Checking Under the Hood

A few doors down from Romney headquarters were the headquarters for Chris Dodd. Funny, they were political neighbors (Romney of Massachusetts and Dodd of Connecticut), and now campaign office neighbors. Ironic since they couldn't be much farther apart philosophically.

Dodd's office looked identical to Romney's from the outside, except for the giant lettering in the window panes. We entered and found a huge front counter with a Dodd candidacy sign backdrop as colorful as any we'd seen. The wall screamed "Vote for Dodd". The atmosphere screamed, "Come Back Later." No one heard us come in, and we heard no sounds from the other rooms towards the back of the office. I took advantage of being unsupervised and had Marra stand behind the counter for her token photo-op. Another winning shot for the scrapbook.

We couldn't just leave without trying to track someone down, so we wandered to the back of the office, announcing our presence with a few timid "Hello?"'s. We ended up walking into what I would call the Dodd Campaign New Hampshire War Room. Two large 4'x8' sheets of plywood supported by saw horses served as the conference table, and folding chairs served as office furniture. The modern speaker phone in the center of the makeshift table looked out of place in this garage-like setting, but it was clearly designed for work, not for comfort.

Henry and Nigel were either strategizing or discussing the Patriots game yesterday as we interrupted them. I gave the same speech. "Hi, I'm Joe and this is my daughter, Marra. We drove from Virginia to..." Henry did the talking when I asked the questions, and Nigel lingered nearby, like a new waiter hovering around his mentor to learn the ropes of proper serving techniques.

Henry was more knowledgeable than his Romney campaign counterpart, but there was a sense that he was resigned to being in a losing battle. The space was overrun with extra lawn signs and placards. Marra and I both thought that if things were going well, those signs would be posted somewhere, as opposed to taking up shelf space in Manchester. Henry admitted that Dodd was shifting resources to Iowa for a big caucus push, which I would find distressing if I were working the campaign. I mean, he's been the Senator next door to New Hampshire for dozens of years. You'd think he'd have a stronger organization and more buzz up here. Henry heated up with some defensiveness when I argued that Dodd was unelectable because he would be painted (fairly, I might add) as a Northeastern liberal. I questioned if the Republicans would be happy to run against a man whose signature issue is paid family leave. I could hear the negative ads now. "Typical out-of-touch Democrat more interested in seeing that someone who isn't working gets paid with the workingman's tax dollars." If I can figure that angle out, then the GOP already has the commercial in the can.

After we made Henry uncomfortable with our doubts about his candidate, he allowed us to take a picture of Marra in the war room.

Marra was predisposed to like Dodd, since she has one of his campaign signs hanging at the foot of her bed (I had picked one up during a business trip to Des Moines back in the spring). Both the Romney and Dodd campaign headquarters stops lacked a few important element for Marra, though. The actual candidate was not there. After 2 days of rubbing elbows with the high and mighty, visiting college age volunteers did not have the same cache. That's OK. As I would learn later, she wasn't missing anything and was absorbing much.

JS