After Iowa, I've been in DC during the week. There, I read the establishment gloating behind John Kerry's media momentum, heard bs that integrating the internet with politics is over-rated (not understood, yes, but over-rated, no), and finally, just glad to get out of the City of Fearful Democrats, and into New Hampshire.
On the ground, Friday AM in Manchester, got ahold a copy of The Telegraph, Union Leader, and the Concord Monitor, and headed into a diner to dive into what's being written about the candidates. The local read seemed more national than it should be, with a lot of emphasis on the polling, but at least there was balanced coverage, unlike the DM Register's open bias against Dean.
I went and visited the defunct Gephardt HQ that's being turned into a last moment Kerry-funded phone bank, then attended an event with the frontrunner Kerry, took a glimpse of the gears in the Dean machine in a couple of places, and listened to the radio for the day. I'll write about it all in a follow-up post later. First, the lay of the land.
New Hampshire is a landmine for political polls and predictions-- read Graveyard of Pollsters for a quick summary on the quagmire. But it's a thing of beauty to political junkies. If you want a good up-to-date overview to bone up quick on NH Presidential politics, grab Stormy Weather, by Dante Scala. Others I like are Grass Roots, by Dayton Duncan, on the quirky 1988 scene in NH; and the ultimate detail-filled opus of a campaign in the Granite State, 1968, McCarthy, New Hampshire.
In 2000, 156K voted in the Democratic primary. In 2004, the SoS is predicting 184K, featuring 140K Democrats and 44K independents. It could even be higher (the Republican Primary in 2000 had nearly 240K voters) if more independents show up at the polls.
The key ingredients this year are the near 20 percent undecided voters, a open Dem primary to independents (without a competitive Republican primary), and voters who increasingly just love to wait till the last moment to decide, or change their mind.