Friday, January 23, 2004

If you’ve been reading here long enough, then you know that I lived in Manchester, New Hampshire for over 5 years. New Hampshire gets a lot of press every four years with the advent of their Presidential primary. I happened to be in Manchester in 2000 for the Republican primary. Being a Repubican made it fun to be there at that time. And more than a little crazy. So I thought I’d share a bit of what I experienced as a New Hampshire voter.

What you need to know is that in primaries past, the candidates HQ’d in either Concord (the state capitol) or Nashua (as I understand it). But in 2000 they all chose to HQ in Manchester, given that it’s the largest city in the state and the TV station for the ABC affiliate was in town as well.  All candidate offices were on Elm Street, the main street in the center of the city. The GOP folks were on the southern end, Al Gore was in the hoity-toity northern end. My office was also located in Manchester city - just off of Elm Street.

What I remember most about that time was that parking in the city was greatly impacted by the presence of the media. Because the city had mostly parallel parking on Elm Street, the arrival of the TV trucks was quite frustrating for those of us who worked in the city. Those trucks would each take up 3-4 parking spaces on the street. I was fortunate to have a lot where I parked, but running office errands was a pain in the rear when the TV people came to town.

My amusement each night was watching the network news casts, trying to pinpoint the exact location of the reporters on the street. A lot chose the waterfront area, where these old renovated warehouses sit along the Amoskeag River. It’s a lovely area. Another favorite was the Bedford Village Inn in nearby Bedford (my church was in Bedford). And, they often spoke to the political science professors at St. Anselm College, one of whom was a friend from church.

I have to admit that George W. Bush was my candidate from the git-go, but I was open to hearing what the others had to say. I liked John McCain and Liddy Dole a lot too. So I paid attention to all of the debates leading up primary voting day in January 2000. And while there were things I still liked after the debates about McCain and Dole, Bush was still the one I was most excited about and the one that I was convinced could beat Vice-President Gore in November.

I had a friend at the local copy shop that was a McCainiac. She went to all of his rallies and constantly tried to convince me to make the switch. We had good discussions and agreed to support whomever was the GOP nominee - we didn’t want Al Gore to be our next President.

One day, Scot (my boss) and I were eating lunch at the diner next to our office building - Red Arrow Diner (which is one of the top rated diners in the US, btw). It was a crowded day in there, so we ate quickly and because it was a small space, I stepped outside while Scot paid the bill. While I was standing out there this van pulled up to the curb and out tumbled what seemed like a couple dozen suited men. All had “Forbes for President” campaign buttons on their lapels, so I figured they were locals working on his campaign stopping in for lunch and didn’t think much of it, beyond my amusement that they managed to pack that many large men in that minivan.

A minute later Scot walked out, “Did you talk to Steve Forbes?”

“Huh?” Yes, that was my initial response and then my brain kicked in. “Wait! You mean Forbes was in that group of men?” I pointed back at the door to the diner.

“Yeah, we should go in so you can meet him.”

So we went back into the now super-crowded diner and immediately bumped into Forbes’ back. He turned around and quickly introduced himself to us. He makes good eye contact, had a firm handshake, and is good at asking questions. And he’s shorter than I expected, not short though. But that meeting didn’t get him my vote. And he was the only candidate that I saw in person.

Anyway, primary day arrived and I went with much anticipation to vote for my guy. Upon arrival at my polling place, I quickly learned that I needed to register as a Republican in order to vote in the GOP primary. I was registered Independent. For a second I was disappointed, thinking that I wasn’t able to do that and vote, but you can in NH. So I changed my registration, voted, and am proud to say that I participated in a NH Primary.