Biden coalition emerges despite gaffes as summer comes to a close

KEENE, N.H. — A snapshot of the Biden coalition emerged from conversations with voters in New Hampshire as former Vice President Joe Biden hosted a health care town hall at Dartmouth College on Friday afternoon and delivered his stump speech on the quad at Keene State College on Saturday morning before several hundred supporters.

Biden hosted a health care town hall on Friday afternoon in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he spoke for almost seventy minutes and answered questions from the audience.

Biden, who began the summer with an uneven debate performance on June 27 when California Senator Kamala Harris questioned his record on race, finished the season where he started: atop the polls as the clear front-runner. Despite a series of minor gaffes and verbal miscues that continued over the weekend, his support remains the broadest in the field, with key constituencies behind the former Vice President for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to his perceived electability in a general election matchup with President Donald Trump.

"Joe's the middle-class candidate as you can tell by the crowd," said Ron Bart of Peterborough, New Hampshire after listening to Biden at Keene State. Bart, who is deciding between the former Vice President and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, said that he was "really impressed by his commitment to civility," something that he said she lacked.

Monalisa Dupiton, a Massachusetts resident and Biden supporter who traveled across the state line for the event in Keene, said that she was a Democrat and voted twice for former President Barack Obama. An immigrant and a person of color, Dupiton said she was familiar with Biden from the Obama administration and approved of his job performance under the first black president. "I know him," she said. "I know how much he can do."

Two senior citizens seated in the last row at the Dartmouth town hall defended Biden from the charges leveled by Harris at the first debates and said that they saw the 76-year-old as one of their own. "We weren't born enlightened in our younger life," said Cathleen Gerwig, a Biden supporter from New London, New Hampshire. "We had to learn it. I'm very comfortable with someone who has walked the same road." Liz Bucklin of Lebanon, New Hampshire added, "If you never made a mistake in your life, I don't think you'd be a good candidate."

Former Vice President Joe Biden appeared on the quad at Keene State College on Saturday morning before a crowd of several hundred supporters, a mix of students and local residents.

Others powerfully testified to his impact on their personal lives as a politician who has been shaped by grief, loss and hardship. Keene State student Jack Kelleher emerged from the scrum around Biden after the speech with a wide-eyed smile across his face. He said Biden asked for his phone number when he told the former Vice President that they had something in common. "I'm someone who's had a stutter most of my life," he said. "Joe Biden, he had a stutter when he was young. He's an inspiration to me."

His brother and fellow Keene State student Peter Kelleher said that they also had a history of cancer in their family and appreciated Biden's longtime efforts to find a cure for the disease. The former Vice President lost his son Beau Biden to brain cancer in 2015 and has made medical research a cornerstone of his health care plan in 2020.

And finally, some attributed their support for Biden to his perceived electability, an argument that former Second Lady Jill Biden made in Manchester, New Hampshire last week. Even then, they usually referenced his fiery speaking style or his moderate positions rather than his head-to-head poll numbers or his Electoral College math. "I think you have to fight Trump with an aggressive posture, not necessarily reasoning," said Bill Ferriter, a retired doctor from Florida who was visiting his old home in the Upper Valley.

His wife Diane Ferriter added that Biden was the only candidate "established" and "not extreme" enough to bring the country — as well as her own family — together. "The extreme isn't going to work," she said. She credited his support for a public option rather than Medicare for All.

Biden stuck around for almost a half hour after his speech in Keene, New Hampshire to shake hands with voters and take pictures in the middle of a large scrum. He asked for one student's phone number.

While ideological moderates, self-described members of the middle class, people of color and senior citizens appeared to form the backbone of the Biden coalition, just as informative from the conversations were those who did not like the former Vice President.

Bliss Austin-Spencer, a mother from Cambridge, Massachusetts who attended with two of her teenage kids, said she was "shocked" by Biden's performance at Dartmouth. She called him "disconnected" and "tone-deaf" on women's issues for several remarks in the final minutes of his question-and-answer session, one of which expressed sympathy for a Marine who confessed to a grisly rape and murder. "I'm just shocked and I thought I knew Joe Biden, but I don't," she said. "I saw a rambling old man."

The media coverage of the town hall in particular picked up on the same narrative, as a New York Times report led with two of the "unusual rhetorical detours" the former Vice President took as his seventy-minute appearance drew to a close. After recalling the assassinations of his two political heroes, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, in 1968, Biden looked at younger voters in the audience and speculated "imagine what would have happened if, God forbid, Barack Obama had been assassinated." He also told the crowd that he was "such a big supporter of the [Equal Rights Amendment] in 1972" that his detractors said "he's probably gay."

Yet most of his supporters seemed not to notice as Biden laid out his health care plan in detail for twenty minutes from behind the podium and then answered questions from the audience for another fifty, something he did not do during his last trip to New Hampshire on July 12-13. As he eased into the question-and-answer session, Biden started to walk up and down the long aisles in the second-floor room at Dartmouth to get closer to his voters.

"He has so far exceeded my expectations," Ferriter, the retired doctor, said excitedly midway through the town hall.

Biden started with the personal acknowledgement that "I've spent a lot of time in the hospital myself" — his two sons recovered for weeks in the hospital after the 1972 car accident that killed his wife and daughter and his son Beau Biden later battled brain cancer for two years. He thanked the local nurse who introduced him. "Doctors let you live, but nurses make you want to live," he said. "They know how to give you hope." 

Biden walked up and down the aisle in the second-floor room at Dartmouth while answering questions from voters. He read from a piece of paper that he updates every day with the exact number of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He called for more nurses nationwide, particularly for mental health, before stepping back and beginning with a guiding principle of his campaign. "I am really very, very concerned about the state of the nation," he said. "At the same time, I am absolutely frustrated that we have the ability in our hands to fundamentally change things and make the United States such a better place than it is today."

The effort to convince moderates that he would not support pie-in-the-sky policies and liberals that he would actually achieve forward-looking change continued throughout his discussion of health care. He described the issue as "an area of important difference between the candidates," which required "level-setting and being honest with the American people."

His plan centered around the Affordable Care Act, which he said provided 100 million Americans with protections for preexisting conditions. "I told President Obama that it was a big deal or something to that affect," he said to laughter from the crowd. Yet he wanted to "finish the job" with a public option within Obamacare, a proposal that he said would cost "a lot of money" at $740 billion over ten years but still one-thirtieth of the $30 billion estimated for a single-payer system.

In the same vein, he pledged to lift the cap of government subsidies towards private insurance under Obamacare to 400 percent of the federal poverty line and to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices before he pivoted to a whole different area that no other Democratic candidate has spent significant time talking about: medical research.

"We're on the cusp of so many significant breakthroughs in cancer — right here at the Cotton Cancer Center — diabetes, Alzheimer's, so many diseases that impact on our families," he said. He recalled the role of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), founded in 1958, in the development of the Internet, GPS-based navigation and self-driving vehicles over the last sixty years and called for the creation of a new advanced research projects agency for health.

Biden called on voters for the last fifty minutes of his seventy-minute appearance, something that he did not do on his last trip to New Hampshire on July 12-13.

The former Vice President who led the "cancer moonshot" initiative in the last years of the Obama administration gave several examples of projects that his agency could launch in the first six months of his administration, including the development of next generation of MRI machines, brain-controlled robotic prostheses and clinical trials for alternative treatments to the most expensive drugs.

The proposal stuck out for several of the undecided voters in attendance, both at Dartmouth and the next day at Keene State. Bart, a retired military technician, found the idea particularly intriguing and Kelleher, who mentioned the history of cancer in his family, also approved.

During the question-and-answer session in Hanover, New Hampshire, Biden covered a range of additional health care issues. He committed to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2025, reduce Parkinson's drug pricing and incentivize medical students to serve in rural hospitals with free tuition.

He could have wrapped up then around forty minutes into the town hall, satisfied by one of his most informative, focused and inspiring public appearances of the campaign. The room of 300-400 seats was packed and an overflow room held another couple hundred after a long line snaked around the outside of the building an hour before he arrived. A long row of media cameras in the back captured photos and videos of him in the middle of the audience, strolling up and down the aisles and looking voters in the eye.

But he continued on and answered questions on climate change and education before the "unusual rhetorical detours" that the Times reported and the "tone-deaf" comments that shocked voters like Austin-Spencer. He did not take questions the following day in Keene, New Hampshire, which was billed as a community event rather than a town hall, but he did spend almost a half hour shaking hands and taking pictures with voters after his speech.

In the Dartmouth town hall and Keene State meet-and-greet, Biden was able to get closer to voters and look them in the eye, a must for a candidate who has always thrived on personal connections.

The two events captivated audiences and floored voters one way or the other, as Biden went off on a roller coaster of stream-of-consciousness stories not unlike his hypothetical general election opponent. "That was unreal," said Ferriter when Biden finally concluded his remarks at Dartmouth. The retired doctor and Florida resident wanted "an aggressive posture, not necessarily reasoning" to take down Trump.

A Massachusetts native who attended the Keene State event and planned to vote for Biden, Linda Schechterle, called the former Vice President the "opposite" of Trump because of "who he is." She said that Biden was "clearly a good man with a good heart, a good soul."

As Democrats and independents across the country have recoiled from the President over the past three years, the question of whether Biden, a 76-year-old with a history of rhetorical gaffes and periodic lapses in sensitivity, is too much like Trump or the perfect foil for Trump will decide the primary more than any other.

In his own way, Biden left the crowd at Dartmouth with that message to a roar of laughter and applause from supporters both old and young. "'I am the savior!'" Biden mimicked in a low voice the latest tweet from Trump before cutting himself off and turning to the crowd. "I mean, come on man? Anyway, good night folks."

This work is made possible by the Russell H. Bostert Memorial Fellowship at Williams College.

At house built in 1802, Buttigieg barnstorms, draws comparisons to Obama

HANCOCK, N.H. — The sun rose over a flag-draped red barn early Saturday morning as yellow school buses shuttled several hundred voters from a nearby public high school parking lot to the property of Eleanor and Doug Cochrane, where South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg took the outdoor stage for his first appearance of the day.

"Since this old house was built in 1802 when Thomas Jefferson was president, it has seen our nation grow and change," the host, Eleanor Cochrane, told the audience in her introduction. "I doubt that it's ever seen such an important gathering," she later added.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg spoke at the home of Eleanor and Doug Cochrane in Hancock, New Hampshire on Saturday morning to start his second day of campaigning in the state on the three-day trip.

Buttigieg, not one to miss a beat, picked up on the detail right away as the applause died down and a hush fell over the crowd. His voice slowed over the speakers and for the first time all morning, a stillness settled over the clearing in the woods. "You got me thinking when you talked about this house since 1802 and all the changes that it's seen and it makes me wonder when folks are gathered at this house a couple hundred years from now, talking about everything that it's been through, what will they say about this moment?" he asked.

The forward-looking message of Buttigieg, along with his obvious intellect, effortless rhetoric and cerebral personality, reminded voters of another presidential candidate who barnstormed early-voting states like New Hampshire twelve summers ago: former President Barack Obama.

"He's wicked smart," said Jim Mason of Hancock, New Hampshire who liked Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in 2016 but was ranking his policy preferences "second to who can win" in the 2020 primary. "That seems to be the thing from him. Kind of like Obama in a way — he's a real thinker."

Mason came out to see Buttigieg, who he described as one of the two "less polarizing" candidates along with former Vice President Joe Biden, because he wanted to determine whether the South Bend Mayor could take the fight to President Donald Trump in a hypothetical general election matchup. "I want to get a sense if he can do battle," he said.

Carol Gehlbach of Jaffrey, New Hampshire also compared the 37-year-old to the then-Illinois Senator only three years removed from the state legislature. "Sort of like Obama, he's smart before his time, but he's also running before his time," she said. "God knows we're wanting someone who can speak the English language," she added.

Former state senator and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Molly Kelly, an Indiana native, appeared with Buttigieg as former Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the same time twenty miles away in Keene, New Hampshire.

Two younger voters who turned out for the early morning start time, brothers from Temple, New Hampshire, cited his outsider appeal, another similarity with the hope-and-change candidate who challenged the Clinton machine at the height of its powers in 2008. "He's not an establishment Democrat," Mike Robidoux said. William Robidoux added that Buttigieg, a "small town mayor" who "was not well-known" and "looks like a regular guy," shows that "anybody can do this."

And with the backdrop of a barn, a flag and a house built during the Jefferson administration, the unifying patriotism of Buttigieg also called to mind Obama, who famously told the Democratic National Convention "there's not a liberal America and a conservative America — there's the United States of America" in 2004. 

"Patriotism, our love of our country and the symbol of its flag, is supposed to be something to bring us together, not something to beat somebody else over the head with," Buttigieg said.

Except for an acknowledgement that his marriage would not exist if not for a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court, he mostly avoided discussion of his sexual orientation in the same way that Obama, the first black president, avoided discussion of his race. But while he extolled the virtues of patriotism and the flag — and later heralded the role of rural America, the military and religion — he told voters that his values were progressive.

"I'm not talking about conservative values," he said earlier in the speech. "I'm talking about American values and the fact that they have progressive implications if you take them seriously in our time." He gave the example that he interpreted American values of liberty and freedom to mean a "Medicare-for-all-who-want-it" public option, access to reproductive health care and public education.

In his stump speech, Buttigieg also raised concerns about the stability of the economy, which he described as "teetering on the edge," and twice poked fun at the President's interest in purchasing Greenland to laughter from the crowd. Another new line since his last appearance in the state on July 12 in Dover, New Hampshire included a call to address mental health and addiction. "It's not just a problem, it's a crisis," he said.

Buttigieg spoke for twenty minutes before answering questions from the audience for an additional twenty-three minutes on the sunny but chilly late August morning.

The section on mental health and addiction followed the release of a $300-billion plan by the Buttigieg campaign on Friday ahead of its weekend swing through New Hampshire, a state ravaged by the opioid epidemic. Former state senator and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Molly Kelly, who introduced Buttigieg in a coup for the campaign on the same day as former Vice President Joe Biden appeared in nearby Keene, New Hampshire, also highlighted the issue.

"Step one before we get to any of the policies is to bring it out of the shadows," Buttigieg said. "How many people here have someone in your family or someone you know as a coworker or someone you care about as a friend who has been impacted by mental health or addiction?"

Almost every hand raised into the air. "Ok, that's just about everybody," he said. "So let's stop talking about this as a specialty issue and allowing it to sit on the margins," he said. "This is all of us."

The high level of involvement from the audience was typical throughout the speech, as Buttigieg rattled off line after line that received rounds of applause. He carried the momentum from the crowd into the final section of his remarks, when he detailed his life-changing experience in the military and pitched his signature policy for one million paid national service opportunities.

The shift from values to policies at the end helped Buttigieg back up his reputation as a problem-solver, someone who would bring "a mayor's eye view" to the White House. "We got to come together and actually get something done," he said. "There's a lot of talk coming out of this White House, harmful talk. More importantly, there's not a lot of action, nothing that's actually making our lives better."

Several hundred voters parked at the nearby ConVal Regional High School parking lot and rode yellow school buses over to the Cochrane property early Saturday.

Kelly, an Indiana native who said that Buttigieg "could've gone anywhere he wanted" but "chose to come back home," echoed the same message in her introduction. She said her family used to visit Notre Dame University for football games, but when she returned as an adult, she was saddened that the college town had become "a dying city." She credited Buttigieg for the turnaround. "Pete has a way, and I think all of you know this, of looking at a problem and then solving that problem by looking through a different lens," she said.

Yet with the New Hampshire primary six months away, Buttigieg will have to look through a different lens and solve at least one more problem over the next half-year if he wants to win the Democratic nomination. How will he convince voters to get behind a 37-year-old mayor who is polling in the single digits when Democrats want a heavyweight candidate to take down Trump and a familiar face like Biden is waiting in the wings?

"I think any time you run for office, the process goes like this," he said in response to a question about why he wants to be president. "You look at the office and what it calls for and you look at yourself and what you bring to the table and you see if there's a match."

As the only top-tier candidate who is an outsider, he finished his answer by charting a way forward for the country with cities like South Bend, Indiana as a model for the capital. "This turns out to be a moment where it makes sense to have somebody with governing experience, executive experience, but perhaps experience gathered outside Washington because we're trying to get Washington to look more like our best-run cities and towns rather than the other way around," he said.

This work is made possible by the Russell H. Bostert Memorial Fellowship at Williams College.

Reflection: The Man in the Arena

"What is the value of going?"

"What are you hoping to gain from that?"

"Do you really have to go?"

I heard the question over and over again from family members, friends and first-in-the-nation voters and usually stumbled through an answer about how it was important to hear from both sides. I had pledged, after all, to see all the candidates for president during my summer in New Hampshire.

But I had not expected one particular candidate for president — the candidate who is the current occupant of the White House — to visit the Granite State over my eight-week stay. He had not held one of his signature rallies in the state since the night before the 2016 election, when he packed SNHU Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire in between an afternoon event in Scranton, Pennsylvania and a midnight stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

The line extended several blocks back from the teal-colored SNHU Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire hours before the doors opened. Vendors sold Make America Great Again hats and Trump-themed merchandise.

Of course, he won the two Rust Belt states en route to a historic upset of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but in a footnote on the night, lost New Hampshire by several thousand votes. Since then, the state, which has long been noted for its brand of moderate politics and has experienced an influx of new arrivals from nearby states as well as foreign countries in recent years, has delivered him some of his worst approval ratings of any battleground. In all honesty, I thought his reelection campaign had probably given up on the tiny state and its four electoral votes.

So when President Donald Trump announced plans to return to SNHU Arena, I knew I had to be there. I expected him first and foremost to weigh into Democratic primary, taking shots at the leading contenders that would echo far beyond the stadium and in some cases, even affect how Democratic voters think about electability. I thought he might endorse his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who is mulling a bid against New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen but first must secure the Republican nomination. And I also figured he or his supporters would start some national controversy, as he has done many times before.

But couldn't I have read about all of that the next day? Or just watched on television? What was the advantage to actually being there? 

The question became more difficult to answer two nights before the rally, when my request for a media credential was denied by the Trump campaign. While I admit that I am not a member of the media, I am a student receiving money for research from a fully accredited college and I have not had a problem from any other campaign this summer. The Biden campaign and the Sanders campaign accepted my documentation for admission to ticketed events and among others, the Weld campaign allowed me to ask their candidate a question.

Without a media credential, I would have to enter as a member of the general public, a double-edged sword of sorts. I would have easier access to Trump supporters because I would not have to stand in the roped-off media section, but I would also have to ditch my usual routine of walking around, carrying my notepad and interviewing people. I feared that otherwise, I would draw attention to myself and somehow get turned away from the arena at the last second.

The large media section, which Trump supporters on the floor turned around and directed boos at after the President mentioned "the fake news media," was separated from the crowd by a fence and security guards.

In retrospect, I probably could have milled about and talked to people (and maybe even carried my notepad!) but I wanted to be safe. Especially after waiting on line for three hours, I really wanted to make sure I would get in and get to stay. I resolved to be a fly on the wall, a first-time voter listening to all the candidates, an American going to see the President. I told myself that I had every right to be there.

And even under the less-than-perfect circumstances, I still thought that I would learn something, far beyond any value of just listening to both sides. I figured I would take something away about how Trump communicates with his voters in the particular setting of the arena, about how the rallies are staged by his campaign and about what his supporters in the long lines and the nosebleed sections are thinking and feeling ahead of the 2020 election.

I was not disappointed. Seven hours after I took my place on line and four hours after I entered the arena, I left with at least one new insight as I raced through downtown Manchester to beat the crowd back to my parking garage and sped off into the night.

It was incredibly difficult to hear from second level, where I sat midway up around center ice at the end of a long row. The section was packed as Trump came to the microphone, but almost completely cleared out by the end of the night.

The first sign of trouble arrived earlier in the evening, when two women Republican state legislators delivered speeches that almost no one in the nosebleed seats deciphered. A middle-aged man sitting next to me asked if I, as a young person, understood them and said that he and his wife did not. They hoped that Trump, as a man, would project better. There was a wave of murmuring during the two short speeches and soon enough, most ignored them.

The view from my seat in the upper level looked out upon the whole arena, as a long walkway led to a small stage in the middle of a sea of red hats.

Yet the problem did not abate when Trump finally walked out and jumped into his remarks. There was a roar of audible shouts of "Louder!" and "Microphone!" from across the upper level that grew increasingly frustrated as the rest of the arena quieted down. Over the sound system, Trump's words sounded muffled and muddied, as well as unexpectedly high-pitched, as they bounced around the rafters. His voice rose and fell, with only the crests of each sentence detectable. Eventually, the trickle of supporters heading for the exits turned into a parade. My seat neighbors got up and left.

Where exactly everyone went was unclear. The lower bowl was at capacity and security guards prevented more supporters from entering the floor area. Most seemed to stand around the entrances to each section. Some might have watched in the concourse or gone home. As the second-deck section emptied, only then did Trump become easier to hear, with fewer sound-absorbing bodies and chattering mouths in the area.

Still, I struggled to hear at times, and I was one of the youngest people in the audience. I also can't imagine that the problem is unique to the SNHU Arena. Many of the minor league arenas and regional airports that Trump barnstorms across the country likely have the same problem, whether because of the sound systems or the large audiences.

With that realization, I began to understand that Trump relies on buzzwords and shortcuts out of necessity in his rallies. His supporters might not have heard everything, but when they heard "fake news media" or "witch hunt," they booed. When they heard "Make America Great Again," they cheered. When they heard "sleepy Joe" or "China," they laughed.

My section in the second deck was packed with supporters before Trump appeared on stage, although other sections in the upper level never filled because of the building capacity.

My section and others nearby cleared out soon after Trump started talking, as supporters complained about the audio and relocated to find a better to hear the President.

It's all part of the experience, but it's also the easiest way to communicate with larger crowds. It's instinctive, almost visceral, and it's reinforced with each rally as the audience registers its approval or disapproval. As the 2020 campaign heats up and Trump holds more rallies closer and closer to election day, it's something that every Democratic candidate should understand.

Along with the sequence of classic rock songs accompanied by a light show before his entrance and the gleeful rather than angry mood of his supporters — a woman in line told me she was "so glad to be among so many deplorables" and the whole arena bobbed up and down during the gay pride anthem "Y.M.C.A." — that was what I took away. 

Whether it was worth the trouble, I will leave to you.

This work is made possible by the Russell H. Bostert Memorial Fellowship at Williams College.

Ryan, Delaney sit for questions on economy and budget after Inslee drops out

GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan and former Maryland Congressman John Delaney visited the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College on Thursday afternoon for a forum moderated by National Public Radio chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley that focused in-depth on the economy and the budget.

The last-minute dropout of Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who was scheduled to appear at the event but ended his campaign on Wednesday night, cast a shadow over the forum as roughly half the auditorium was filled with folding chairs and voters spaced out across the seated area.

Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan returned the New Hampshire Institute of Politics for the forum on Thursday afternoon, two months after he spoke at Politics and Eggs.

Dale Pike, a self-described centrist and independent, drove from Newmarket, New Hampshire with his wife Carol Pike for the event because he said economic and budgetary issues had not received enough attention in the primary. He had already seen Delaney three times and liked the former Maryland Congressman, but was disappointed in the overall direction of the primary. "I'm concerned that these centrist efforts are not getting a lot of traction," he said.

Carol Pike, who also ranked Delaney first but said she would only consider "somebody who could beat Trump" when she cast her vote in six months, believed that the long-shot candidate needed to increase his name recognition. "Nobody really knows him," she said.

Delaney, who has now held over 120 events in New Hampshire according to one candidate tracker, appeared first for his twenty-five minute session. He introduced himself as an entrepreneur from a blue-collar family who lived out the American dream before weighing in on the debt, interest rates, health care and trade.

He notably named his "comfortable level of debt" at 60 to 70 percent of GDP, lower than the most recent Congressional Budget Office projection of 95 percent by 2029. He believed that global interest rates, at historically low levels for much of the last decade, would eventually rise, making the higher level of debt unsustainable. "I think in a hundred years when they look back they'll view this era as an anomaly," he said.

In order to reduce the deficit, Delaney responded that he would foster a pro-growth environment before adding that he wanted to close a loophole that taxes capital gains at a lower level than ordinary income. "The best way obviously to boost revenues is higher economic growth," he said.

He told the audience he was "against upheaval" on health care because "I think we're at the threshold of extraordinary breakthroughs" in cures for diseases like Alzheimer's. He defended the health care industry, which he worked in as co-founder of health care commercial lender in the 1990s, from charges that innovation has not translated to lower costs. Rather than less compensation, he believed health care industry deserved to make a "fair profit."

Former Maryland Congressman John Delaney, who has visited New Hampshire more than any other candidate, made his arguments to a room with empty chairs, particularly in the middle section.

Kyle Heavey, a Manchester, New Hampshire resident with two near-senior parents, expressed concern about Delaney's openness to raising the retirement age, although the son of a union electrician assured voters that low-income manual laborers would receive an exception. "Ok, what's that mean for us?" Heavey asked after the event.

The former Maryland Congressman also touted himself during the conversation as the only candidate who wants to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the moderator noted was "not a popular position in the Democratic Party right now." Delaney responded that he would sell the trade agreement, which was attacked from all sides during the 2016 election, as a choice between "Trump's isolationism" or multilateralism.

"Back then, we we had to describe the counterfactual," he said. "Now we see it. We see what a trade war looks like."

Towards the end of the informative discussion, Delaney commented that he agreed with the 200 chief executive officers who issued a statement on Monday that shareholders were no longer the only interest of corporations. The youngest CEO in the history of the New York Stock Exchange and an award-winning business owner under the Obama administration, Delaney said that he always considered shareholders as part of a triumvirate along with communities and employees.

Ryan spent less time introducing himself — he told the audience he has represented "an old kind of Rust Belt area" for 17 years in Congress and relayed a story about a voter who asked if he named his five-year-old son Brady after the New England Patriots quarterback. "I thought very quickly, I'm in New Hampshire," he laughed. "I looked him dead in the eye and I said, 'Absolutely.'"

"That's the kind of straight answer I'm hoping to get," the moderator responded.

On the issues, the nine-term congressman called the most recent spending package "a necessary bill" to avert another government shutdown. A proponent of yoga, healthy eating and mindfulness techniques in his personal life, Ryan said that the debate about public versus private health insurance did not matter when "half the country" suffers from heart disease, high blood pressure or type-two diabetes. "You're going to sink whatever system you have," he said. "I'm focused on getting healthy."

Delaney and Ryan, former colleagues for six years in the House of Representatives, shared a hug and a handshake when they exchanged places on the stage.

He answered a question about his past support for public swimming pools, which he described as important along with theaters and museums to keep young people in rebuilding communities like Youngstown, Ohio. "You've got to have quality of life," he said. He also touted his efforts with California Congressman Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, to get 13 venture capitalists on a bus tour through the Rust Belt and pledged to do the same with his Department of Commerce. "They started seeing opportunities," he said.

The candidates each wrapped up by shaking a few hands and conversing with former New Hampshire Congressman Richard Swett, who recently endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. They shared a hug in between session when they switched places. Democratic National Committee rules prohibit more than one candidate from taking the stage at the same time.

The event was co-sponsored by the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization that educates voters on fiscal responsibility, and 20/20 Vision, a national economic policy-making think tank. Tyler Sweeney, the New Hampshire state director of the Concord Coalition, said that he extended invites to every candidate that qualified for the first debates. The organization did not know Inslee would cancel ahead of his appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show. "Inslee, we heard from exactly as it was happening," he said.

In the wake of Inslee's departure from the field, Heavey commented on the state of race for low-polling candidates like Delaney and Ryan going forward. "When there's so many candies in the jar," he said sometimes "the funding isn't there." Delaney is a multi-millionaire who is largely self-funding his campaign, but Ryan is not.

While Dale Pike, the centrist who was leaning towards Delaney, called the Republican Party "horribly broken," he disliked most of the top-tier Democratic alternatives, particularly Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and wanted more nonpartisan, problem-solving forums like the one on Thursday afternoon. He described Biden as "gaffe-prone" but raised another issue with the former Vice President. "It's telling that none of the major Democratic candidates wanted to be here," he said.

This work is made possible by the Russell H. Bostert Memorial Fellowship at Williams College.

Jill Biden sticks to biography and character, local surrogates stress electability

BOW, N.H. — Former second lady Jill Biden, the wife of former Vice President Joe Biden, made headlines on Monday for her comments on electability at an education roundtable in Manchester, New Hampshire.

"Your candidate might be better on, I don't know, healthcare than Joe is, but you've got to look at who's going to win this election," she told voters at the roundtable. "And maybe you have to swallow a little bit and say, ok I personally like so-and-so better but your bottom line has to be that we have to beat Trump."

Former second lady Jill Biden spoke to several dozen voters on a scenic overlook at the home of former New Hampshire Congressman Richard Swett and his wife Katrina Swett, a three-time congressional candidate.

And while she did not return to the subject in her next appearance — a house party at the home of former New Hampshire Congressman Richard Swett and his wife Katrina Swett, a three-time congressional candidate — her hosts did. One of the most high-profile power couples in the state, the Swetts, who officially endorsed Biden earlier in the week, introduced the former second lady before an outdoor crowd of 50-100 voters on their property. 

"I talk all the time to my friends and we have one topic of conversation, which is the race, the campaign, the state of the country, who are you working for, how can we bring about positive change," Katrina Swett said. 

She told the audience that her friends support many different candidates, but said she often reminded them that President Donald Trump "didn't have a narrow Electoral College victory" and the eventual Democratic nominee "can't win without flipping states that were carried by President Trump." She named Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida, an expanded map beyond the former blue-wall battlegrounds, as fertile territory for Biden and then she reached her point.

"I sometimes say, 'Do you think fill-in-the-blank can flip that state?'" Swett said. "And very often, they'll pause and they'll be giving me the gung-ho script and so-on and so-forth and they'll say, 'No, actually I don't think they can flip that state.'"

A recent poll showed that only Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders led Trump in a hypothetical general election matchup. The Biden campaign also launched a television advertisement on Tuesday that showed him leading Trump. "We have to beat Donald Trump," the narrator said. "And all the polls agree: Joe Biden is the strongest Democrat to do the job."

Richard Swett, who also served as Ambassador to Denmark in the Clinton administration, was not as direct, but stressed that Biden would connect with people in rural areas.

"I think if you have seen over 25 years, you have seen Washington not pay attention to the people in the hinterlands," he said. "And you continue to talk a little bit about people that have felt left out, left behind. Well Joe Biden is someone who really believes in serving these people. He understands that those people, all of you here, are the soul of this country."

Three-time congressional candidate and 2004 national co-chair for Joe Lieberman, Katrina Swett made the strongest argument for electability on Monday afternoon.

Even with the two introductions, only an hour after the education roundtable, Jill Biden stayed away from the argument. She talked about her upbringing — she grew up in a middle-class Philadelphia suburb watching the Phillies and waitressing at the Jersey Shore — and told the story of meeting her husband, then a young widower with two children and a freshman senator. 

"I wore my hair down to the middle of my waist and so did most of the men I dated," she said about her young adulthood in the 1970s. So when she agreed to a blind date with a buttoned-up senator, "I took one look at him and I said, "Thank God it's only one date," she laughed. "Well one date turned into a marriage proposal and if I'm being honest, it was five proposals."

She said she turned him down at first because of her fear of disappointing his two young children, who had survived the car accident that killed their mother and baby sister. "I couldn't stand the thought of them losing another mother through divorce. I knew that I had to be 100 percent sure," Biden said. 

One voter said after the event that she had never heard the tragic story of the car accident before and gained a new appreciation for the Bidens from the day. The grief from the deadly car accident has long shaped the former Vice President's worldview and helped him connect with people who have suffered similar trauma, like the families of mass shooting victims.

Biden told the crowd that, after eight years in the Obama administration, her husband "didn't really plan on running for office again." But, after the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, people begged him to reconsider. "There was an urgency," she said.

While she said that she can barely sit through the morning news anymore, she ended on a positive note. She praised communities for coming together to stand up to Trump and gave a shout out to several of key constituencies that Biden is working to win endorsements from. "It's the little miracles that restore my faith," she said. "The teachers, the first-responders, the volunteers. Everyone that shows up, like all of you."

Former New Hampshire Congressman Richard Swett introduced Biden and offered the slogan "Make America Better Again" after welcoming voters to their property.

Karen Cox, a teacher with retired military and retired police officer husband, said after the event that she had been swinging back and forth between Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. "Now I've made up my mind," she said. "We have to flip those states. That's the thing that convinced me." She added her husband also supports Biden.

Dave Farr, a supporter of New York entrepreneur Andrew Yang who wanted to hear from the frontrunner, was less impressed. "She didn't say anything compelling for me," he said. He said he wanted "an outsider" with specific policies and "fresh ideas" and complained before the event that "some of these guys have been so entrenched in government."

For voters like Farr, the strategic calculations of longtime power couples and the stories about working with Biden on Capitol Hill in the 1970s and 1980s are not persuasive. "It's a little bit of Hillary all over again," he said.

Ahead of a weekend trip to the Granite State, where the former Vice President will hold town halls in Hanover, New Hampshire and Keene, New Hampshire, the Biden campaign will have to work to overcome that perception, while underlining their new poll numbers and the stakes of the 2020 election, to close the summer before the first-in-the-nation primary.

This work is made possible by the Russell H. Bostert Memorial Fellowship at Williams College.