Two weeks ago I did my first canvass for Obama in Keene, NH. Today when I showed up at 10:00 there were at least 50 and perhaps 100 volunteer canvassers! This gave the campaign the capacity to get beyond the small city of Keene and send canvassers throughout Cheshire County — a woman from Cambridge and I wound up in Jaffrey. A big variety of people, some enthusiastic for either side but engaged and willing to talk. There are a fair number of undecideds out there as well — get out there and canvass and you can talk to them as well.
Four years ago I worked with a group called Swing the Vote, run by a reformed Naderite who argued that Cheshire County was the key to NH and NH the key to the nation in 2000. They are an antiwar and anti-GOP group rather than a Democratic one — I have moved on to working directly for the campaign but I am still on their mailing list. Their latest plan is to place hundreds of roadside signs saying “McSame/Bush” (actual image at swingthevote.us). If you think this is a good idea, check out their site and send them $5 per sign. I can vouch for their bona fides.
claim that Cheshire County was the key to NH? Lots of people whose minds were easy to change if only they were approached by enough volunteers?
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p>I can see how one could claim that NH was “the” key to the nation in 2000 in that the margin was low, and flipping it would have changed the outcome of the overall electoral vote. But because there is no electoral system at the county level, unless there’s some hidden factor that allows volunteers to switch the minds of the voters from a given county as a bloc, it’s hard to see how a given county could have special importance beyond its population. And Cheshire County is right in the middle in terms of population for New Hampshire counties.
You’re right that Cheshire isn’t “key to NH” in the same way but their reasoning for targeting it was:
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p>1) it is the most Democratic area of the state
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p>2) there is the potential to increase registration and turnout of anti-war and anti-Bush voters, particularly by getting information to the low-information ones, and
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p>3) the proximity to MA, VT, and even CT offers a wide pool of out-of-state volunteers
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p>I forgot to mention that a lot of the hordes yesterday were carpoolers from western Massachusetts, which BMGer Michael Forbes Wilcox had a hand in organizing. As I said, my partner was from Cambridge MA and there were at least two people there from the Albany area.
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