Ok, that's really my whole story. I mean, I'm not such a crack interviewer that anything very unusual was said, but the point is, John Kerry's people are reaching out to New Hampshire bloggers and he called me this morning and we talked for a while.
He'll be speaking at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Manchester this evening; he said that at that speech he would continue his focus of several years on "the sequence of lies and deceptions of this administration with respect to Iraq, and the disaster that Iraq is today." He also mentioned the administration's "irresponsibility with regard to North Korea and Iran," identifying all of this as "Setting us back in war on terror and relationships with other countries" and "blocking our ability to move forward in critical areas like global warming."
I asked specifically for his take on the New Hampshire congressional races, and he echoed some of the things he said in today's excellent
Monitor story on his support for Paul Hodes (the story is mislabeled as being about the first district). Specifically, he told me that
Charlie Bass and Jeb Bradley have helped to rubber-stamp these policies [mentioned above] - they have not done their job of acting as independent voices. The New Hampshire ethic has been broken by both as they've walked in lockstep with Bush.
In contrast, he said,
Both Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter offer independent voices to move the country in the right direction. New Hampshire should embrace them boldly and strongly.
He mentioned a number of other New Hampshire candidates he has supported in various ways, including Molly Kelly, Sylvia Larsen, Betsi DeVries, Iris Estabrook, and Elizabeth Roth (all strong state senate candidates - we have Molly Kelly on our Blue Hampshire ActBlue page, but all are worthy), in addition to his support of the state party.
Kerry particularly emphasized the need to focus on and fight for next month's elections, saying
November 7 is all about that and we've got to get people geared up to stand up and fight. You can't sit in a coffee shop and complain and you can't go out for a foliage walk without standing up for New Hampshire and fighting for it.
He concluded that
If New Hampshire fights as hard as in 2004, we can win seats, and that's what's important. New Hampshire has proven we can do it.
And he's right. We need to be out, working hard for this election. Don't sit and wait for the campaign staff to do the work - go out and do it yourself, as much as you can. This should be an effort of every Democrat in the state, because it will be to the benefit of the whole state and the whole country.
(Crossposted at Blue Granite)