first time ever I got to meet a past and a future president. We were able to get right up in the front of the crowd, and when Hillary and the family walked into the rally we were the first people they greeted. I cannot express in words how exciting it truly was to be face-to-face with such fascinating people. Hillary took the stage and gave an excellent stump speech, reminding the audience exactly why she is the most qualified candidate for president. I must say, Hillary is amazing in person, she exhibited a warm and welcoming personality and she connected with and inspired the crowd in a manner reminiscent of the Democrat’s own “Great Communicator”, Bill Clinton.

After the “Welcome to New Hampshire” rally, we headed over to the campaign office to prepare for another day of canvassing. However, instead of canvassing, we were asked to do visibility (also known as “vis”) campaigning. This type of campaigning is pretty simple, all you do is stand on a corner waving your candidate’s signs. We shuffled down to a spot known as Library Hill, a very high profile intersection on Nashua’s main drag. It was invigorating to see and hear all the drivers who honked and waved as they drove past us; of course, there were a few who drove past with their thumbs pointing down as they honked, but I guess we can’t expect everybody to realize how great Hillary will be for this country. After our visibility stint in Nashua, the campaign staff corralled us into the van and shuttled us down to Milford, NH, to do more visibility outside the 100 Club Dinner; the dinner is a fundraising event hosted by the state Democratic Party at which all of the party’s presidential candidates (at least those still in the race at this point) gave speeches. Three out of the five USF students working for Hillary’s campaign managed to get tickets to the event; Steve and I did not attend, but the event was broadcast live on CSPAN so we ordered in a pizza and watched it from the hotel room. Hillary rocked it, just as I expected.

Phone Banking and Caucus Night

When we got to the campaign office today, the place was buzzing with activity. Everything that had been upstairs was now downstairs in the basement, and we were joined by several new volunteers. My first activity of the day was phone-banking, a process which involved calling undecided voters and gauging their support for Hillary Clinton. Most people I called were not home, so I left many, many answering machine messages. Those who did answer were generally still undecided (as so many New Hampshire voters tend to be, even though there are only a few days left until the primary contest) but I did reach quite a few who had made the choice to support Senator Clinton. Still, many people who were home and did answer the phone hung up as soon as they found out I was calling from a campaign. At first I thought it was a little rude, but then I realized that these people are being called by every campaign in town, and have been receiving these calls for some time now.

After a few hours of phone canvassing, I was asked by the staff if I would mind driving the van out to the Nashua dump; all that moving and reorganizing from the morning hours had produced more garbage than could fit into the trash can outside. Always a team player (and perhaps a little exhausted with phone calls), I quickly agreed and raced up the stairs to the van. Adam came along, and we had the van emptied in no time.

When we returned to the office, we scooped up the rest of our USF team (Steve, Debbie, and Damaris) and the five of us wandered down to Martha’s Exchange, a very nice restaurant that the candidates tend to frequent while in town. Upon returning to the office, we jumped back on the phones and contacted a few dozen more undecided voters. Shortly thereafter, we were asked to do “lit drops”, a process where we went to voters’ homes and left flyers on their front doors. The flyers advertised a rally event planned for Friday morning where Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea were scheduled to arrive from Iowa. After completing this task, we headed back to the hotel to meet with Professor McLauchlan and the class to watch the Iowa caucus results. It was a little disappointing that Hillary did not take first place in Iowa, but we were not too upset; I am confident that the voters of New Hampshire will give Hillary a victory.

Field Trips and More Canvassing

Today was another fascinating day of internship. We started by taking a field trip to New Hampshire’s capital city, Concord. Our first stop was the New Hampshire State Library, where a cordial and knowledgeable gentleman named Michael Chaney gave us an overview of the state’s presidential primary history and then led us over to the Historical Society building. There we toured an exhibition titled New Hampshire: A Proven Primary Tradition which featured some notable items from primaries of the past. It was a very interesting and informative experience.

Next we met Ray Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. Mr. Buckley shared his knowledge of the party, the primary, and the issues facing the state today. The discussion was very interesting, as Mr. Buckley was able to share his insight as a campaign worker, an elected representative, and a party executive. Our next stop was at the state’s GOP headquarters, although that meeting was not nearly as engaging. The Republican chair generally stuck to his party’s talking points, and did not offer as much useful information as the Democratic chair.

After a fun day in Concord, we headed back to Nashua to Hillary’s campaign office. The staff had rented a 12-passenger van and offered it to the five of us from USF to use for canvassing. Because I am over 21 (just barely, of course!) and have experience driving all types of vehicles, I was selected as our driver for the day. Our group was joined by an interesting young woman named Elvia, a student from the University of New Hampshire. We set out canvassing the neighborhoods of Nashua and spent nearly seven hours in the field.

When our campaign work was over, we got a ride back to the hotel from a woman named Kate, who works directly for Senator Clinton. Kate shared an anecdote with us about her boss, something that seems to typify my opinion of Hillary; Kate told us that yesterday was her birthday and that Senator Clinton took time out of her busy campaign schedule in Iowa to call Kate and personally wish her a happy birthday. I have always believed that Hillary is a warm and caring person, and this just proves my point. I know that I have picked the right person to support in 2008!

Arrival and First Day of Internship

Happy New Year to everyone! We arrived in New Hampshire on Sunday, and for the first time in more than 20 years I got to play in snow! We’re staying in Nashua, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited. One thing I noticed right off the bat is how friendly people are here in New Hampshire. Every time I tell someone that I’m here to work on a presidential primary campaign I get the most positive responses, even from people who are not supporting Hillary Clinton. For example, I spent nearly thirty minutes talking to the gentleman working at the front desk of our hotel; he is supporting one of the Republican candidates (won’t say which one, don’t want to give any of Hillary’s opponents free advertising), but he was still willing to listen to my pitch about Senator Clinton. Who knows, perhaps over the next week I can convince him to cast his primary ballot for Hillary rather than the other candidate!

Monday was my first day working at Hillary’s campaign office here in Nashua. From the moment we walked in the door, the staff and volunteers made us feel right at home. Our first assignment was door-to-door canvassing. The staff had lists of likely Democratic primary voters, and our job was to knock on their doors and find out if they will be supporting Hillary. At first I thought that people would be a little peeved at us for bothering them, but these New Hampshire voters seem to really enjoy the personal contact. One thing I did notice though was that the vast majority of them said that they are still undecided as to which candidate they will vote for in the upcoming primary, which is only a week away at this point.

After canvassing for the first part of the day, our next assignment was to place yard signs all over the city. We broke up into teams of two and each team was responsible for a specific part of town. It was amazing this morning to see all the Hillary Clinton signs lining almost every street we drove down; there were far more Hillary signs than any other candidate. I am confident that Senator Clinton will win the New Hampshire primary, and I am very happy that I will be here when she does!