To maintain my balanced presentation of all candidates and all views, I felt that a visit to Giuliani headquarters was necessary next. According to the media, he is the anti-Hillary, and his headquarters was just down the block another mile or so. Marra needed to know that I was still open to other positions, and what better way to to do than a trip to the GOP front runners home base. My guess was that all women and pink walls would not be what we found. I was betting on a combination of Yankees blue and Republican state red.
Rudy's campaign office was easy to find - right on Elm Street, same as our hotel, only a couple miles north. I saw it on the left at the last minute, and continued to the next traffic light to make a safe u-turn. While idling at the light, I noticed a Victorian home with a lawn covered in Fred Thompson signs. These were the first advertising Thompson that we had seen during the trip. I was feeling adventurous. "Marra, I think we're going to make another stop before going to Giuliani headquarters. I think that house over there might be Fred Thompson headquarters."
To prove to all you readers how late Fred was in entering the game, even Marra didn't know who he was. "Who's Fred Thompson?"
"He's the former Senator from Tennessee, and now he does TV and movies."
"So he's an actor not a President." Marra is very quick on the uptake. From what little I had seen, read and heard, she was correct in her assessment. But, we're open-minded...
We pulled into a small 4 car parking lot to the left of the house. As we got closer, we realized that this old house served as a law office. Right now, it looked to also be pulling double duty as Thompson's Manchester headquarters. I might not have GPS in the car, but I can hone in on obscure political offices pretty good (except for that pesky Paul's office!).
I walked Marra up the stone steps, explaining Fred's place in the continuum of political ideas. I told her that he is a Federalist, and that means he is usually against the government doing anything to encroach on the lives of private citizens. Kind of a mainstream Ron Paul, if you will, with the notable exception their deep foreign policy differences. Marra always asked the candidate's position on the Iraq War, and I said that he is in favor of continuing our role there. She said nothing, but I was sure that she was crossing his name off of her mental short list as we walked.
We didn't knock. We entered the main hallway, and it was like an abandoned B&B inside. Narrow halls, grand stair case front and center, Colonial style. Our voices echoed off the plaster walls. "Hello? Hello?" We creaked along the hardwood floor down the hallway toward the back of the house. Some office furniture appeared to have current equipment on it, like modern phones and computers, so at least we knew we weren't just wandering through someone's private residence.
Halfway through the main level, a heavy set gentleman appeared, and we introduced ourselves. He confirmed that we had indeed discovered the newly opened Thompson 2008 campaign office. I only had one question for him. "When is Fred coming to New Hampshire? Looks like he isn't planning to compete here." This is a big New Hampshire issue. If the populace thinks that you are not taking them and their "rightful" place as first in the nation primary seriously, you are dead in the water. Thompson already had the reputation of being a lazy campaigner, and rumors were that his heart wasn't in the race to begin with. He had cancelled scheduled NH visits in October, so people were suspicious.
Our host did not have a good answer. "We're working on some dates now, he'll be here." Not very convincing, given his track record. His headquarters looked a perfect metaphor for his candidacy - old, tired, hollow, and in some disarray. The office and his campaign needed some immediate sprucing up, and our host didn't seem up to either task. We asked for our token photo op behind a desk, and then got out of there. Truth be told, it was a little creepy. I'll give him this, though - the card stock for his campaign signage is far superior to his competitors. The signs should last longer than his chances in New Hampshire.
We got back in the car and drove the 200 feet to park in front of the office building housing the Rudy juggernaut. Nice big sign in front, and the office exterior was a big improvement from the "This Old House" fixer-upper we had just visited. It was glass and brick, a home for insurance offices, doctors, and Team Rudy.
The office was on the first floor, a hard right (I'm sure he planned that) off the lobby. It was small, but at least the few people (4) there were working the phones. Dave came up first, and we shared our story for the 6th time that morning (7th, if you count the old woman at the Visitor's Center). Dave did not seem impressed, but he had a kind of Eeyore-like infectious enthusiasm that was hard to ignore. As we chatted, I think he might have dozed off a few times. He could recite many of the Giuliani stump speech platitudes, like "low taxes stimulate growth" and "the proven leadership to fight Islamo-fascism". I wanted to point out that Rudy didn't actually fight the terrorists on 9-11, he just led the clean up effort, but I'm not sure that would have gotten through Dave's concrete exterior.
As he spoke, I kept hearing the New Yorker volunteer behind me working the phones. She had energy, she had enthusiasm, she oozed New York. Olive skin, thick jet black hair, dark red lipstick, fashionable shoes. A touch of Fran Drescher. Not a native of the Granite State, that's for sure. She appeared to be everything Dave was not. I wanted Marra to talk to her.
When the woman put down the phone, I interrupted Dave's droning with, "Excuse me, but we'd really like to speak to this woman about what she is doing." I introduced myself and Marra, and the volunteer explained her task for the afternoon. She was calling potential volunteers to help raise Rudy awareness. She stopped by on her lunch hours to support her Mayor. She found Giuliani's stand on issues to be well-thought out and nuanced. She said, "He sees shades of gray with his positions, everything isn't so black and white. I like that." This was our first regular person doing their part to support the candidate of their choice. Here was an example I wanted Marra to see.
We got our picture and headed for a well-deserved lunch. We had a lot to process. You can learn much about a candidate by visiting their headquarters, and we had formed some opinions. We still had one more office on our list for the day - Barack Obama. Back to the left we'd go!
JS
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