Reflections on my New Hampshire Internship

At one point in my internship I compared my New Hampshire experience to my initiation week when I joined a fraternity. Back then I referred to initiation week as "one of the best experiences of my life which I would prefer to never endure again." I was wrong; less than one week later I am already missing the campaign trail.

As much as I love the wonderful weather in Florida, there is so much I miss about New Hampshire. I miss the good-spirited people that listened to what I had to say, even though they had been hearing much of it for over a year. I miss the engaged electorate, the honking horns of cars passing by, and the intensity of people's convictions...even the convictions of those supporting other candidates. I miss the late night discussions with my classmates about the candidates and campaigns. I am sure I could go on...

Less than a week after arriving home I find myself looking over the list of places which will vote on Super Duper Tuesday and tracking down my new friends from the trenches of Nashua. Most appear to be headed for New Jersey, but there are also others in Connecticut and Massachusetts. It may be time to cash in those frequent flyer miles, pack my bags, and put those boots I bought a few weeks ago back to work. I will probably decide in a few days. Once I decide, I'll come back and post it here. Anyone else interested in going on the road?

Day Ten Recap - Tuesday, January 8th (Election Day)

This picture is of me with my fellow USF intern, Debbie, and our new friend, Kim, at Hillary's victory party on election night in Manchester.

This is a video of Hillary's victory speech on election night in Manchester, NH.

Tuesday, Election Day, was everything I thought it would be and more! Our wake-up call came at 3:30 am, which was a little rough considering I had arrived back at the hotel after midnight. I decided to walk downstairs and get some fresh air.

When I opened the door to the hotel hallway, a copy of Tuesday's USA Today was located by our door. I picked it up, and, to my dismay, I found a new New Hampshire poll on the front page. I didn't write down the exact numbers, but I believe it was something along the lines of Obama 42, Clinton 29. There were a few other polls floating around that showed Obama opening up a lead, yet there were a few others that showed Senator Clinton down 3-6 points. I had not seen any polls over the past few days with Senator Clinton in the lead.

It was definitely deflating to see that poll, but I did remember back in 2000 that the New Hampshire polls showed George Bush and John McCain deadlocked going into the primary. McCain won that race by a 49%-31% margin. There was a little hope for us; also, despite the polls showing us losing ground, this was completely unnoticeable on the ground on Sunday and Monday. The crowd at the Nashua high school on Sunday was overflowing; there were thousands of people in line to get in to the event. Furthermore, while doing visibility, we were getting "honks" at a rate of 3-1 or better from drivers when we were situated near the Obama folks, primarily from women. While I was skeptical of anyone that suggested that we were leading or that we would win, I did feel that we would not do quite as poorly as the polls suggested.

Our ride showed up a little later than expected and we did not get into the office until about 6 am. We were given a list of supporters and some door hangers to place on their doornobs, reminding them to vote. After lunch we were dispatched to a polling location in Nashua to do visibility. We were expected to do well in Nashua, but I was floored by the response we were getting while waving our signs along a busy intersection. There were about a dozen Obama volunteers/staff and only three of us, yet we were getting almost all of the honks! It seemed like every woman between 30-60 was honking when passing us by. I ended up making a phone call to someone I knew "in the know" and was told that, according to their numbers, we were within two percent of Obama based on exit interviews. At that point, I think all three of us got a second wind and we did not let up for a minute. In fact, after we went back canvassing, we practically had to restrain Debbie at 7:55 pm so we could go back to the office :) I was practically a cripple by the time we got back into the office. (I had blisters on both feet and a pretty bad knee sprain that was acting up from a few days before.)

One other note too...we were checking on supporters to make sure if they voted on foot (and practically stalked the homes of those not home); out of the 50-75 houses I visited personally, only one had not voted and they were just waiting for their wife to come home from work. (I later saw them walking to their polling location, which was only a few blocks away from their house.) At this point, I knew we were in the game. We were getting our vote out!

Most of our USF crew was too exhausted to hang around, so they went back to the hotel to watch the results come in on election night. Me and Debbie hung around the Nashua VFW post, our staging ground for the day, to hear the local results. Hillary carried all nine wards in Nashua and received 118% of the vote goal set for the local office! Also, despite results coming in from rural areas, suburbs, and college towns, Senator Clinton's lead was holding up. Debbie, our friend Kim from Nashua, and I decided to go up to Manchester for the victory rally, having faith that we were going to win. About midway to Manchester one of the major news networks called the race for Hillary! WOOOHOOOOOO!

I also wanted to take a minute to say something about our new friend Kim. A lot has been said about how Barack Obama has inspired young people to vote and/or caucus in large numbers and there is certainly a lot of truth to it. But there's another story here as well. Kim had never voted in her life. She heard Hillary speak and it inspired her to act. She registered to vote, volunteered for the campaign regularly (long before we were around), and she even took a friend with her to the polls. Senator Clinton has inspired new voters as well; I think many of the pundits mistakenly thought that Obama had a monopoly on these new voters. Something special happened in New Hampshire, and almost all of us (including myself to a degree), didn't see it coming!

Day Nine Recap - Monday, January 7th (Election Eve)

This is an example of what visibility is like. This photo is not of any of the USF crew, but it is a video of a group of Hillary supporters at one of our key "vis" locations, "Library Hill" in downtown Nashua, NH. Too bad these folks weren't doing any of the Hillary chants though.

This is a video with some clips from Hillary's last rally before election day at the Manchester, NH airport.

Monday, Election Eve, was a beautiful day. Sure, it was a bit cloudy, but it was pushing 50 degrees. After experiencing some really nasty weather around the middle of last week, this was a Godsend. We spent most of the day canvassing key neighborhoods in Nashua, but there were a few different things we did too.

While we were picking up a canvassing packet around noon, we were told that a huge herd of Obama folks were up on Library Hill and they were really loud. (There's more about Library Hill in another blog entry.) We had a few people across the street from Obama's people but they were overwhelmed. About 20-25 of us were immediately sent up to Library Hill with reinforcements (signs, totems, etc.). We ended up drowning out the Obama people and they eventually left :) We then took their ideal position on Library Hill and kept about a dozen people on site to make sure we held it all the way through the rush hour.

Also, once we were done canvassing for the day, a bunch of us went up to the Manchester, NH airport to attend Hillary's late night rally, her last of the campaign in New Hampshire prior to the opening of the polls. It was nice to hear her speak and remind us all why we were up there working so hard for her election.

Day Eight Recap - Sunday, January 6th

Hillary was drawing huge crowds all weekend even though the polls showed Obama opening up a big lead. Here's some footage of the line to get into her Sunday event at a Nashua, NH high school.

Things were really getting fired up on Sunday around the campaign office. Volunteers and staff were treated to some brief speeches by officeholders present to fire up the troops. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave an impassioned speech in the basement of Hillary's Nashua headquarters; he was also joined by Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and a few members of the Massachusetts legislature. When we were leaving the office, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) was also walking up to the office.

On Sunday, Emilio and I had the pleasure of working with a nice woman named Kim; I'll write more about her later. We did visibility at the Nashua high school where Hillary was holding her afternoon event and we also attended the event as well. Things were a bit different compared to the Friday morning rally. Hillary was more proactive at differentiating her record and experience with that of Senator Obama. Furthermore, she took dozens of questions from the audience. In fact, my feet were sore from standing through the whole thing! The questions were diverse but she handled them all like a candidate with a great command of the issues.

After the Hillary event, we spent most of the day canvassing some middle-class wards in Nashua and we finished up the night doing counter-visibility across the street from John Edwards' Meet and Greet event at Martha's Exchange, a popular Nashua restaurant. (They deserved it too; they were passing out flyers outside the Clinton afternoon event.)

Day Seven Recap - Saturday, January 5th

Believe it or not, this was the hotel I was staying at in Nashua along with my other classmates and about 75 members of the Arkansas Travelers, a group of Hillary supporters from Arkansas. You can read the Nashua Telegraph article here.

We began Saturday by having Professor Dante Scala, author of one of the books we have read for this class, lead us in a discussion of his theory of New Hampshire presidential primaries. During our discussion, the fire alarm in the hotel went off; however, we were assured that the fire was contained and we continued class. After our discussion we were dropped off at our campaigns and I didn't dwell on the fire much.

The campaign office was buzzing like never before. There must have been 200 or so people in the office and dozens more in buses outside the office. People had come in from the Boston, New York City, and Washington DC areas, among others, to work on Hillary's campaign for the day and get out the vote! People were constantly coming and going and I wouldn't be surprised if 500 or more volunteers came through our office on Saturday.

The five of us were put on a bus with a group of people that came in from Cape Cod for the day; however, before getting out to our destination, we found out that the hotel fire had spread and we were without a place to stay. We were brought back to the hotel and gathered our things. We were then moved to a Radisson hotel in northern Massachusetts for the remainder of our trip. I was lucky to get all of my belongings and they were okay, but many of my classmates had items damaged from the water the firefighters used to control the blaze.

As far as campaigning goes, the day was a total loss; however, as a result, I was able to watch the debates that night with my classmates from the other campaigns. We were also able to have dinner with one of our classmates, Rebekah, and celebrate her 19th birthday with her :)

Day Six Recap - Friday, January 4th

This is the WMUR (Manchester, NH) coverage of Hillary's rally at the Nashua airport on January 4th, the day after the Iowa caucuses.

Senator Clinton posed for a picture with USF Team Hillary at her rally in Nashua on Friday morning.


While the senator was speaking, Former President Clinton was listening to her while standing just a few feet away from us.


This is a picture of me and a friend, Adam, doing visibility at Library Hill in downtown New Hampshire.

Friday was intense! We were picked up at 6:15 am to go do visibility out at the Nashua airport before Senator Clinton's morning rally. It was 4 degrees with a -14 degree wind chill factor. We went inside after a few hours and luckily secured an awesome spot at the front of the venue, right next to where the Clintons were due to come into the building. All five us shook the hands of Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea and had our pictures taken with them. The television camera does not do Senator Clinton justice. After hearing her speak in person, I was incredibly impressed and certain that I had made the right choice when choosing a candidate. She is clearly ready for this job and I have no doubts.

After the rally, we returned to headquarters in Nashua and were dispatched to Library Hill (in downtown Nashua) to do some visibility work with our totems. About 1 pm we were whisked away in a van to do visibility outside the location of the state Democratic party's "100 Club" dinner. After returning to the hotel I was exhausted and fell asleep fully clothed on top of my bed with no blankets. I did not wake up until it was almost time to leave the next morning.

Day Five Recap - Thursday, January 3rd

On caucus night, Hillary showed that she is a candidate with class in her concession speech in Iowa.

Remember how I said that Wednesday was very cold? I take that back. Thursday was much, much worse. In fact, we didn't even go canvassing during the day on Thursday. We phone banked all day, which, I must say, truly stunk. It became painfully obvious that New Hampshire residents were getting tired of all the phone calls from the different campaigns.

We also found out that Hillary is going to be at the Nashua airport on Thursday morning for her first rally in New Hampshire after the Iowa caucuses! We dropped off some flyers at the homes of supporters that lived out by the airport and finished up the night of work a bit early. We then met up with the class to watch the caucus results come in over dinner. Unfortunately, Hillary finished third, but, as a friend said, "Iowa picks corn, New Hampshire picks presidents!"

Day Four Recap - Wednesday, January 2nd

When I woke up this morning I was sick as a dog. Sore throat, cough, chest congestion, stuffed-up nose were among my symptoms. Despite that, I just took some over-the-counter meds and pressed forward.

The class went up to Concord this morning and visited the Republican and Democratic state party headquarters, as well as the New Hampshire Primary exhibit at the state library. We had some discussion about the new civil unions law with the state Democratic chair and we discussed the exclusion of minor candidates from debates with his Republican counterpart.

There wasn't much glamor at the campaign today...just hard work on a very cold day. The campaign let us use a van they had rented and the five of us on Hillary's campaign worked with a delightful and interesting Nashua resident, Evie. Early in the day there was some decision on how to divide up the houses to visit, so I tried to take charge a bit. In return, I was dubbed "Chavez", after Venezuela's president/dictator, Hugo Chavez.

Day Three Recap - Tuesday, January 1st

This is a pic of USF Team Hillary building totems for sign-waving!

I just finished a very long day a short time ago. We had class today at 8 am over breakfast and listened to a discussion between our professor and an University of Iowa professor about the Iowa caucuses and how they operate. Afterwards we headed out to our respective campaigns and our team arrived at Hillary's Nashua headquarters shortly before 10 am. We did some light office tasks and put together some signs for sign waving (visibility) until 12 pm; at that time we broke into teams and went canvassing.

We finished canvassing about 8:30-8:45 pm and came back to the office. Shortly thereafter we had dinner at hq, helped out with various tasks around the office, and put together the rest of the signs for visibility. We finished working for the night at 10:30 pm...nearly a 13 hour day of work!

Day Two Recap - Monday, December 31st

The USF Road to the White House class posing for a New Year's photograph with our 2008 glasses.

OK, I can't spill any inside secrets on the campaign, so I'll try to speak in generalities. We spent most of the day canvassing. At one point I actually met someone that grew up in my hometown, Akron, Ohio, who graduated from the same high school as my dad. Small world, huh? I even had the opportunity to use some of my Spanish language skills in Nashua when speaking with some voters. I must say that canvassing seemed a little awkward at first; however, after a few hours it was just like my days as a candidate pounding the shoe leather seven years ago.

After canvassing we also put yard signs all over Nashua. It was awesome the next morning to see the hundreds of signs we had all over town because of the work of our team! Senator Clinton clearly had the best presence in the entire town.

The entire class met for dinner on New Year's Eve and it was clear, after speaking to our other classmates, that the Hillary campaign was clearly the most enthusiastic, organized, and efficient operation. Furthermore, the team was very welcoming and happy to see all FIVE of us when we showed up to help!

Day One Recap - Sunday, December 30th

That's me slurping down some coffee while waiting to board the plane to Manchester, NH.


Many of my classmates were seeing snow for the first time.

I was up until about 1 am getting ready for my trip on Saturday night/Sunday morning and woke up at 5:30 am to get ready to go to the airport. About 10 minutes down the road, I realized that I forgot my computer power cord so I had to turn back and get it. Check-in went in well and the security line wasn't so bad. Before I knew it the plane had landed in New Hampshire. I immediately went outside to see what the weather was like and it wasn't too bad... about 30 degrees and not too much wind. Me and another classmate, Emilio, befriended a fellow college student from New Hampshire with the intention of converting her to Hillary, but we didn't have to do it because she was already on our side; we weren't wasting any time getting to work :)

After settling into the hotel we went to Walmart to pick up some necessities: gloves, water, soda, etc. Later that night we all had dinner as a class and then hung out, chatted about politics, etc. Most of us were exhausted from the long day and called it a night early after trying to make snowmen and getting into some snowball fights. Many of my classmates were seeing snow for the first time.