Clark Says, "I'll Take The Next Question From The Man In The Window"

KittyWampus

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Fri Jan-09-04 08:30 PM
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Clark Says, "I'll Take The Next Question From The Man In The Window"

Edited on Fri Jan-09-04 08:32 PM by cryingshame

Great account of what's going on in NH with Wes (no copyright):

The state is abuzz here . . . seriously. To set the stage, let me tell you that these candidates come into NH and for several days hold several town meetings at the small towns around the state. They are held in middle school gyms, VFW halls, church basements. They usually hold 100 to 300. Dean has had large ones in the past (last summer), but not consistently. Kerry held one tonight that drew 150.

As I told some of you, it really started a week or so ago. Clark's commercials started taking hold, people starting looking away from Dean, Clark's stump speeches are INCREDIBLE now, and volunteers are flooding the neighborhoods. And the word is getting around. So several days ago, he showed up to do a town hall meeting at Portsmouth -- a small town (hell, they're all small out here) on the coast. It was to be held in a church basement. 1000 people showed up. They moved it upstairs into the church itself -- a double-tiered church. (There are a couple great pictures of it on the yahoo news photo site.)

Then, two hours later, he gave one at North Hampton (even smaller town) and there were so many people the Fire Marshall came and made 200 leave. The Clark team sent those 200 to a nearby restaurant and Clark came and spoke to them later. The original venue was so crowded with people, some were standing on the outside and leaning in thru the windows to hear him. It is actually true, that during the Q&A session, Clark uttered the telling phrase, "I'll take the next question from the man in the window."

The numbers kept coming. The next day, 500+, yesterday in Bedford, a small suburb of Manchester, there were 600. Today, in Petersborough (oh, the towns can get even smaller) there were 700. The fire marshall now follows Clark around to be sure everything is safe. And CNN is now everywhere he is. Then, today, in the remote city of Keene, the estimate was 800-1000 people crammed into a gym. The staff who attended this one just came back.

Turns out that Edward's staff was leafletting his own flyers outside the event (where else can you find large crowds in NH?!), Leiberman people were passing out leaflets comparing his tax policy with Clark's, and Deanies were passing out nasty leaflets stating Clark was in favor of the war and was a Republican. It was a friggin' circus. CNN was there and apparently interested in the leafletting story -- that other candidates used Clark's path to find the big crowds. They seemed interested in the nasty Dean flyer, so hopefully it will backfire on him. I think it will with NH voters.

snip

And in our phone calling, we are seeing alot more that are definitely for Clark. Still alot of undecideds. But, it's a great feeling. And it was done SOLELY by Clark's brilliance and incredible volunteers. It certainly wasn't the media, and certainly wasn't hype or gimmicks. It's awesome to see. And awesome to feel.

It's getting crazy. CNN, the people and photographers, hardly know how to handle it when they show up at these town halls. I hope the end result on the TV reflects this. A Newsweek reporter called frantically tonight around 7:05, lost in Keene and looking for the venue. We had to tell her that the crowd was so large we had to move it at the last minute to a larger gymnasium at a different school. We had to place volunteers at street corners as an impromptu guide to the new location. We told her to follow the crowds. When we hung up, we just sat back and smiled.

http://newhampshire.forclark.com/story/2004/1/8/203/14632