My wife and I voted as the polls opened in Farmington, at 8am. Some places opened at 7am, but Farmington is kind of casual that way.
Interestingly, a great many more signs appeared overnight. Until yesterday, I hadn’t seen any signs for Giuliani in Farmington. Yesterday, Main Street was lined with “RUDY” signs. As we went to vote, the only person out holding a sign for a candidate was a Kucinich supporter. Farmington isn’t exactly a booming metropolis, and doesn’t necessarily attract that much attention.
After voting, I went off to be a poll-stander in Rochester. Eagle (my daughter — the nickname comes from her initials) and I were there for about three hours. That was very interesting.
To talk about the various characters who were there, I’ll start from the closest to the door and work out.
There was one man there for Mitt Romney. He’d apparently been there since 7:30, and was clearly committed to his candidate. These things, I admire. He spent a good amount of time talking to a UNH student supporting Mike Huckabee. To be honest with you, though, the Romney guy seemed very bitter. He complained about all of the campaigners coming in from out of state, he complained that people support Mike Huckabee, since “obviously all of his supporters would be with Mitt if [Huckabee] wasn’t in the race.”
But I don’t want to come down too hard on the guy. He was committed, he was backing his guy. He’d done up his own sweatshirt for the event, reading “Mitt Romney gets the big jobs done” on the back and the basic “Mitt Romney ‘08″ on the front. He also had a handmade sign reading “90% of NH voters chose Mitt Romney after the last debate.” I can’t complain about that.
There was one Ron Paul supporter there when I arrived, quietly holding his sign, greeting people politely, and taking a bunch of heckling from a couple of the Huckabee supporters. This is, I realize, a reversal of most of the stories that I tell. I think that one (maybe two) of the Huckabee supporters were overdoing the teasing.
He was a nice enough guy. He was there because he really believes that the Constitution is in danger from all of the politicians — Republicans and Democrats. He wasn’t crazy, he just had a different opinion. I think he was a nice guy, and I was pleased to meet him.
The same went for the Kucinich supporters. These two were a lot of fun. Frankly, I thought that they looked a little bit nuts when I first saw them. She was wearing an almost-military-looking uniform of some kind, black with red lines and bright silvery buttons. He was in a fleece jacket with a Union-blue Civil War-type cap with small US flags stuck to the sides. They looked a little odd.
But the guy was handing out pocket-sized copies of the Constitution, which was admirable. One voter walked by and looked at him, then said, “I like your guy, but we’ll never make his plans work.” He answered, “I disagree,” but the voter was gone. I leaned over and said that I thought that was really sad. I repeated my line that the only difference between someone who’s unelectable and the winner of the campaign is how many people get behind him/her. Heartened, I think, that someone respected him, he struck up a conversation with me.
He expressed a lot of respect for Mike Huckabee, who made the very climb from the bottom that Dennis Kucinich hasn’t. I said that I know how he feels — I remember a few months ago when we were the weirdos that couldn’t win, and I heard a lot of people saying that they liked Huckabee, but couldn’t back him because he couldn’t win.
I can’t say much about the Clinton supporters. They had no interest in talking to me. So, they were there.
That is more than I can say for John McCain, though. He apparently had had a supporter there at 8, but the man left and was not seen later. I took that to mean that McCain wasn’t doing so well … apparently, this is one of those times when anecdotal evidence doesn’t count for much.
Mike and Janet Huckabee arrived, and handed out bottles of water and granola bars to ANY poll-standers who wanted them. Mrs. Huckabee spent a long time talking to a number of children who were present. I thought that that was really wonderful. She helped a couple of the kids finish off their snowman, and one of the NH staffers grabbed a Huckabee button to place on the little guy.
We all really had some fun with that. When I reached to shake Gov. Huckabee’s hand, I was holding a tall sign with my right elbow, and I had Eagle on my left arm. In the process, though, I very nearly dropped my sign on Gov. Huckabee! We joked about it. “That would be quite a way to go, wouldn’t it? Imagine the headline: ‘Presidential candidate killed when volunteer drops a sign on him’.” That was a lot of fun, still.
I was impressed to see Gov. Huckabee talking to the Ron Paul supporter. He encouraged the guy to stick with what he believes. He simply asked, “If we wind up getting the nomination, I hope that you’ll give us another look.” Can’t complain about that.
I did appreciate seeing that the Kucinich supporters were posing for a picture with Gov. Huckabee!
I I joked with them that I thought they’d been won over. The woman answered, “How often do you get to meet a Presidential candidate?” (Note: I don’t think she’s from New Hampshire. We don’t ask such questions here.)
There were many more Huckabee supporters present. It was a wonderful time.
There is another story, though, that I have to tell. I was standing beside a woman who had brought her 6-month-old son. My daughter (5 1/2 months) began “talking” to the little boy. Eventually, I knelt down so that they could be face to face:
I reminded Eagle that she’s too young to date, although I will say that this seems to be a nice boy, he has a good mother and grandmother, and his father is in the military, currently serving in Korea. He passes a couple tests to be an acceptable guy. Still, I think they’re a little young … but very cute. The picture above was taken by his mother and graciously e-mailed to me. (Thanks, if you’re reading this!)
Eagle did lose patience, though, and we had to leave. Still, this was a great time meeting and talking to supporters not only of my candidate but some of the others. This was my third time meeting Gov. Huckabee, and Eagle’s second. It was the first time I got to meet Mrs. Huckabee, though, and that was great. She’s a very sweet woman, and great with everyone.
That covers my morning yesterday and the early afternoon. I’ll work through the later evening in a separate post.
