The John Edwards Presidential Announcement in New Hampshire

(James Horrigan’s Observations)

A bright, chilly day marked John Edwards' New Hampshire announcement of his new presidential campaign. By noon, overflow parking had already reached our neighborhood, more than three blocks away, a sure sign that a large crowd was arriving.

Long lines snaked out from the entrance to the Little Harbour School. Much confusion was evident about the status of tickets and who should be waiting in which line. The few event workers passing by the lines did not clear up that confusion. We eventually learned that we were eligible for “blue” tickets, which presumably were a special priority.

However, we were still not admitted to the school building because the Portsmouth Fire Marshall was concerned about the number of people already inside. Other notable political personalities were stuck outside in the cold raw air, including Congresswoman Carole Shea-Porter’s husband and also her campaign manager, Sue Mayer, political pundit Arnie Arneson, and Strafford Country chairwoman, Joan Ashwell, among others.

While waiting, we were blasted with loud raucous music from some large outdoor speakers, which made conversation almost impossible. John Edwards emerged outside and tried to talk to those of us not lucky enough to gain admission. However, the sound system was not on and only those few directly in front of him could hear anything. The sound system did turn on sporadically, but it spewed out short bursts of loud music rather than John Edwards' remarks.

Suddenly, the Fire Marshall relented and allowed our group to go inside for standing-room-only access. From my vantage point, I could only see the backs of tall people’s heads. John Edwards voice was reverberating over a booming indoor sound system. He was nowhere in sight, and it was only later that I learned he was actually still outside speaking to the people who could not gain admission.

His remarks were very brief. (That is, the remarks that I heard.) He alluded to his overall concern with poverty in America. He then called for universal health care and new initiatives on global warming.

Initially, I thought that he was calling for a radical approach to global warming. He stated that alternative energy sources would not be enough: the American people would have to “sacrifice”. That is, they would have to conserve energy as well. But then he used an example of driving a hybrid SUV instead of a regular SUV, which hardly seemed like much of a “sacrifice.”

In any event, his speech suddenly ended, without any inspiring conclusions. I thought that was a bit curious, but apparently the malfunctioning sound system had shut down inside, while he was still delivering the speech outside.

At that point, the Fire Marshall relented yet again and let in more people. The auditorium was becoming quite packed with humanity, and I beat a retreat because of incipient feelings of claustrophobia. Incredibly, a few of the campaign workers were reluctant to let me leave, even though a mob of people were packed against the entrance to the auditorium, hoping to press their way past the firemen blocking it.

So I presumably missed much of the main event. As I strolled back home, I was left with two overall impressions: the large crowd and the inept management.

In regard to the crowd, the numbers obviously exceeded everyone’s expectations. I would hazard a guess that at least 1,000 people tried to attend, but I have no idea how many actually got inside. Clearly, something is up here. Large numbers of people are already interested in the presidential primary, even though it is not 2007 yet. Change is in the air, which bodes well for Democratic presidential candidates.

As for the management of the event, I will attribute that to a staff still on the early part of their learning curves. Let’s hope that they learn from their mistakes quickly because the entrance fiasco must have created some lingering unhappiness with the Edwards campaign, especially on the part of some notables whom they can ill afford to annoy. After all, first impressions can matter.

I don't know that I agree that the fellow at John's side looks like Bill Clinton

A follow up:

Edwards overflow crowd was staged

To the editor:

The Dec. 29 campaign stop in Portsmouth by John Edwards came with an interesting side story. A news articled reported that 1,000 people had to be turned away from the event at Little Harbor School.

At first sight, this would seem evidence of a candidacy that ignites excitement and the report must have pleased the Edwards campaign staff. The reality is, however, the situation was either engineered or was the result of the kind of planning that brought us the Iraq we own today.

It turns out the Edwards campaign issued unlimited tickets for a venue with limited space, the capacity of which would have been easy to calculate. There were three types of tickets: tickets for local leading Democrats the campaign wanted as allies and in the backdrop, tickets for the union workers bused in from Massachusetts and tickets for the rest of us.

Holders of the first two types of ticket got into the event. Meanwhile a line of around 400 people (I was about 60th), holding white tickets waited in freezing temperatures for their turn. Two dozen people, tops, with white tickets had been let in when a campaign worker said, "Sorry, but the fire marshal has closed us down because the room is at overcapacity."

Issuing unlimited tickets was cynical. Blaming the fire marshal was cheap. And giving us the type of event designed more for press than people won't go over in New Hampshire, or shouldn't. Edwards got his town hall photos against the mandatory American-flag backdrop, cheering union workers flanked the crowd, the press got the story, and the campaign moved on.

Edwards is ultimately responsible for the quality of his campaign and its tactics, and after this showing an Edwards presidency and administration is not something I long for. And it was in stark contrast to the Barack Obama book-signing visit earlier, an extremely well-organized event where 800 tickets got 800 people into the room.

If Edwards wants to do better than fourth in the upcoming New Hampshire primary, he and his staff have some work ahead of them. If I may suggest it, that work should include a review of how to treat (in reality, not in rhetoric) the ordinary people whose lives Edwards seeks to govern and who are willing to turn out on cold days to see him.

Gerald Duffy

Portsmouth
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