Political intimacy fades in New Hampshire

Guest posted by David Lightman at 11 a.m. CST

Times and campaigns are changing in New Hampshire, as the Hartford Courant reports today....

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High-Speed Politics Invades Granite State

By DAVID LIGHTMAN
Washington Bureau Chief

February 24 2007

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- Some classic New Hampshire moments:

Ronald Reagan's white breath in the bitter cold as he walked around the streets of Manchester in 1980, what seemed at the time to be the last fight of a 69-year-old.

Or George Bush - the older one - hanging around hotel lobbies that same year, inviting anyone around to jog with him before the day's campaigning.

Or four years ago, when a reporter could slide quietly into a home in Berlin, sit on the steps leading upstairs and watch Joe Lieberman spend an hour talking to the two dozen people gathered in the living room as neighbors wandered in and out.

Fast forward to 2007, and New Hampshire's legendary primary campaign has clearly changed.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York heads to a house party and, since dozens of reporters are following her, only a few are told they will get in - with instructions to give a report on the event to their fellow journalists.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona goes to a book-signing in tiny Lebanon, and the crowd is so big the employees hand out numbers so the line to see him will be orderly.

Tickets to see Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois are made available online so his staff can get a sense of how big a crowd to expect.

A big change has come to a state known for its eyeball-to-eyeball campaigning, where for years a candidate and a reporter or two slogged through the snow and knocked on a voter's door, hung out in family rooms and church basements from Keene to North Conway and got a solid reading on what ordinary people were thinking.

Some of that still goes on, but the modern era has fully caught up with the nation's first primary, now scheduled for Jan. 22, 2008.

"It's tough to grow a campaign slowly now," said Dante Scala, associate professor of politics at St. AnselmCollege in Manchester and author of "Stormy Weather," a history of the New Hampshire primary.

Candidates vow to continue the kind of personal campaigning that made New Hampshire famous, but it's a very different world.

Candidates have become celebrities. Showing up for events has become popular not only as a way of sorting out a voter's choice but as a hobby. Many candidates come to the state with well-known back stories that help turn their campaign events into media spectaculars.

"It's hard to go to a state and say you're going to talk to 10 people when there are a thousand who want to see you," said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who still vowed her candidate would try to visit smaller venues.

On top of that, candidates are in dire need of quick exposure - for several reasons, including the pressure to raise a lot of money quickly, a voracious 24/7 media climate and changes in the primary calendar.

"Twenty or 30 years ago someone like Obama would have thrown house parties and gotten known slowly," said Scala.

Not anymore.

Candidates today know that even in the smallest New Hampshire towns or rec rooms, their events are probably being recorded and could soon be televised or webcast. They know that people in states like Florida, California and New York - which could hold primaries two weeks after New Hampshire - are probably watching.

In 1975, the largely unknown Jimmy Carter could almost live in the state. In 2007, no one has the time to spend day after day there. Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, for instance, who is banking heavily on New Hampshire, stumped for two days last week, but this week toured Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada, with Arizona and California still to come.

Like everyone else, he needs big money - estimates are that a candidate could have to amass as much as $100 million to stay competitive.

That means that the first true test of political strength will come April 15, when first-quarter fund-raising reports are due.

"There's going to be a real payoff for raising a lot of money early," said Scala. "People are reconsidering the benefits of building their campaign slowly."

At the same time, the media have become more demanding.

As recently as 1999, a candidate was rarely trailed by more than a handful of reporters a year before the primary, and the Internet was not full of instant stories about what they said an hour earlier.

In 2003, though, networks began sending young reporters with video cameras to record every move of even the lesser candidates, and Internet political blogs and websites became important tools for conveying instant news and messages.

Today, candidates are well aware that every word could become a major story and blog topic instantly - especially since anyone in the crowd can photograph or record the event on a cellphone.

And the people in the big states notice. There used to be a few weeks between the New Hampshire primary and the next major test, plenty of time for a candidate to leap into national prominence and use the momentum to hit the talk show circuit, collect fresh campaign cash and supporters in places where he was not well-known.

But the 2008 schedule probably will not allow much of an afterglow.

One week after New Hampshire comes an important test in South Carolina.

And a week after that, big states like Florida, California, New York and Texas are expected to hold primaries - meaning that New Hampshire will be a memory, and what will matter most is money, celebrity and media attention.