Driving down from North Conway this morning, from around 9 am until I arrived at 2 pm, I stopped by in the towns on the way, checking for campaign volunteer visibility (sign holders that love honks & waves). Carroll, Belknap, and Merrimack county. Dean visibility in these three counties is very strong, double any of the others. Dean's is followed by Clark & the further south I came, Kerry and Edwards, in sheer presence. Here in Manchester, I walked over to the CNN building, took the elevator to the 3rd floor, on the lefthand side is the entrance of the Kerry HQ's, to the right, CNN. The crew there is very large, over 100 in a wide open space, but no access for the curious onlookers...
I got a call then from Matt Stoller of BOP, who walked across Bridge Street to meet me, and we headed into the neighborhood, Ward 4 of Manchester, to get a feel for what was happening. After a stop at a Republican coffee shot that had a soy mocha, we find the Elementary school where the voting is happening. Matt, doing exit polling, elicited an exchange with an independent single mother who'd decided to vote in the Democratic primary. When Matt asked her when the tipping or breaking point occurred, her New England accent broke out:
...that whole 'going to Mars' thing. Bush says there's not enough money for the schools, but remember the whole "no child left behind" stuff? And now there's money to go to Mars? What's he gonna do now, go and screw up another planet?
I talk & bond with the poll watcher for the Dean campaign, he's standing outside in the cold all day, getting the attention of voters as them come out of the school. The Dean voters check-in after they vote -- from a list of 1's and 2's, they get marked off-- and then there's "Dean voters" who are not on his list, which is a good sign. Now back at the Dean field office, it's all hands to the phones for the last couple hours of GOTV. Things are nip-and-tuck between Kerry and Dean, every vote counts.