January 18th, 2016
We started our day by attending a guest lecture by Dr. Andrew Smith at St. Anselm College. Dr. Smith happened to be one of the coauthors of the textbook used for our class, The First Primary, so it was interesting to see how some of the points of the textbook were built upon in this lecture. Dr. Smith's lecture focused on micro-targeting, which has been a reoccurring theme throughout the campaigning portion of our trip. He talked about phone-banking and how they are usually conducted on landlines, which has come under criticism this election cycle from some undercard candidates such as Rand Paul and Rick Santorum. Because Dr. Smith has helped with producing the results of the CNN/WMUR polls that have been released throughout the election season, he pointed out that polls from news sources are more about collecting data about the current opinions of voters rather than trying to change a voter's mind; in summation, they want to collect data, not influence opinions. He also told us that two polls would be released in the next two days, a democratic poll on Tuesday and a Republican poll on Wednesday.
He also tried to debunk some of the myths that come along with the New Hampshire primary. He told us that New Hampshire voters are not nearly as active and enthusiastic about the primary as most people may believe; he said that the voters get tired of the constant calls from pollsters and campaigns. This is a proven fact on my side because more than half of the voters that pick up the phone interrupt me to say that they are sick of these calls and that they want me to stop calling them.
On the subject of micro-targeting, he talked about how certain voters are subject to different messages throughout the primaries. I see this tactic at work in my campaign; some volunteers are being asked to call some voters to tell them about Ted Cruz's stance on Common Core while other volunteers are calling different voters to tell them about his stance on defunding Planned Parenthood. On the Democratic side, specifically in last night's debate, Hillary Clinton chose to answer her final question by talking about the Flint Water Crisis in Michigan because she knew that it would appeal to African-American voters, which is a demographic that Clinton is strong with and Bernie Sanders is weaker with right now. She also knew that it would look good for her to talk about this issue in South Carolina, where the African-American population is high.
After the lecture, we ate lunch and then headed to a Donald Trump rally, which I was looking forward to all throughout this weekend. When we got there, we noticed that we had VIP seats in the second row thanks to our two Trump volunteers. When Donald Trump appeared on stage about an hour later, the crowd erupted in applause as if a rock star had just walked on the stage and performed his biggest hit. Earlier in the day, I had realized the irony of going to see the most divisive candidate in the race on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; I was thankful that Donald Trump decided to not mention his more divisive issues on this day, such as banning Muslims from coming into the United States. However, Donald Trump did his usual pandering to the audience, which included talking about his poll numbers and talking about the wall that he would build on the Mexican border. Much like most of Trump's speeches, this speech had very little policy and mostly soundbites. Also, Ivanka Trump, Donald's daughter, made a surprise appearance towards the end of the rally.
In class, we learned about populist candidates, which are candidates that talk about issues that the run-of-the-mill candidates seem to ignore in fear of losing voters. Populist candidates always talk about the issues that voters most want to hear about, and many of these candidates may take extreme positions on these issues. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the populist candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively, are doing a good job at gathering a large and energized fan base to keep their campaign momentum going into the primaries. This energy was present at the end of his rally. Remember that calm, single-file picture line I mentioned at the Rand Paul rally? It was nonexistent at the Trump one. Fans were screaming, pushing, and doing anything to get their rally sign or their Trump magazine autographed. The chaos even resulted in a fellow classmate getting into an uncomfortable situation, and by that point, I gave up on trying to get an autograph or picture because I was more worried about my fellow classmate. The Secret Service and Donald Trump himself handled it well, but it could have been easily avoided with better crowd-control and a calmer audience.
By the time the rally had ended, I had no energy to go to the Cruz campaign office because we were so worried about our classmate at the time. Thankfully, everything was better within an hour or so, and everybody was happy that our classmate was okay and ready to continue on with our experiences here in the Granite State. Today was a crazy day, an interesting day, and an all-around abnormal day. I am disappointed that the fans at the Trump rally could not calm themselves down like the attendees of the Rand Paul or Chris Christie rallies, but I completely understand that populist candidates have the tendency to attract more outgoing and energized voters, so I should have seen the craziness of the rally coming. Tomorrow, I plan to spend the majority of my day campaigning for Cruz and then going to a lesser-known candidates event that night. Both activities should be good experiences for me.
In Liberty.
Jacob Stech '18
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