Americans frustrated by influence wielded by Iowa, New Hampshire (AP&Yahoo poll

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — All eyes may be on Iowa and New Hampshire, but many of them are rolling.

Despite efforts to evict the two states from the front of the presidential calendar, both managed to hang on for another election cycle that culminates with the Iowa caucuses on Thursday and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8. As a year of media attention reaches its crescendo, voters in other states are saying enough is enough.

According to national survey conducted for The Associated Press and Yahoo News, just over half of all voters said New Hampshire and Iowa have an extraordinary amount of influence over who wins the two nominations.

"They have way too much — WAY too much — say," said Kevin Thomas of Tacoma, Wash. "California's a big state and they don't have any say, and Iowa's not even half the size of California. It really makes me as a voter wonder what's going on."

Fewer than one in five voters said they favor the current system that allows Iowa and New Hampshire to hold the first contests, while nearly 80 percent would rather see other states get their chance at the front of the line.

"I think they should take turns, maybe take it to a small state like Rhode Island that doesn't have a whole lot of voting power," Thomas said.

Both states have been criticized as unrepresentative of the country given their size and lack of racial diversity. Iowa — population 3 million — is 95 percent white; New Hampshire — population 1.3 million — is 96 percent white. Democrats tried to inject more diversity into the process by adding early contests in Nevada and South Carolina, but Iowa and New Hampshire moved even earlier.

The system became so scrambled last year that New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner was prepared to move the primary into December to keep ahead of other states that scheduled their own early primaries and caucuses. If anything, the front-loaded calendar made Iowa and New Hampshire more important.

Gardner and other defenders of New Hampshire say the country — and the candidates — are well-served because the primary requires close contact with voters, not just a big advertising budget and name recognition.

He wasn't surprised by the poll results and negative reaction toward the early states given that most of the country knows nothing about the primary's history or the state's uniquely inquisitive and democratic culture.

New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat who has not endorsed any candidate, argues that New Hampshire's retail politics cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the country.

"We have made it possible for the so-called unknown candidates to make their case without having millions of dollars in the bank. And in turn, we demand that candidates move beyond the rope line and scripted town hall meetings, and directly answer the hard questions from voters," he said. "As a result, the voters, the candidates and the political process all benefit from the New Hampshire primary."

Unsurprisingly, every one of the 21 Iowans who participated in the AP-Yahoo survey think their state and New Hampshire have just the right amount of influence over the presidential selection process. Not so in New Hampshire.

There, two of the five participants said the two states don't have enough power.

Memorable moments from campaign trail
AP

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080101/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_moments;_ylt=Aqh60A32eGJ.tShb1dpZcd2yFz4D

WASHINGTON - Presidential campaigns are about more than just speeches, rallies and the horse race.

There are the moments — some out of public view, others not so private — that reveal a little more about the person behind the practiced politician. Associated Press writers who have been covering the White House hopefuls for the past year share some memorable moments as the 2008 election year begins.

___

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM

John McCain likes reporters, certainly more than most politicians.

The Republican presidential hopeful invites them onto his campaign bus. He huddles with them on the trail. He talks with them, endlessly, about almost anything. He will debate William Faulkner with writers, Iraqi politicians with policy wonks and politics with reporters.

He’ll also call their moms on their birthdays.

McCain mistakenly started his Pearl Harbor Day speech a day early, on Dec. 6. Lumbering back to the bus, reporters teased him about it. He turned it around, asking whether any of us knew what day it was.

I did. It was my mom’s birthday. I told McCain I remembered the date because it was on my calendar.

McCain, smiling, pulled out his golden cell phone and asked for her number. I balked. He insisted. He wasn’t kidding.

“Arlene, I’m John McCain,” he said to the answering machine. “I’m on the bus with your boy, whose behavior has been marginal, but he did tell me that your birthday is today, December 6. I called to congratulate you and say happy 31st birthday. I know you’re proud of your son and ‘Happy Birthday.’ I look forward to meeting you some time. Bye, bye.”

_By Philip Elliott

___

TRAINING FOR A RACE

I’m in a hotel gym in Manchester, N.H., before heading out to cover Mike Huckabee when in walks the Republican presidential candidate himself, there to train for his next marathon.

Spokeswoman (and trainer) Alice Stewart is there, carrying a clipboard and sporting a Huckabee campaign baseball cap.

A man on a stationary bike recognizes him and asks how the campaign is going.

Huckabee answers, glancing at the TV screen on the wall and realizing he is being criticized on Fox News. His rise in polls is still new, and critics are chewing over his Southern Baptist view that women should “submit graciously” to their husbands.

Huckabee’s attention is riveted, even as he greets me and starts running on the treadmill. I make small talk.

But the criticism is bothering him. Fox should disclose the politics of one commentator, Huckabee tells Stewart. She agrees.

We chat a little more, but Huckabee persists, repeating to her that the commentator has a conflict.

I’m left to reflect on stories about Huckabee being thin-skinned as Arkansas governor; he does not seem to be enjoying his new good fortune, at least at this particular moment.

_By Libby Quaid.

___

FACE TO FACE WITH HUMAN SUFFERING

The grief emanating from the women huddled under the blue plastic tarp was so palpable that it hit me like a wave as soon as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and I encountered them.

They were crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in the dirt, with their grim-faced children in their laps, waiting to be processed into a camp in As Salaam, Sudan, for those fleeing the violence in Darfur last January. The camp meant for 25,000 people already had 43,000 residents, and the women had been waiting to get in for a month in these conditions not suitable for livestock.

Richardson, preparing for a presidential run, was visiting Darfur in hopes he could help resolve the 4-year-old conflict between rebels and government-backed militias.

The 6-foot-1 governor had to bend over to see the women under the tarp, and at first they remained fearful and silent in response to his questions. Then one explained they walked from 50 miles away after militias stole their livestock and looted and burned their homes. She mentioned nothing about rape, although we had learned later that this was the standard experience for female victims of militia attacks.

“Where are their husbands?” Richardson asked the interpreter. The woman replied that some were elsewhere in the camp, but many were killed by the militias.

Our next meeting was with state government officials who said life in Darfur was “stable” and “normal” and that reports of violence were exaggerated. We had seen the devastation with our own eyes, and I grew angry at their lies. But Richardson did not confront them and instead politely thanked them for their hospitality.

On the flight home, he said his goal is to keep the dialogue open. “What goes through my mind is what is my ultimate objective? It’s to make a difference, to achieve something that will make the lives of somebody else better,” Richardson said.

_By Nedra Pickler

___

CEDING THE SPOTLIGHT

Alone on the campaign trail, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton is a model of discipline, efficiency and order. But add her husband to the mix, and campaign events turn into unpredictable free-for-alls that vividly illustrate the couple’s vastly different styles and personalities.

What was to be a carefully staged photo opportunity with the Clintons and NBA legend Magic Johnson at a Des Moines, Iowa, coffee shop veered into near-bedlam, as Bill Clinton broke away from the small dining area and wandered through an adjoining grocery store, chatting up patrons and salespeople along the way.

Reporters, who had been stuck behind a rope line so as not to disturb the coffee shop customers, scurried to follow the garrulous former president as he meandered through the store. He stopped at one point to speak with a TV crew from “Entertainment Tonight,” ignoring his handlers’ pleas as he described how he and his wife spend their private “human being” time.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, stayed in the coffee shop area, nearly alone and mostly ignored amid the mayhem her husband created. It took several more minutes, and entreaties from her campaign staff, before he returned to stand by her side and cede the spotlight ... if ever so briefly.

_By Beth Fouhy.

___

DAD’S COMPETITIVE INSTINCTS

“Another one! Another one!”

Barack Obama pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and thrust several into the hand of a woman running a midway game at Iowa’s state fair last summer. “Another one!” he said, crouching over his 6-year-old daughter, Sasha.

Obama and Sasha had just lost the game to Sasha’s mother, Michelle, and sister, Malia, 9. The hyper-competitive presidential candidate wanted a rematch. “Another one!” he said again, kissing the top of Sasha’s head.

Father and daughter grabbed the handles of a water pistol and aimed it at the target.

This time, their aim was certain and Sasha won.

“We won!” Obama said, high-fiving the midway worker and embracing Sasha in a joyous hug.

He slipped the worker a tip, then left for the nearby rides with his family.

_By Ron Fournier

___

GOING THE DISTANCE

An avid runner, Mitt Romney carves out time for a three-mile jaunt every other day no matter where the campaign takes him. But a funny thing happened six months ago during a run at Gray’s Lake Park in Des Moines.

“I bumped into a very attractive young woman coming the other direction,” the former Massachusetts governor told an audience.

“Going incognito” in a hat, Romney said, “I was running along and she said ‘Wait, wait stop. Are you Mitt Romney?’ And, you know, I felt like saying ‘I hate it when people say that about me.’ But being truthful at the moment, I said to her ‘Well, yes I am.’”

Laughing along with the crowd, Romney said the woman asked to shake his hand and “she was so excited just to meet me.”

Then, he said: “She started to scream, just scream, holding onto my hand just screaming.”

“All the joggers are looking around like ‘What’s going on?’” Romney said, chuckling.

Turns out the woman, Diane Herndon, of Bondurant, was in the audience at a coffee house just outside Des Moines.

“She is here! Diana, come say hi!” Romney prodded, holding out the microphone and asking her to demonstrate the scream.

Herndon let loose with an “AHHHHA!” as the audience exploded in howls and cheers.

“Is this a true story?” Romney asked.

“Very true,” she said, appearing slightly embarrassed.

“She screamed, and I smiled, and she screamed some more, and we let go of hands,” Romney said.

“I think it was a runner’s high, though,” Herndon joked.

“It was a runner’s high,” Romney agreed, then hamming it up for the audience, he said: “I took off, let me tell you, I took off!”

_By Liz Sidoti.

___

FAMILIAR FACE AT THE FREEZER CASE

It was an only-in-New Hampshire sort of moment.

As food editor for The Associated Press, I get most of my presidential race news at the dinner table — from my wife, AP writer Holly Ramer. So I wasn’t expecting an up-close view of the race from the frozen foods aisle at my local grocery co-op in Concord.

I was there one day when I noticed a familiar face checking out the freezer case. It was Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic hopeful from Ohio whose vegan diet makes him as natural a fit for that shop as the blocks of tofu on the shelf.

The congressman was overjoyed at being recognized, though a bit crestfallen when he realized it was because I’d interviewed him during his previous primary run in 2003.

We chatted briefly about the state of the food world, a subject he is passionate about. We both expressed dismay that few serious issues, including food safety, were making the campaign coverage. Then he asked me his most pressing question of the moment.

Did I know where the prepared foods aisle was? He needed lunch.

_By J.M. Hirsch.

___

A BACKUP PLAN

One of John McCain’s earliest campaign rallies was at the packed Sugar and Spice Drive In. The Spartanburg, S.C., restaurant was packed with nearly 800 people inside and out waiting to see the senator from Arizona. He rolled up in a big rental van with former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating and former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

McCain lingered as the crowd thinned. But when he got into the van, it wouldn’t start.

The campaign said a volunteer had left the key on for a couple of hours and the battery was dead.

McCain didn’t miss a beat. He and the others packed into cars and headed for the next stop.

_By Jim Davenport.

___

MAKING A GOAT COUNT

For John Edwards, every vote — and every goat — matters.

It was Aug. 26, the final day of the candidate’s four-day bus tour through New Hampshire. His second-to-last stop was the Rochester Common, a small patch of grass in the middle of the city. Waiting to greet the former North Carolina senator and his wife was a woman and a goat laying on a blanket on the sidewalk. They appeared a bit surprised, but took it in stride.

Elizabeth Edwards smoothly incorporated the encounter into her introduction.

“It was great seeing the goat out there,” she said. “We’re big North Carolina fans — the North Carolina Tar Heels — but there is no mascot Tar Heel ... so we have a ram as our mascot that we bring to the field. So it’s really great to see a ram greeting us here.”

_Compiled by Holly Ramer

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.