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Lessons from New Hampshire
I have to say I’ll never look at a primary election the same after being in New Hampshire. It’s intense, exciting, fun, and somewhat insane.
I was able to attend Mitt Romney’s get out the vote speech to his volunteers the night before the polls opened. It was a decent sized room packed with hundreds of people. And without much ventilation it got hot and stuffy fast, but no one seemed to mind since their presidential hopeful was just about to arrive.
When Romney arrived the shouts of Mitt, Mitt, Mitt got louder and louder as he made his way threw the crowd. Every major TV network and local station was there filming and yelling at people to sit down and get out of the camera’s shot.
Even with all the media attention the speech was aimed at thanking all the volunteers and just making them feel good for all the hard work they put in. And he poked fun several times at Howard Dean’s infamous yell. It was a pep talk I think would have been good for the rest of the voting public to see instead of the normal highly calculated candidate that has been criticized by pundits because he seems too perfect to be a real person when he’s in front of the cameras during many of his national appearances.
I also had the chance to attend John McCain’s downtown Manchester rally before Election Day. Speaking to a crowd potentially full of independent voters he seemed as if a coach giving a speech to mentally prepare the team to go out and crush someone. He came across as strong, powerful, and talked as if he could take on and come out a victor against anything. That must have been what many New Hampshire voters were looking for because he obviously did well at the polls.
So it’s back to Utah now with a fond farewell to Manchester. And I hope I’m not too disappointed on February fifth back home when I don’t see all the politicking that has completely consumed this little New England state.
