Presidential hopeful Republican Mike Huckabee was in the state this weekend. On Saturday, he visited Exeter, where he toured the downtown and met with voters at a local restaurant.
NHPR Correspondent Dan Trudeau has more.
Mike Huckabee shook hands and answered voter questions during a meet and greet at Exeter?s Townlyne Grill. The former Arkansas governor struck a populist tone in his brief comments. Huckabee said the next president has to make the country independent from foreign oil and reduce reliance on other countries for manufactured goods and even food.
Huckabee: We cannot afford to have all of our food imported. We cannot afford to let our economy change. It?s one of the great blessings of this country that we fed ourselves. If you think foreign oil is bad, wait until we only know how to eat foreign food
After the event, a group of voters said they were impressed by Huckabee's down-to-earth manner. One voter said he thought Huckabee?s only misstep was to suggest changing the tax code to create a national sales tax. The voter said that might not draw much support in New Hampshire, where voters typically dislike any broad based tax. For NHPR news, I'm Dan Trudeau.
Mike Huckabee is an adroit public speaker. He communicates his message in life-like, cogent terms, with compelling examples like the story he told (at the Ames Straw Poll) of what his then-11-yo daughter entered into the "Comments" section of a Visitors Book after visiting the Yad Vashem holocaust museum: “Why didn't somebody do something?” Very effective.