This year the New Hampshire Democratic Party has opened up 24 offices around the state, a few in long-standing Republican strongholds.
It’s part of an organizing strategy that Party leaders believe will make New Hampshire a blue state every election cycle.
But state Republicans say their rivals are just wasting money.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein has more.
Ray Buckley loves his maps.
The New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman has them taped up all over his office walls in Manchester.
There’s the one that’s covered in pink post-it-notes pointing out the the party’s 24 local offices.
But his favorite- the one he keeps closest to his desk- is a party registration map.
The splotches of turquoise represent Democrat-majority towns.
TAPE: growing up in NH, and thinking that you would look at a map that has Holderness that’s blue, or Franconia, Hopkinton....so...within a year you will probably see double the communities that you see right now.
After Buckley became chair- he challenged activists across the state to raise money to rent out space for a few months.
Any successful city or town committee would get party support to keep that office open through the fall.
Democrats say they wanted volunteers to have a connection with voters that goes beyond the issues.
TAPE: hello, my name is Linda Robelard. I live in Derry NH, I have been an elementary school teacher for readiness and first grade for 32 years. And I am retired now...I have lived in Derry for 42 years.
Democrats believe people like Robelard will connect with their friends and neighbors in a more authentic way than some 20-something who’s up from Washington for 10 weeks.
A couple of evenings a week, Robelard calls undecided voters.
And she says from time to time, she ends up on the line with a former student.
TAPE: And they’ll go, ‘oh Mrs. Robelard, Mrs. Robelard. Well I haven’t registered b/c I am so busy.’ And I say, ‘I beg you. Remember what I told you. This is government in action.’....I said, ‘if you need me to go with you, I will go with you.’....there is something about your first grade teacher that you love....so I use it.
Democrats have opened offices in places like Ossipee and Littleton....traditionally VERY Republican towns.
TAPE: Big Whoop.
That’s Republican Party Chair Fergus Cullen’s response to the Democrats offices in places like Littleton.
TAPE: we aren’t just opening up franchises for the sake of opening up franchises in this Potemkin Village campaign. ‘ooh, look they got 24 offices.
Cullen estimates his party has got about 12 offices spread across the state.
He says the Democrats are wasting money.
Cullen says you could have 50 offices, but that doesn’t mean you are reaching the people you need.
TAPE: we are making very good use of the ones we have. They are all very well staffed, very well equipped. All using high-tech phone systems, and voter files.
Cullen rejects the suggestion that the state is turning blue.
If anything he sees the state becoming more and more Independent.
But political analyst Dean Spiliotes says Democratic fundraising success, voter registration and elected officials up and down the ticket proves- at the least- Democrats are in the middle of a good run.
TAPE: if you stick around long enough, you see these kinds of cycles run their course....I have been pretty comfortable saying the shift we are seeing is a medium term shift...whether it becomes something more permanent like MA. part of it depends on how the political complexion of voters changes, and what happens at the national level.
Spiliotes says he’s skeptical New Hampshire will ever veer too far to the right or left.
He suspects the state’s Libertarian tradition of limited government will continue to keep both parties in check.
For NHPR News, I’m DG
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