There was a long line of Republican presidential candidates on display in Manchester last night - ten in all, and they answered questions for about two hours in the first New Hampshire debate. About 30 miles away in Exeter, three undecided Republicans sat in a living room and watched the debate on television.
This primary season, we are following the town of Exeter in a series called Primary Place. At the end of the evening, all three voters agreed, they found Arizona senator John McCain more impressive than they expected.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Jon Greenberg has more.
Jay Kelly manages investments for a large charitable foundation in Massachusetts. The first president he ever voted for was Ronald Reagan and he still uses Reagan as the yardstick to take the measure of anyone who hopes to claim the Oval Office.
"He was the Commander in Chief, everybody knew it on both sides of the aisle, they respected him for it, he was able to get things done..."
Jay, his wife Laurie and another Exeter Republican, Marie Warlick, were our debate watchers and like many Republicans, a defining issue for them is immigration reform - a topic that has divided the Republican party. Crafting a new approach to undocumented workers already in the US It is a high priority for President Bush but for many core Republicans, anything short of criminal penalties for illegal immigrants is a betrayal of basic law and order. It was on this subject that McCain struck a chord with Jay Kelly. McCain was asked to defend the bipartisan bill he helped write that is now making its way through the Senate.
"What we have done is what you expect us to do, my friends, and that's come together - with the President of the United States, the leader of our party, Democrat and Republican, and sit down and figure out an approach to this problem."
McCain was the lone voice on the stage in favor of the current compromise bill. After the debate, Jay felt McCain stood above the other candidates. Jay is frustrated by what he sees as the failure of Washington to make headway on anything. To Jay, McCain was the only one who demonstrated the sort of attitude and habits that lead to progress.
"He has crossed the aisle, he's worked with Kennedy - I don't particularly care for Kennedy, he's an idiot - but he's reached out, he'd led an effort that resulted in a compromise that got something done."
John McCain also connected with these voters on Iraq. In other appearances, McCain has shown a direct and personal approach when talking to families of fallen soldiers. A key moment came last night when he broke with the debate's format, got out of his chair and walked across the stage to speak directly to a woman in the audience, the sister of a dead soldier.
"This war was very badly mismanaged for a long time, and Americans have made great sacrifices, some of which were unnecessary because of the mismanagement of this conflict. I believe we have a fine general. I believe we have a strategy which can succeed, so that the sacrifice of your brother would not be in vain."
Before this night, Marie Warlick who works at a medical testing lab, felt McCain was soft on immigration and not clear spoken on anything. She said he seemed to mumble a lot. But his words to the dead soldier's sister changed that. It was the one detail Marie could remember later.
"I appreciated when he stood up, it was like this woman was important enough not to stay seated. He stood up and spoke to her. I felt that was important."
Marie said her opinion of McCain, while still tempered by his support for the Senate's immigration bill, had definitely gone up. She said she used to worry that he was too old to be president but that she now felt that he had the energy and passion to do the job.
All of the candidates had a couple of chances to talk about Iraq and their various answers had a curious effect on Laurie Kelly. She is deeply troubled by the war and questions whether America can influence events on the ground. But as she listened, her confidence in her own ability to evaluate the military and diplomatic options grew thin.
"There's so many different ideas, you don't know who to believe has the right solution. Who do you believe?"
"It's a tough one."
"That's the problem."
Interestingly, this uncertainty led her to look to McCain for a solution - at least for the time being.
If McCain rose in the estimation of these voters, Mitt Romney did not. Early in the debate, the former Massachusetts governor did win favor when he talked about the need to forge international alliances to encourage Islamic moderates. But on a very different question, about his evolving position against abortion, he tagged his answer with a coda that went beyond conservative social values.
"There's something bigger in conservatism that I don't think we've spoken about. And that is that America is a land of opportunity, and our future is going to be far brighter than our past, not just as we overcome these challenges, but as we take advantage of the new opportunity of the 21st century."
For these voters, that was not the right touch. Jay felt that Romney's sweeping statements did not make him sound presidential - they made him sound political.
"He seems too put together. He seems too prepared. He seems almost artificial."
These three voters gave passing marks to New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He remains in the running for them. They liked Texas Congressman Ron Paul, especially his strong support for the separation of church and state. But former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee fell from favor in Laurie's eyes when he gave a carefully crafted answer on evolution. Laurie labeled him a creationist.
Among the less well financed candidates, California congressman Duncan Hunter gained the greatest respect from these voters, particularly for this kind of answer on Iraq.
"You've got 129 Iraqi battalions, we've trained them up, we've got a lot of them in the fight. Over the next three to four months we need to get them all in the fight, get them that combat capability. When they're combat-hardened, we rotate them in, we displace American heavy combat forces off that battlefield, and Americans come home..."
In Laurie's view, and the others as well, it was a satisfying, meaty answer.
"I didn't really know much about him before and I was very impressed with his specifics, his confidence, and so he's up there for me. And if more people knew about him I think he could be electable."
For all of these voters, this was the first time they had taken in the full range of 10 Republican candidates - at least the ones qualified to appear in this debate. When the evening was over, they felt they had done yeoman's work. But as large as the field is today, it will increase if former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson enters the race. Asked about the possibility of assessing another candidate, the first reaction from these voters was "It would be exhausting."
For NHPR News, I'm Jon Greenberg.
