New Hampshire Basks In Presidential Primary Limelight

Monday, December 03, 2007

Oct. 29, 2007 (KGO) -- The state of New Hampshire is battling to keep its oversized influence on picking our next president. The New Hampshire primary is currently scheduled for January 22nd, less than three months away. However, because other states have been moving their primaries forward, New Hampshire will, too, probably no later than January 8th.

For 10 days we had a team of seniors and graduates from Berkeley's political science department working for us as researchers in New Hampshire. They've been under the direction of U.C.'s political expert and our political analyst, Professor Bruce Cain. Our goal was to look at what the New Hampshire primary means to California and the presidential campaigns.

Outside a Hillary Clinton town hall meeting in Salem, New Hampshire, a team of U.C. students and graduates survey voters.

For 10 days they've camped out at Professor Bruce Cain's family compound in New Hampshire looking at voting trends, and how the candidates' speeches and campaigns differ between California and New Hampshire.

California has more than 10 times New Hampshire's delegates, but presidential candidates and the reporters who follow them are spending much more time in New Hampshire.

Even as other states crowd their primaries into January and February, New Hampshire voters are getting more attention. U.C. Berkeley grad Gray Chynoweth is president of the New Hampshire Young Democrats.

"Contrary to what some people might believe, I think that tightening the process makes New Hampshire that much more important," says Chynoweth.

Chynoweth believes whoever wins here will not only be propelled to frontrunner status, but if the next contest is only a week after New Hampshire, losers will have little time to recoup.

The man we visited at the New Hampshire State House is the one man who decides when New Hampshire holds its primary. It's his job to insure New Hampshire goes first.

"It allows for the person who doesn't have the most fame or the most money to come here and have a chance," says New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner.

Gardner says because New Hampshire is first, candidates give the state more attention. Voters want and expect to meet presidential candidates in person.

"Well, if you know how to evaluate people like we do, you look at them when you're talking with them and people's body language and personal expressions tell you a great deal about them," says Evelyn Marconi of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

"I think you get a sense of their truthfulness, of the clarity of their answer," says Ralph Gault of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

And New Hampshire voters reward those candidates who deliver. In the 2000 presidential race, Senator John McCain held 125 town hall meetings in New Hampshire.

"And he answered question after question after question and he stayed until the last person who wanted to ask a question was able to do it," says Gardner.

McCain, who had been trailing Texas Governor George W. Bush by 20 points, wound up beating the favorite by almost 20 points. Ultimately, McCain didn't win his party's nomination, but Gardner says at least New Hampshire gave McCain a chance.

"If we're going to keep the American dream alive that any person's son or daughter can someday grow up to be president, a state like this provides that opportunity," says Gardner.

And it's a big opportunity. In the past 50 years the Democratic winner of the New Hampshire primary has gone on to win the party's nomination 71-percent of the time.

On the Republican side it's even more impressive. Eleven out of 14 times or 78-percent of the time, New Hampshire's voters picked the party's eventual nominee. A lot of clout for a small state that doesn't look much like the rest of the country and especially not California.

"I've got a skateboard, I used to surf... so we're not that far removed," says Wayne Semprini, Giuliani's New Hampshire .

Rudy Giuliani's New Hampshire campaign chairman doesn't agree that we're that different, but unlike California, New Hampshire is a swing state. Voters here tell us immigration and global warming are not among their top issues. The population of New Hampshire is almost completely white -- 94-percent.

At the State House I asked Secretary of State Gardner why a very few mostly white well-off voters in a tiny state should have that kind of power.

"Do I have to look like you to understand you?" asks Gardner.

You don't have to look like someone to understand them, but ABC7 political analyst Bruce Cain believes you do have to live like them.

"And the fact of the matter is we walked though New Hampshire and we didn't see anything that even remotely looks like South Central Los Angeles or like East Los Angeles or like the barrios of San Diego," says Professor Cain.

Professor Cain says people in New Hampshire don't know the problems of poverty and don't have the experience to make political judgments on behalf of those who do. Gardner says New Hampshire voters are not insensitive to California issues.

"We also don't think that a tradition that goes back, a very unique one, should be just done away with," says Gardner.

Bill Gardner is committed to keeping New Hampshire first in the nation, but he has still not decided when New Hampshire will hold its primary. He's waiting until all the other states decide. And he can afford to wait. New Hampshire voters go to the polls so often they can mount an election in a couple of weeks. No other state can match that.

ABC7 Extra
>> VIDEO: Click here to watch the complete interview with Bill Gardner >> VIDEO: Click here to watch Professor Bruce Cain's response to Gardner's comments

The Back Story Blog
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