Primary Thoughts

It is the eve of the NH Primary. I have done my best to evaluate the top (in my opinion) 3 Democratic candidates and have arrived at my choice. Last night I attended a Hillary Clinton event in Hampton, as I didn't want my decision to rest on having seen Bill as her surrogate at UNH on Friday. I was seated with an overflow crowd of about 750 in the Winnacunnet High School auditorium, and we could hear her broadcast from the cafeteria. I was suitably impressed.

Today, I went as a volunteer to a Hillary event in Dover. I was to do "visibility" outside. No one from the local office was there to direct me, so I stood with a "totem" sign with another woman for a while, and then thought that the sign stuck into a snowbank was just about as effective as my holding on to it. So....I went inside while the fire marshalls were still letting people in.

Almost immediately I saw Brett Chamberlin, an Oyster River student who was tremendously helpful at last year's peace conference. He saw me and came right over, flashing a "media" pass. I asked him if he was representing Mouth of the River, and he said no, WUNH, the campus radio station. Immediately he held his videocamera in my face and asked me why I was there. (He and I had already met up at the Bill Clinton event on the UNH campus). I said all the right stuff about wanting to really make sure of my decision, and then, looking around the small gymnasium, I said quite honestly, "I'm here for the sheer spectacle! This is democracy in action!!" He thanked me and moved on. And really, the media, the signs, the crowd, the loud background music and the energy of the whole thing is quite phenomenal.

Last Friday, I had already had interesting encounters at campaign events - a guy in a cowboy hat and I talked for quite some time at the Obama event, and he was later interviewed by the media after he asked a question - and I had been interviewed by David Cohen, and enjoyed asking him questions as well.

Today, was no exception. As I stood holding one of the "totem" signs that had fallen off and I had picked up, figuring that I could claim to be doing "visibility" inside the gymnasium, I was approached by a handsome young man in a long black top coat, leading with a large microphone and trailed by a guy carrying a humongous t.v. camera. He asked if he could ask me some questions, and indicated that he was from Spanish (as in Spain) t.v. I said "sure," and he started in, primarily asking if I were disappointed by today's poll numbers showing Obama leading Clinton. I said that until the last votes were in, that I refused to be disappointed when the election hasn't yet been held, or words to that effect. He asked me a few more questions, and thanked me and moved on. "Spanish t.v.," I thought. "Huh!" Today Dover, tomorrow, the world!

I then entered into a conversation with a guy who was standing near me who edged my way after seeing me interviewed. He probably thought I was some campaign bigwig. He wanted to know if I had decided to vote for Hillary, and I said yes. He indicated that he was undecided and wanted to hear her and Obama today. It emerged that he had been an English teacher in a community college in the Berkshires and that we knew a Peace Studies instructor there. We were deep in conversation, with me trying to explain my position for Hillary and him saying why he was leaning toward Obama, when the next media person approached. This time it was John Ibbitson, a columnist for Canada's paper The Globe and Mail. He interviewed me and shared some of his thoughts on the primary and how he wanted to go home to Canada. I continued to chat with the other English teacher, who, it turned out, was from Maine. That's one of the interesting things that emerged over these few days: many of the attendees at these events were actually from out of state, taking advantage of the NH primary to get first-hand looks at the candidates.

As with every event I attended (except the John Edwards event which started remarkably close to the advertised start time), the candidate was very late, and I had plenty of time to talk to Emily Rice, a former student who is at UVM, and Lisa MacFarlane, an English professor at UNH whom I know. She was also undecided, and we talked extensively about our thoughts on the candidates. Clinton finally arrived, gave a few openng remarks which resembled last night's remarks but were a bit different, and turned the floor over to questions. I really am in awe of her ability to answer questions on a huge range of topics (from the assasination of Benazir Bhutto to how she would help support the non-profit sector) and never even put in a single "um." She rarely slipped into "canned" answers and she never sidestepped a question unless you count the question where she was asked what she would do if intelligence that was 80% reliable showed that Iran was about to launch a nuclear missle at the U.S., in which case she suggested that she would rather not speculate about that and instead would rather talk about how she would attempt to use diplomacy to stop the development of nuclear weapons in Iran.

At the end of the session, the Secret Service closed in around her, scanning the crowd carefully as she made her way around the room shaking hands and talking individually to people in attendance. I was just too far back to shake her hand, but Lisa MacFarlane, who was undecided, made it through the crowd to shake her hand AND to get her autograph on a sign. When she turned to walk out of the crowd and back toward me, I suggested that perhaps she had made up her mind. "She's making it hard for me, that's for sure," she said. At that moment, we were approached by a WINS NY media person who interviewed both of us. In the meantime, Emily Rice, who had brought the Christmas card sent out by the Clintons (why didn't I think of that?) had also reached the front of the crowd to get an autograph.

One of the most amazing parts of this experience is that I have left the different events with my own very definite perceptions of the candidate and his/her answers to questions, a feeling for the excitement of the crowd and the make-up of the crowd. I have been surprised, even shocked, to read the media coverage and watch the evening news coverage of the same events,to hear the sometmes skewed perceptions being put forth by the commentators. It should be a requirement for every American to attend the campaign events and match up their perceptions with the media's, and hopefully begin to realize just how the media puts a spin on things.

I heard tonight how there was no energy at the Dover event; that it was a crowd of gray-haireds, of how tired Hillary was; how she had seemed as if she had already accepted defeat. You know what I say to all of that? Hogwash! The media has decided she will lose; the media has annointed Obama; the media has ignored Richardson and Kucinich and have fed the American people some very big half-truths about what has been going on in NH. The primary tomorrow in one of the smallest states in this nation, should not be the deciding factor as to which candidates become the nominees of their party, and, in fact, it won't be, but the media would like us to believe that it is. That, coupled with the endless hype over Obama's win in Iowa, sways people to think that they should vote for him because he is the winner - no one likes to think that he/she is throwing their vote away on someone who clearly can't win. Somehow, what seems like a reasonable method for choosing nominees, has been perverted by the spinmeisters in the media. You've got to wonder who stands to benefit if Obama is the nominee? Or, conversely, who is afraid of seeing Clinton or Edwards win the nomination? Tomorrow, it will be over for NH. Dixville Notch will have voted for John McCain (my prediction), the hordes of press people will have departed, and all that will be left is the candidate's signs, stuck in grimy snowbanks. The NH economy will be several million dollars richer, and we can sit back and pass the decision-making torch to the Maine caucuses and the Super Tuesday primaries. Good luck and God speed!!