Cross Posted on Bluehampshire
After the Florida debacle I decided that I was going to become an active participant in the political process. If I was going to complain (and how could I not complain about the Bush administration) then I needed to take action. Since I live in NH the opportunity to meet and hear all the candidates didn’t even require much of a road trip. I chose John Edwards and jumped into the political process. I learned to Blog (mostly on the Edwards web site), I made phone calls, I held signs and I met many other NH residents, who like me, decided that sitting on the sidelines was no longer an option. It seemed to me that Edwards and Dean attracted the most newcomers while Kerry had the "institutional" support. There was a lot of enthusiasm, energy and talent working hard to get a Democrat in the White House.
The Edwards campaign didn’t have a large organization in NH in those days. Much of the focus was Manchester based. My husband and I actually spent some time traveling to different events to "help build" the crowds. Between Clark, Kerry & Dean there really wasn’t much public attention span left.
Around this time, late November, early December ‘03 the campaign scheduled a town hall in my small Lakes Region town. I described it in a Blog diary as the most Republican town, in a Republican region, of a Republican state. I spent two days at the town dump passing out fliers, we called every Democrat and Undeclared in town and we put fliers on cars in parking lots for miles around. The final count (which included the janitor) was about 100. We were thrilled. All our worries about not having a good event were proven wrong. Of course Bush won the general in this town ... and it’s still a Republican town in a republican region of a BLUE STATE!!!!!! Progress.
This year, about a week before Thanksgiving I received a call that John Edwards would be holding a town hall in Meredith on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. First thing first, I rescheduled my holiday plans to be back in town Saturday night. The Saturday before Thanksgiving we canvassed the walk-able parts of town with fliers of the event. The local campaign worker asked if he could use our house for a phone bank on Tuesday evening. I was happy to have them use our house since we were out of town and wouldn’t be able to make calls ourselves. I didn’t see an announcement in the paper, it didn’t get on Bluehampshire until I posted it myself on Saturday and I made about 50 calls Saturday night and mostly left messages. That’s it. I’m more dedicated to an Edwards win than ever but our life is not as flexible as it was four years ago. Jobs have gone overseas.
The day of the event, we finally got the "big" sign we’d been asking about. Our property backs up to the main road in town and is a prime sign position. It’s also directly across the street from the restaurant where the event was being held. Last time I posted a whole diary with photo’s of hanging the sign. This time it was just my husband and me working together to get the damn thing up! Since this was the same spot the Kerry Edwards and John Lynch signs were hung we knew what we were doing. Of course there were glitches and it took more time than it should have so we were running late.
Did I mention that I was going to introduce John Edwards? Well I wrote a speech – sort of.
Here are my notes:
Here we are Lucky us NH see candidates not filtered
Responsibility to the rest of the country
My considerations:
Environment
Healthcare
Position in the world/poverty/peace
Education
Not only right on the issues I care about but leads
Combined with life story – not the traditional child of wealth and privilege who excels and decides that being president is the next rung on the ladder – His story is an American story of hard work and talent resulting in outstanding results and the desire to serve the country which helped him succeed.
So – conclusion – I chose John Edwards as my candidate because I trust him to fight for me and for us to get out country back! Please help me welcome the next president of the US.
Not bad huh? I used most of it. Thing is, there were about 300 people packed into a room which would have been crowded with 200. I met John on the other side and we walked through the kitchen and came into the room from the front. I was astounded. This was a room full of NH voters! So I started my speech with "Who says this is a Republican strong hold? I don’t think so!" I think I made most of the points from my speech but since I didn’t check my notes I’m not sure. Turns out the people in the back couldn’t hear me anyway even with the mike.
John was great. Do you really think I would say anything else? Actually he started out slowly and talked more than I thought he would. But he gained momentum, answered the questions very well and then finished with an appeal for the votes and an explanation of why he was running. This was not an easy crowd. There were Kucinich and Obama supporters in the room. Hillary actually has a foothold in town based on Bill’s run because they had a friend from Arkansas who had relocated to Meredith. Bill visited the high school twice so there are pockets of locals who support Hillary.
That said, the applause was loud and long. Several people came up to me and offered to help with the campaign. One said she wanted a big sign like mine now that she knew who her candidate was. Another needed two bumper stickers to put over her Obama stickers on her car. I wonder how deep the stickers will be, one over the other, before this is done.
A man with a big microphone came up and asked if I minded being interviewed for Fox radio. I agreed gingerly. I think he was trying to get a little controversy with his questions. What he didn’t know was that my husband was standing behind him making faces. I focused on being really clear and not saying anything that could be cut down to mean something different while trying to sound natural.
So, I read the Blogs and hear the news. Hillary is in the lead and Obama is the only one with a chance of catching her. I am an optimist and I never quit so take my opinion with that in mind. This race in NH is wide open, most people have not decided who they are going to vote for and John Edwards has a much better shot this time than last. He has to work harder in NH than the others but that’s OK because he knows how to work hard and get results.
I chose John Edwards because I trust him to fight for me and you to get our county back.