The breathless wait

The day is here.
I've had my breath held for weeks, amassing lists of all the things that can and will go wrong in the voting processes. There are happening out there, all over the USA - but they are not enough, it seems, to impede this great current.
Obama was not my first choice - but, along with Hillary, I have swung around to support him and to watch him growing in statesmanlike proportions.
He is an elegant and erudite man and my hopes for him are high.

How wonderous it is that he should surmount the frightening power of the great Republican lower class fundamentalist hate machine.
As noted by US analysts, the "Walmart" vote is now Republican since it no longer relates to wealth or class but to the adherence to conservatism and religion-based home education which ensures that dangerous, enlightened ideas never cross the minds of the little home-grown right wingers.
The educated classes are the Democrats these days. And the coffee drinkers. Starbucks came out for Obama and give free coffess to voters and volunteers. How 'bout dat! Only in America.

For the African Americans, an Obama win could lay the foundations for a mass attitudinal change, to give a sense of positivity and hope to that huge American underclass. What a powerful and beautiful country the US could be if its black population took to the books and reached for the stars.

Palin is an experience

I'm not sure if it is better when the Republicans keep Sarah Palin out of the public spotlight for fear of having her embarrass them yet further with her ignorance or when they release her into it with mouthfuls of memorised gibberish.
She is obviously a quick swat - and seemed pretty adept with her cue cards. She had learned Ahmadinejad's name and said it over and over and over just to show us.
And she sure out-winked her hapless opponent, doggone it.

Reading and watching the fallout, I was surprised at how few commentators were prepared to give her the benefit of the low expectations. Only Fox, really. And Fox has made itself a farcical institution of flared nostril right wing excitement. Truly, it gets embarrassing watching the raw arousal of the anchors and commentators as they get on their Republican high horses. Move over Equus!

Elsewhere, however, there are responses of high anxiety at the cynical placement of Palin in this pivotal position. This good looking "down home" mom taps right into the comfort zone of the lowbrows. She ain't gonna answer nasty old questions from debate moderators. She's gonna talk right to the American people in her own special way.

I loved the way Fox defended her lack of experience by saying that she had had experiences. Sure. She has had experiences - shooting things, giving birth, entering beauty quests...

What a mockery this all makes of the very serious, nay dire, state of the world.
One can only be profoundly disappointed that America, once a loved and respected superpower, is taking its common denominators so very dangerously low.

Worth reading is Michelle Goldberg of the Guardian. The photo illustration - the Palin wink - is really telling.

Calling for Hillary

Behind the scenes, there is the hard grind of campaigning - none of it harder than working the phone bank.
I was among the few brave hearts of the Hillary campaign out there working through Nashua and Hudson phone numbers on this steamy, stormy New Hampshire night. And I do mean brave. This is not a chore for the shy, faint-hearted or super-sensitive. It is the work of valiant heroes, of true believers, of eternal optimists. Yes, we brave few.

Since the Nashua campaign office is still not quite finished, we were allowed the after-hours facilities of an ophthalmic practice where, with cheat sheet in hand, we four worked our way through the phone lists provided by Kristen, our organiser of the night.
We callers were a wonderfully representative mix: a senior, a college student, a committed Democratic activist and me, the supporter with outsider perspective.
Of course, almost everyone hates unsolicited phone calls and, indeed, they now are illegal. These political calls are exempt from the bans and, the people listed have, at some time, expressed interest in the primary. Not that you'd know it.

There is a fair share of hang-ups and blunt rejections. A lot of the 114 people I phoned tonight were either out or had their phones on answer. They are thus registered on the call sheets and another attempt to speak to them will be made on another night.

Our aim tonight was to ascertain who may be a certain vote for Hillary and, therefore, perhaps willing to be a volunteer. We then worked in incrementals: those leaning towards Hillary, those undecided, leaning away or anti-Hillary. If they were not pro-Hillary, we asked which other candidate they preferred and what issues concerned them. Well, if we got that far.
Mostly it was answering machines and automated responses which rejected calls without caller ID.

When I scored my target person it was: "Hi there. This is Samela calling for the Hillary Clinton campaign in New Hampshire - just checking in to see if you have yet decided for whom you might be voting in the primary?"
I found that, if I said it very fast, they were more inclined to answer.

There were people who hung up the moment they realised I was a political call. Oh what relish some of them took in that gesture. Only one of my hang-ups was polite about it: "Have a nice day - CLUNK". It was really very refreshing.

Then there was an angry independent who demanded to be taken off the list - and, worst of all, a woman who said she was not interested in Hillary and, when I asked if any of the other candidates interested her, she said "No, I'm a Republican". Ouch!


Of those Democrat voters who chose to discuss the primary, it was the issues of health care and the Iraq War or the Iraq War and health care which concerned them.
Of the other candidates, only Barack Obama and John Edwards were mentioned as rival choices. Those voters who were already firmly decided on Hillary Clinton were really enthusiastic and all to keen to sing the Senator's praises and enumerate the reasons for their choice - intelligence, strength, experience, values, policies...

There are a lot more of these calls to be made as the primary progresses in New Hampshire - hopefully each wave bringing in more and more positive feedback. And, of course, the other campaigns will be doing it, too. These New Hampshire voters are under intense scrutiny. They are still the "gateway" electorate - the vote that matters.


Let's hope their patience holds up.
Certainly, the experience of being the one making the calls has changed the way for ever after that I will respond to any similar callers. Even when I want to hang up, I shall do it with kindness. Now I know just what good people are on the other end of the line.

Repubs field a new runner

A new candidate seems set to enter the Republican presidential primary race.
His name is Fred Thompson and, as a former senator, he is best known as a character in the television series Law and Order.
He is uber conservative - pro-life, pro-gun, pro-war, anti-gay marriage. I can't find evidence that he is a creationist, but he is described rather scarily as "saviour" for the political aspirations of the Christian right.
Of course, in a Republican mood of gushing retrospective adulation for movie star Prez Ronald Reagan, it suits that Thompson is an actor, a face familiar to KFC-munching families across the land. The people find nothing more reassuring than to be led those who have entertained them in their living rooms - viz Governor Schwarzenegger, Mayor Clint Eastwood, Congressman Sonny Bono, Governor Jesse Ventura...
So, Fred Thompson is not even officially declared, but polling way ahead of frontrunners Romney and Giuliani. What does this tell us?
I think the New York Times had it in the can back in 1994 when it reported:

"The glowering, hulking Mr. Thompson has played a White House chief of staff, a director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a highly placed F.B.I. agent, a rear admiral, even a senator. When Hollywood directors need someone who can personify governmental power, they often turn to him."

And now the country is turning to him.


There is another move afoot - a delicious undercurrent of subversion I have been observing here and there on the bumpers of cars.

I'll drink to that!

Websites and electronic friends

In this lull between visits, Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign has been beavering away in Manchester - getting the office humming along, the campaign outreach liaised and, most importantly of all, the NH campaign website up and running.
It is full of juicy details about the groundswell of support following Hillary's five NH visits and the plans afoot for a Hillary Day of Action on May 12.

Meanwhile, one can see a very different support base growing on My Space. This community is so vast that no one can afford not to be a member. Even I have a page. Hillary and the other candidates most emphatically are on board. It is interesting to see the growth of "friends" in that arena. Hillary had 52199 this morning. John Edwards had 30276. Meanwhile, John McCain had 25367 and Rudi Giuliani, with several aggressive My Space sites, seemed to have only 192. Giuliani's unofficial site had some pretty ugly anti-Democrat material. Hillary's has this:





The Republican Debate is happening tonight and the Repub candidates, all 10 of them, are out and about claiming their moment in the sun. Mitt Romney, the movie star-handsome Mormon with only 14186 friends on My Space, scored an airing on Jay Leno last night showing what a smooth operator he is with his well-scripted jokes and constant family references. He's a "family values" man and recommended that America "look at my wife and me to see American values". Jay did corner him on a question about the Mormon history of racial discrimination to which Romney replied: "One of my best friends is in Ghana bringing people into the church right now". Shudder.

Only in America, eh. Like this whole fascinating process.

Giuliani's America

There was no grandstanding from those introducing Rudy Giuliani to the business voters of Nashua. Simply these succinct declarations:
"New Hampshire is the time-tested proving ground where presidential candidates test their messages with experienced voters to prepare for the long national campaign."
And:
"Grassroots civic engagement is taken very seriously in New Hampshire."

Rudy echoed this:
"There is no better place to do it than New Hampshire where it is traditional. Tradition is important in politics. The idea that NH is the first in the national primary is one that I endorsed a long time ago and now I am running for president, I endorse it more!"

This gained a satisfied titter from the business crowd.

Like most speakers, the former NY Mayor opened with some frivolity - an indulgence in jubilation about the recent historic four home runs hit by the New York Yankees baseball team.
"My wife says the Yankees affect my moods," he admitted, perhaps unwisely, since I, for one, immediately started envisaging a president with the international grumpies because his team had lost.
Rudy went on to recall that he had suggested to Hillary Clinton when they were competing for the NY senator spot that, instead of a conventional senatorial campaign debate which bored viewers, there should be a Yankees trivia debate. Hmm.

"Baseball statistics are endlessly fascinating - and so are economic statistics," he said, in a very nice segue into campaign patter and his "four policies for growth".

"These are not ideas, they are things I've done, things I've brought about," he bragged. "Don't just listen to what I say but listen to what I've done."

Lowering tax came first - to allow private enterprise to grow and hence, allow the national economy to compete with the rest of the world.
"The Democrats blur that line," he said.
Rudy said he had done it in NYC and "if you can do it in New York, you can do it in Washington, DC".
He went on to expand on how, by lowering hotel occupancy tax in NYC, tax revenue had increased.
"Democrats don't understand. Liberal columnists don't understand but if you lower tax, you collect more because more people are using and therefore there is more revenue."
Hotels consequently employed more people and the assorted services grew accordingly, he explained, adding that his term as Mayor had been described as "the most conservative term of office in America in the last 50 years".
Jobs had grown by 30 per cent and fiscal deficit had turned to a multi-billion dollar surplus.
"The Democrats are working out which taxes to raise and I'm working out which to lower," he said.
He cited Capital Gains tax, lowered to encourage more people to invest, and Death Tax (known among Democrats as Estate Tax) whihc he said was an unfair tax which hurt families.

Next Giuliani wanted to reduce the size of the government and reduce government spending, as he did in his Mayoral role.
"Spending restraint and economic growth has to come from the Mayor or President. Executives have to understand this. It has to be part of your DNA."

He went on to criticise over-regulation which is "the same as taxes", and to call for sound monetary policy.
"You have to run government in an effective way, like it is a business. You have to pretend that it is a business," he declared.
This meant constant measuring of performance levels for which he recommended to ComStat Program (which turns out to be an accountability measuing program which he used on reforming the police in NY).
"Measure every week. Are you achieving this?" he reiterated.
This struck me as a form of performance-based management so ferocious that it would leave its staff in a constant state of neurotic stress. Clearly Rudy Giuliani is a tough boss.

He spoke also of US Ambassadors and the State Department with its "overriding purpose to expose America to the world and, secondly to expose the rest of the world to America."

He concluded by saying that people had said it was impossible to reduce crime in New York and that he had done it.
"I'm good at doing impossible things. I like to do impossible things," he triumphed.

The breakfast business crowd, the mass of men in dark suits and ties, might have been devoted Republicans - but they also were New Hampshirites. They had questions and their questions were confronting.

Dependence on foreign oil came first.
Rudy did the old political sidestep by saying "let me give you a slightly different perspective" - and then tackled the issue by suggesting that as Chinese and Indian populations emerged from poverty to middle class, the idea was to sell them things - such as potential energy technology, an American "growth industry". Of course, one needed "to put the emphasis on the private sector" with incentives from the Federal Government to develop this. But this was a "tremendous opportuniy" for the USA.
"I'm a glass half full person," he declared.
He was also in favour of more nuclear power for the US. There has not been a new nuclear power station in 30 years "because some special interests are frightened".
"Nobody has died as a result of nuclear power," he said, adding that wind, solar and carbon sequestration were also worthy of attention. And that OPEC was something of an obstacle as "a cartel that fixes prices". "If it operateed in the US, it would be illegal," he snarled.

Asked about Federal Government entitlement and pharmaceutical subsidies, he returned to the free market theme - "competitive and profit-driven"
"If the goverment takes over, the costs go up," he said.
He envisaged tax incentives for people to buy health insurance, to make a market of individual consumers, suggesting a $15,000 deduction would encourage people to choose $9,000 insurance policies and pocket the rest of the money. My eyebrows shot up.
He mentioned health vouchers, too, and different health products.
"Let's create a vast consumer market," he trumpeted.
"We'll have socialised medicine if we do what the Democrats want."

A black Marine Corps veteran asked about what was to be done for disabled and fallen comrades.
Rudy was passionate about the obligation to give them more support, telling of how he would always visit injuired NY police or firemen in hospital "not only out of respect but to ensure they got high quality care". And they did.
"Whenever the Mayor showed up, the head of the hospital turned up," he laughed.
"What I wanted of these men was that they take heroic risks, so what I owed them was to take care of them. We owe this to veterans, too. We must fulfil our basic humanitarian obligation - which will encourage people to serve. We're going to be a volunteer country."

One last question - and it was Iraq.
The former Mayor saw Iraq as part of the War on Terror and was strongly against the Democrat move to put a date on withdrawal of troops, believing that this simply informed the enemy. He saw an almost limitless terrorist threat from within Iraq and from Iran and Syria and Afghanistan. He thought it was time to get Bin Laden, to ensure Iran did not have nuclear power, and to pursue terrorists "on offence, not defence".
He defended the Patriot Act's incursions into privacy and as "uncomfortable but essential" as yet more of the "offensive against terrorism".
"We are not a warlike country. We are at war because they want to come here and kill us," he concluded.
At which one could only hear, loud a clear, a perpetuation of Bush Administration policy. The only difference was that Giuliani had not mentioned God.

First sight of Rudy

Rudy Giuliani is the Republican Party's bright light as a presidential contender. He is beloved for the statesmanlike way in which he stepped up to the plate after 9/11 when the President seemed not to know what to do, and he is trusted for his track record in turning around crime and unemployment as Mayor of New York City.

Not that he is every Republican's cup of tea. He is a moderate rightist, daring to hold emancipated views on abortion and social justice - attitudes which enrage and alienate the NeoCons. He also has a terrible history with women, now on his third marriage after a really squalid break-up with his second wife, one which had the tabloids in ecstatics. And he has suffered prostate cancer. American voters like to think their Presidents are in top health and won't fall off the perch when in office.


In his big, sleek campaign bus, he came to Nashua today to speak at a breakfast for a National Leaders Forum in the vast neo-Tudor Sheraton Hotel. It had taken me a few phone calls to secure seats at this event which was hosted by local businesses and the Chamber of Commerce.

Indeed, it was anything but a people's events. It was men-in-suits all the way.

We were given 7.30am as the registration and start time, but Rudy did not turn up until after 8am, giving us plenty of time to drink watery hotel coffee and engage in small talk with the others at our table. One was a retired corporate management type who had barely said hello before he had had a little spit about how a lot of migrant voters barely spoke the language and should go home rather than vote. A very nice couple from Tennessee made for easier conversation. They are visiting their daughter in Nashua and thought this was a great chance to get a close, New Hampshire-style look at Giuliani. Such opportunities are uncommon elsewhere.

As always, the television cameras were on their dais at the back of the room with the usual couple of journalists sitting at their feet tapping away on Blackberries. Local press photographers milled around taking social snaps.

A heaving, great breakfast of scrambled eggs, pan-fried potatoes, bacon and sausage garnished with kiwifruit and orange was delivered to the table just as Rudy made his appearance. The cameras erupted in a barrage of flash and the former Mayor made his way down the side of the room amid a scrum of adoration.

Then, like the seasoned pro he is, he worked his way around the room, from table to table, signing autographs and shaking hands.
And there I was, with his silky hand in mine. Good heavens!

Candidates digging their own graves

Candidates are shooting themselves in the foot all over the place.

Republican John McCain is being media-excoriated for being so absurdly gauche as to mock the delicate issue of relations with Iran by singing "bomb-bomb-Iran" to the tune of "Barbara Ann". It was his idea of a joke and when criticised by reporters, he told them to "get a life", a very unpleasant and patronising put-down which simply exacerbated the friction. He justified his "humour" by saying he was speaking to veterans and they were friends. Oh dear. Still not funny.


Meanwhile, Democrat John Edwards has done the most bizarre thing. He has committed $400 of campaign funds to hairdressing. The country is simply incredulous. How the hell do you spend $400 on a haircut? Even a cut, five colours in foils, straightening, deep conditioning and drying don't come to $400. But, of course, he had his hair done in Beverley Hills where, clearly, clip joints are really clip joints.

Edwards has already been depicted performing extended hair preening on YouTube. Who knew he had a hair "thing"? Well, we all know now.

I am sure that, if I had donated to his campaign, I would not be happy to discover that I had just paid for an overpriced hair cut.
What else is the fund paying for?

John Edwards is a squillionaire lawyer who lives in some massive mansion with not only pool and tennis court etc, but two stages! Two stages? John Edwards is a lovely man and a very fine candidate. I heard him and, indeed, met him and photographed him, at the last Primary here in NH and was quite charmed by him. I'm looking forward to hearing him again.
And I'm looking forward to hearing him explain this extravagant indescretion. Frankly, anyone, let alone a very wealthy one, should pay for their haircuts from their own purse.
Somehow, policies about helping the poor and the American underclasses lose their sincerity when coming from a man with a $400 haircut. That sort of money is a month of groceries to many people - many of the people to whom he is trying to appeal for support as a presidential candidate.

One thing is certain, the New Hampshire voters will give him a run for his money when he shows up here. I can't wait.