Every presidential primary campaign depends on a core of die-hard supporters across the state.
Six months before voting day, the candidates are focused on building that base.
How they approach the task is not simply a question of technique or money.
Their methods speak to the candidates? assumptions about the way citizens participate in the political process.
New Hampshire Public Radio?s David Darman looked at the campaigns of John Edwards, Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean.
And he found three different very different approaches
Senator John Edwards of North Carolina faces a difficult challenge.
He is not well known.
His political resume is relatively short.
Edwards has borrowed a page from the play book of John McCain in 2000.
He has been introducing himself to voters in a series of town hall meetings.
Press Secretary Colin van Ostern says the method works.
CUT van Ostern ?We?ve been doing them all across the state?friends on board.?
Edwards must build his organization from scratch, and judging from his campaign ads, his main asset is ? himself.
Cut ad --- my grandmother was a sharecropper? (fade down)
It is an approach that invites the voter to have a personal connection with Edwards.
To vote for him and then trust him to do the right thing.
Trust in a candidate is always important, but in terms of building a grassroots organization, it isn?t the only place to start.
CUT: Born in the USA .. (fade under)
At an outdoor barbecue in Manchester, about 600 Teamsters and their families enjoy hamburgers and small talk and wait for their candidate to arrive.
Their union, along with ten others, has endorsed Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt.
The crowd is a sea of men wearing blue union T-shirts, with the numbers of their locals prominently displayed.
Gephardt has forged strong ties with the labor movement during his 26 years in congress.
Chuck Doogan is with Manchester Local 6-3-3.
He is not sure precisely what he will do to help Gephardt, but he is nothing if not willing.
CUT DOOGAN ?I will be glad to do anything that the teamsters ask me to do//If I have to hold up signs, stand at the polls. ?. Whatever it takes to get out the vote, I?m there.?
For Kathy Roeder with the Gephardt campaign in New Hampshire, this is exactly what the campaign needs.
CUT ROEDER ?We?re thrilled?with their colleagues.?
There is something very traditional to this way of building a grassroots effort.
Union members get involved by working through their unions.
Personal participation begins with the decision of the group.
But again, that is just one way to get a political organization rolling this primary season.
CUT Music ? Take me there ? fade under
In a large hotel meeting room in Manchester, the Dean campaign is holding a boot camp for more than 350 would-be organizers.
They have turned the hall into a giant classroom.
Colorful signs mark off the rows of tables by region ? the north country, Manchester, Nashua, and elsewhere.
State coordinator, Karen Hicks, leads the group in its first exercise:
CUT
The first thing on the agenda was teaching everybody the dean clap, which is a real sign of organization. None of this intermittent clapping. Its all got to be together now, so let?s try it one more time before we get going. It starts off kind of slow?
Hicks tells the crowd that the goal is very clear ? to build a base of 2000 known volunteers.
Each person in this room is connected to at least 100, 150 people. We need you to take an inventory of these relationships and figure out how you can move them to support governor dean for president.
In contrast to the Gephardt rally, the hallmark of this organizing strategy is individual initiative.
Cigna Holmes of Francestown listens and says she?s up to the challenge.
1214 ?I should say between phoning people, visiting people and trying to get some house parties together with other people who believe in dean in francestown. We?ll all work together on this. 1229 we can?t do it alone. We hope to reach neighboring towns as well, and to get the word out.
The Edwards, Gephardt and Dean campaigns have very different approaches to building a grassroots effort.
Professor Peter Levine at the University of Maryland says those differences could have profound consequences for who participates in the political process.
Particularly, he says, along the lines of class and education.
Levine says the Gephardt campaign gives union members, who might not have a college degree or a managerial position, a way to play a role in elections.
It offers a realistic route to power for people who are not tremendously well informed and who don?t have internet access, because you can join these groups. .. it even gives you a means to climb up the ladder?top of hierarchies like labor unions.
In contrast, Levine says the Dean campaign?s grass roots approach is skewed toward people who are more educated and more oriented toward the information economy .
I guess I?m saying that the dean model imagines that the people its dealing with are powerful, and they are. But it also doesn?t offer much of a route in for people who don?t have skills. 13:59
But to some extent, power is in the eye of the beholder.
The Dean volunteers may have certain skills, but they say they hardly feel that they are in control of national policy.
Still, in Levine?s terms, the Dean campaign, like any other, needs to craft an organizing strategy that reaches beyond the starting base, and comes to be seen as a path to power for an ever widening body of voters.
