GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — On the campus of Saint Anselm College, at the 20,000-square-foot complex known as the "workplace" of the New Hampshire primary, New Hampshire Institute of Politics (NHIOP) Executive Director Neil Levesque sat down for a wide-ranging interview where he reflected on the growth of the nationally-known Politics and Eggs speaker series and said that, with the 2020 campaign in full swing, the first-in-the-nation primary is "alive and well."
"We're getting reports that for all of these candidates, when they come, they're filling the rooms," Levesque said. "They're filling the houses and the house parties and there's a lot of interest in them."
A former aide to retired New Hampshire Congressman Charles Bass, Levesque described how Politics and Eggs — the signature program sponsored by the NHIOP in partnership with the New England Council business lobby — has become a must-stop appearance on the campaign trail. Nine candidates have addressed the closed-to-the-public but open-to-the-media crowd since January, most recently New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on July 9. The speaker series even made a cameo on the award-winning television drama The West Wing in the early 2000s.
"People started signing the wooden eggs that we put on the tables, so it's taken on this whole new tradition," Levesque said. "It's become a real ritual."
In addition to the large dining room with state-of-the-art lighting for Politics and Eggs, the NHIOP also houses a computer lab for statewide polling and a political library with biographies of all the presidents, a favorite of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush according to Levesque. All around the building, photos of candidates line the walls and assorted memorabilia fills glass cases. On a tour of the facility, Levesque pointed out a wooden podium that John F. Kennedy spoke from in downtown Manchester on Election Day in 1960, as well as his old personalized license plate, which read "4MORE4W."
From a larger auditorium on campus, Saint Anselm College has also hosted dozens of primary debates for both parties over the years. At a 2016 Republican debate, HUD Secretary Ben Carson famously missed his entrance and waited in the wings on national television, as Levesque motioned for him to walk onto the stage. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie also sank the chances of Florida Senator Marco Rubio that night, with an exchange that questioned his readiness for executive office.
Even compared to that most recent election cycle, Levesque said there have been an unprecedented number of candidates at the red-brick NHIOP building for various events over the past-year half. He disputed, when asked, a July 29 Boston Globe story entitled 'Where are they? It's high summer in N.H., but the candidates are elsewhere."
"We've had more candidate activity in the last six months than we've ever had," Levesque said. "I know the reporter who wrote that and I like him and I agree with him almost all the time, except on this issue."
The article, written by Globe politics reporter James Pindell, detailed that "during the 26-day period that began last week, only two candidates had or were scheduled to have events in the state." Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren visited on July 27 and self-help author Marianne Williamson planned to attend the opening of her Concord, New Hampshire office on August 1, but later cancelled to appear on Anderson Cooper.
The author quoted University of New Hampshire pollster Andy Smith, who said that new Democratic National Committee rules have incentivized candidates to spend more time fundraising in order to qualify for the third and fourth debates. "I have always said the threat to the New Hampshire primary isn't some state that wants to jump ahead, but when the candidates stop showing up," Smith told the Globe.
Yet in the days after publication, philanthropist Tom Steyer hosted events in Somersworth on July 30 and Weare on July 31. Although not widely publicized, Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton also spoke to voters in Conway and toured a solar energy plant in Brentwood on August 7, while Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard live-streamed a town hall in Portsmouth the same day. Warren and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced plans to return to the state the week of August 12.
Despite the recent announcements, the last couple weeks have not matched the activity of the weeks prior in the Granite State. Some parts of the state have not seen a candidate in almost a month. The Keene Sentinel noted that the Monadnock region, a reliable source of Democratic votes the state, last hosted a candidate on July 12.
The debates are part of the explanation. Most of the candidates "sequester" themselves in the days before to prepare for the high-stakes debates according to Levesque and the Globe reported that many travel to New York or Los Angeles for fundraisers in the days after. But at the moment, almost the entire field is campaigning in Iowa, a sign that the early-state contests are not in danger of losing their influence any time soon. 20 candidates spoke at the Wing Ding dinner on August 9 and 23 in total are expected to appear at the Iowa State Fair between August 8-17.
Like Iowa, the first caucus state, Levesque believed that as long as New Hampshire's "engaged" voters continued to show interest, the candidates would keep returning to the state. "If our citizens didn't take it seriously, if they weren't showing up at these events and we had low voter turnout, that would be a big threat," he said.
In that light, the efforts of the NHIOP to bring candidates to the state for high-quality events seemed ever more critical. While Levesque immediately credited longtime New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner for working to protect the primary's first-in-the-nation status, he said the NHIOP "promotes" the quadrennial contest indirectly.
Politics and Eggs is the crown jewel of that promotion effort. In addition to pleasing campaign managers with its timeliness and organization, Levesque explained that the speaker series generates high levels of earned media for the candidates. "Politics and Eggs seems to draw national media audience that maybe some of the other platforms don't unfortunately," he said. "I think that that's the draw."
He added that the post-speech question-and-answer session also has a reputation among the campaign managers for well-informed questions. He described the audience as a "very nonpartisan" group. "It's not like a Trump rally where it's all one side or a big fundraiser where it's all one side," he said.
The speaker series, which local businesses and nonprofits buy tables for, is billed as a chance for New Hampshire business leaders to meet with the candidates. Typical concerns voiced during the Q&A include Social Security, health care and the national debt. "You get business people in front of candidates, which is always good because business people drive the economy," Levesque said. "And the candidates also get to hear what their thoughts and concerns are, which is of course good."
While he said the candidates are "less likely to just throw red-meat rhetoric," he acknowledged that, at the end of the day, they are speaking to the row of television cameras that extend across the back of the room. On her July 9 visit, Gillibrand largely stuck to her stump speech, which rails against "corruption and greed" and promises to get money out of politics. "The audience, remember, is 150-200 people," Levesque said. "But that's not who they're really talking to. They're talking to the cameras in the back."
After appearing at Politics and Eggs in the morning, the candidates often continue on to other events throughout the state.
"We work with their staffs and we invite them and we work hard at trying to get them here, but ultimately if they don't want participate in New Hampshire that's their decision," Levesque said. "We've had plenty of candidates who have done that in the past like Rudy Giuliani, who has since regretted it."
Although no 2020 candidate is strategically ignoring the early-voting states to the extent of the former New York City Mayor, Levesque warned that the frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden, has not yet spent a significant amount of time in the state.
"We haven't seen much of him at all," Levesque said. "I think his campaign, [they] kind of shield him from interviews and reporters and stuff like that, which in the past, has proven to be a flawed recipe for winning the primary."
On the state of the current race, Levesque added that Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has quietly cultivated a small but loyal following in New Hampshire, a key development for the primary in a crowded field. He said that local business leaders are paying close attention to the contest and feared a nominee like Warren. "I think there are Democratic candidates on the left that are concerning to them," he said.
He said the business community as a whole liked the economy, but was just as divided as the rest of the state and the country on President Donald Trump, who last week announced plans to hold a rally at the 11,000-seat SNHU Arena in downtown Manchester on August 15.
"It's not like 50 percent of the people in the state are independents and are like 'We're going to weigh all the candidates,'" Levesque said. "People are either for Trump or they're not."
This work is made possible by the Russell H. Bostert Memorial Fellowship at Williams College.
No comments:
Post a Comment