Day 2: January 13th, 2016
We started our day by attending New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's rally in Goffstown, NH. I believe that Chris Christie did a good job overall because he answered questions well by giving clear and concise answers that calmed voters' worries and gave many facts to back up his opinions. Because we had to leave the rally a little bit early due to our New Hampshire State Capital trip, we did not get to meet Christie and get pictures, but I did get lucky enough to shake his hand before the town hall began, and a classmate of mine was lucky enough to ask him a question about how he would help those with disabilities. As we headed the bus, we saw some protesters that were protesting against some of Christie's more moderate views and tendencies, such as his recent flip on Common Core and his hug with President Obama back in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy.
When we arrived at the New Hampshire state capitol building, we walked into a huge room with many different flags from many eras of New Hampshire history, specifically the Civil War. Once we saw this, our tour guide led us into a room where the current governor, Maggie Hassen, was meeting with her five councilmen to determine whether to fund certain programs or not; these councilmen take the place of the lieutenant governor, a position well-known in most other state governments. After this, we visited the two areas where the House and Senate legislators create and pass laws; it was really cool to hear about how these members are only paid $100 a year to be a legislator, which shows that the people of New Hampshire are politically inclined enough to not care about a good salary. It is also important to know that many of these legislators have jobs on the side if they are not already retired. Also, I believe that the legislature is well-represented, with the house having 400 members, which is the biggest amount of members in any state house legislature in the United States. Before we left the building, we made sure to take pictures of the billboard in the gift shop, which was full of autographed bumper stickers, rally signs, and pictures from New Hampshire primary's past and present. It was simply amazing to see all of the old campaign artifacts.
After we got our lunch, we headed to our respective campaign offices, with mine being the Ted Cruz Campaign Headquarters. When we arrived at the office, we were told that we were going to be phone-banking with a script that emphasized Cruz's position on Common Core. Cruz would repeal the law in favor of more parent and teacher-oriented programs because he believes that the current one-size-fits-all government program for education is not working. As I was calling potential voters, I noticed that they were telling me that this issue was not as important to them as the economy and defeating ISIS, which I agreed with. I feel that if we had a script that fit more with the issues voters cared about more, I would have had less people hang up on me. As I was taking a small break from calling, I noticed that another staffer was looking through the entry tickets from Monday's events in order to possibly find more volunteers and get donations from them to fund the campaign, which went hand-in-hand with what I learned in class about micro-targeting.
My trip to New Hampshire continues to intrigue me and get me more excited about the primary season and the election as a whole. I love the political atmosphere and the many surprises that this trip has had in store for me so far, and I can't wait to see what these next eight days have in store for my classmates and I.
In Liberty,
Jacob Stech '18
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