Voting Day in NH

As voters here start to go to the polls, I'm still thinking about yesterday. It was a busy day here for the candidates, with each criss-crossing the lower half of the state making multiple appearances. I was determined to see the Newtster in the flesh--still trying to figure out his appeal. Unfortunately, every event I arrived at turned out to be closed to the public. I got this picture and a new understanding of the phenomenon of "political tourism" by hanging out with 4 delightful retirees who'd driven up from MA just to shadow the candidates all day.

Even the reporters are commenting on the prevalence of political tourists this election season. It's getting harder, they say, to find actual NH voters to interview at these events. My Massachusetts friends told me they were interviewed multiple times, particularly by the foreign press, and that they were halfway through a TV interview at a Santorum event before the reporters discovered they were not Granite Staters and turned off the cameras.

So, the candidate events were for me a bit of a bust. But a happy coincidence struck in a Manchester Starbucks--I had to have my morning mocha!--when I ended up in line behind a prominent guy (who shall remain unnamed) who's been a leading political figure, blogger, and commentator. He graciously agreed to sit with me for awhile, and I learned from him one key to understanding how some journalists see things. "This is not the election," he told me. "The real campaign began two years ago. New Hampshire is the end of it." Since Perry self-destructed, there is no credible challenger to Romney in terms of money. Forget the multiple candidate appearances and the independent-minded voters here who show up to scrutinize them. Forget the debates, the fluctuations in the polls, and practically everything else that fills the news pages and airwaves. In reality, he said, the nominating race is over--not because the voters have decided, but because Romney's money machine is too big to beat.

If he's right that many journalists and commentators see things this way, that means they spend considerable hours every day telling tales about campaigns and voters that, in their eyes, are really just a charade.

Last night I attended a panel of national reporters sponsored by Politico that included my kindly guide on this trip, Dan Balz of the Washington Post, as well as Candy Crowley, Chuck Todd, Jon Karl and the estimable Dan Rather. Several on the panel insisted that the race for the Republican nomination won't be over til the Florida primary at the end of this month. On a more profound note, Dan B. observed that "we've lost something" in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Because candidates haven't traveled these states nearly as extensively this time--some showing up very late in the game--and because of the practically non-stop TV debates, and also because Romney's commanding lead here may have discouraged other candidates from investing heavily in NH, the experience for reporters and voters has been different: more shallow, he implied, less useful. And, he said, he suspects this is a permanent shift.