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Newsmakers

Peter Slen, Host

December 30, 2007

Guest: Fergus Cullen

Reporters: David Mark, Sr. Editor, The Politico, and Gail Russell Chaddock, The Christian Science Montor

PETER SLEN, HOST, C-SPAN’S “NEWSMAKERS”: Well, it’s just over a week away, and only eight days into the new year. It’s the New Hampshire presidential primary for 2008.

Joining us on “Newsmakers” this week is Fergus Cullen. He is the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party.

And here to question him, David Mark, senior editor of The Politico, and Gail Russell Chaddock of “The Christian Science Monitor.”

Mr. Cullen, if I could ask the first question.

What are the issues, the top two or three issues, that the Republican primary voters are worried about in New Hampshire?

FERGUS CULLEN, CHAIRMAN, NEW HAMPSHIRE REPUBLICAN PARTY: Well, clearly, taxes and the economy always very important in New Hampshire. Also, national security issues, whether it’s the war in Iraq or other issues about foreign affairs. And also, immigration is showing up in polls.

But I really believe that in a post-9/11 world, candidates talk about issues, but voters are really looking to evaluate them on valence issues – things like strength, leadership, confidence, do I trust this person’s judgment. That’s what they’re looking for on both sides of the aisle when they’re asking a candidate a question at a town hall meeting.

SLEN: David Mark.

DAVID MARK, SENIOR EDITOR, THE POLITICO: Mr. Cullen, the Iowa caucuses are just five days before the New Hampshire primary on January 3rd.

How much of a slingshot effect, if any, do you think there might be, from the winner or the second or top third place finisher in Iowa into New Hampshire? How much credence are New Hampshire voters going to be given to the winner in Iowa?

CULLEN: You know, there’s a big difference – it sounds ironic – but between five days between Iowa and New Hampshire and eight days between Iowa and New Hampshire, as it’s traditionally been.

I think the biggest impact that Iowa will probably have is on independence in New Hampshire.

And what I mean by this? If, on the Democratic side in the Iowa caucus, somebody like Hillary Clinton wins, I think that increases the chances of independents in New Hampshire participating in the Republican primary.

I say that for this reason. Say what you want about Hillary Clinton, in many ways she’s a very conventional Democrat. If you’re a New Hampshire Independent, who’s attracted to Hillary Clinton, probably you’re not an Independent at all. Behaviorally, you’re a Democrat.

If, on the other hand, Barack Obama wins the Iowa Democratic caucus, I think it increases the chances of independents playing in both the Republican and Democratic primary here. So, that’s one impact that Iowa’s going to have.

In terms of the rest of the race, you know, you’ve got two candidates in Iowa – Rudy Giuliani and John McCain on the Republican side – who aren’t really actively contesting the race, who are actively contesting the race in New Hampshire. So, that’s a very different dynamic, where we’ve got Mitt Romney competing very hard in both states, and Mike Huckabee competing more in Iowa than he is in New Hampshire. He’s certainly someone looking to benefit from that slingshot.

GAIL RUSSELL CHADDOCK, CORRESPONDENT, “THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR”: Mr. Cullen, in the last four years, New Hampshire has become a forest of cell phone towers. To what extent do you think that’s going to change the reliability of polls in telling us how people are going to vote?

CULLEN: Well, this is a question a lot of people here in New Hampshire have. For example, my girlfriend is a school teacher. She’s not typically around during the day. But this, being Christmas vacation week, she’s home. She told me that she was polled four times yesterday – calls that she wouldn’t normally receive, because she’s not at home.

Now, certainly we believe that a lot of young people – myself included – don’t have a land line anymore. We only have a cell phone. The pollsters say they’re taking that into account. I think it’s an open question in a lot of ways.

I think one of the impacts it has is that, somebody like Ron Paul in New Hampshire, I believe is under-polling, and is likely to do better on primary day than polls have suggested he might.

SLEN: And what does that mean politically if Ron Paul does well for your party?

CULLEN: Well, I think it’s – there’s a chance that Ron Paul – let me back up a little bit.

Any candidate in New Hampshire on the Republican side who receives at least 10 percent of the vote walks away with at least one delegate. And I believe that there are five candidates on the Republican side who are likely to meet that threshold – in no particular order, Giuliani, McCain, Romney, Mike Huckabee, and also Ron Paul. I think all of them are likely to break that 10 percent threshold.

Now, so then it becomes a pecking order of, does somebody like Ron Paul defeat someone who is otherwise regarded, perhaps, as a national candidate? Ron Paul’s success in that scenario might have more impact on the national candidate that he may potentially defeat than it would on, say, Ron Paul himself.

MARK: You mentioned Ron Paul and how he’s really surging there, or at least seems to be, in the polls and otherwise.

What issues do you think are driving that? Is it his opposition to the Iraq war, the gold standard, some of the other issues that he advocates? Why is he gaining in New Hampshire, where he’s not necessarily doing as well in other states?

CULLEN: Well, I’m not sure we’re seeing necessarily a huge surge. I’m just saying that I think he’s got more support here than is being picked up.

You know, Ron Paul sort of appeals to the anti-establishment, “a pox on all you guys” kind of voter. And there are lots of them in New Hampshire.

In addition to that, he’s the only Republican in the race who is strongly opposed to the war in Iraq. And while most Republicans are generally supportive of, if you will, a muscular foreign policy on the Republican side, there is a segment of the Republican electorate that has reservations or misgivings about an active foreign policy and the war. And Ron Paul sort of has that market to himself.

You mentioned the gold standard. Well, in Ron Paul’s paid voter contact in New Hampshire – his direct mail, his TV ads, his radio ads – he’s not talking about the gold standard. He’s talking about being the only Republican who wants to bring our troops home from Iraq. Well, who’s opposed to that? So, that’s part of his appeal here.

And keep in mind, this is a state, a Republican primary, that gave its support to Pat Buchanan as recently as 1996. There’s a lot of anti-establishment, anti-NAFTA voters who are out there, even though they’re a minority within the party these days. Ron Paul sort of has that market all to himself.

CHADDOCK: Just a related question. What do you make of this kind of shadow campaign around Ron Paul? You made a distinction between his own campaign’s paid media, and then these commodity brokers, day traders who have driven up from Arizona and are running their own campaign, publishing their own ads, going door to door on their own.

What is that? And do you think it’s going to have any impact?

CULLEN: Well, I do. I mean, it’s truly organic. It is safe to say that the Paul campaign does not necessarily control all of its supporters and those who would like to see him do well.

And just stepping back from it a little bit, that’s part of the role that the first-in-the-nation primary plays in New Hampshire, where an underfunded, unknown candidate a year ago has an equal opportunity and a level playing field to get their message out.

Ron Paul is benefiting from that in this cycle. Other candidates, like going back to Jimmy Carter 30 years ago, have benefited from that in the past. And so, it’s a path that has been worn, well worn, by other candidates in past elections.

MARK: One of the leading Republican candidates – Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor – has the financial means to stay in the race, even if he doesn’t finish first in Iowa or New Hampshire. Many of the other candidates, however, do not.

Even though at least five of the candidates, as you mentioned, may pick up at least one delegate, are there any that you see being in a make-or-break situation after the New Hampshire primary, where if they don’t come in first, or at least a strong second, they may not be able to come in? And what’s your sense about how they’re campaigning now on that?

CULLEN: Well, it’s always the case that a candidate runs out of money before they run out of support. And so, there’s always been a moment of truth for campaigns after the New Hampshire primary, to talk to their finance people, talk to their treasurer and see if they’ve got enough money to keep on going – even as their supporters in other states are saying, please you’ve got to come and run.

One of the funny peculiarities of this calendar this time is that, we don’t actually know what the financial positions are – of the candidates are – going into the primary. Typically, we’ve got a better sense.

But because we haven’t had a finance report from them since the end of September, and so much time has gone by, we don’t really know how much money someone like Rudy Giuliani or Mike Huckabee or John McCain has on hand, and whether they’re going to have enough resources in the till to compete over the next month.

One of the lessons from 2000 is that, if John McCain did not have enough time in 2000 to leverage his tremendous success in New Hampshire into the fund raising that he needed and the organization for other states like South Carolina just a couple of weeks later, how will a candidate leverage their early success this cycle into that kind of muscle for future contests down the road, with the calendar being so much more compressed? That could potentially really damage someone, or handicap their ability to leverage an early success this time.

SLEN: Well, doesn’t that add to the potential minimization of New Hampshire as first in the nation? Also, that, and the fact that Rudy Giuliani is kind of running an end game campaign?

CULLEN: Well, you know, different candidates place a different emphasis on winning or doing well in New Hampshire in their overall campaign strategy. Certainly, McCain is all-in in New Hampshire. Romney is competing here strongly. Giuliani has competed here strongly, even though he seems to be pulling some of his resources out.

As far as New Hampshire being more or less important, that’s never been our goal. What we’re interested in is playing the historic, traditional role we’ve had of having a highly participatory, highly educated, highly engaged electorate, play its role of vetting the candidates, putting them through their paces, and then sending the semifinalists on to other states. And I think we’re going to play that role again this cycle.

SLEN: Are you willing to see that role diminish in four years, if that’s how it turns out with the national party?

CULLEN: Well, I think that the existing nominating process that we have has really run its course. It’s been in effect for about a generation, going back to 1984. I think there’s broad consensus that it’s pretty much run its course and has broken down, with primaries and caucuses happening right after the New Year.

If we all started with a blank sheet of paper, none of us would come up with the nominating process that we have now. So, I’m hopeful that cooler heads will prevail after the nominations are pretty much set in a couple of months, and before the conventions in August and September, and that both parties will be able to come up with a new system, which hopefully will have the stability of the one that we’ve had in place. That is to say, something that will last for another generation.

And yes, I’m hopeful that whatever system comes out will retain – carve out, if you will – for a state like New Hampshire, that has played this role so well historically.

CHADDOCK: But there’s been an assumption, at least those of us covering campaigns for many years, that – and I love the phrase you use, that New Hampshire puts a candidate through its paces – that if you can run a good campaign, you’re probably going to be a good leader. And reverse, if you can’t, then you’re not.

Do you think that that’s actually an accurate assumption, that the well managed campaign means someone who actually is going to be a good president?

CULLEN: Well, I do think it’s a question, if you can’t organize and run a campaign, how can you possibly run a government and a country. I think that legitimate.

But what a campaign really does is, it puts a candidate in that crucible, under pressure, under intense pressure and heat. And you are able to watch how they perform in that environment. And that’s what we’re really testing in a candidate.

Think back again to 2000. I don’t remember exactly the issues that candidates were talking about in the 2000 campaign. And after 9/11, they became irrelevant, that the purpose and role of the Bush presidency all came down to 9/11 and dealing with the consequences of that act.

So, the campaign wasn’t relative – related, if you will – to the Bush presidency afterward. But what it did do was put somebody, a leader, under pressure during a campaign like they might experience in some ways for other purposes much – purposes of greater impact in the White House themselves. And in that way, a campaign is not a bad system to have to pick a leader.

MARK: The last couple of weeks have seen a flurry of newspaper endorsements in New Hampshire, some pro candidates. In one case, one of the newspapers actually unendorsed Mitt Romney. It just said, anybody but him.

How much of an effect, if any, do you think these newspaper endorsements have on voter choices?

CULLEN: Well, they have some. I mean, the “Union Leader’s” endorsement, especially in a Republican primary, has disproportionate influence, because it’s sort of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, if you will, for Republican, conservative primary voters. And they endorsed McCain.

One other difference with the “Union Leader” – and I should point out that, before becoming state party chairman, I’d been an editorial page columnist with the “Union Leader” for a couple of years – but they don’t just write one editorial, say we’ve made our statement, the world has heard, and leave it alone. They beat the drum many times.

Back in college, I wrote my senior essay on the ’76 primary between Reagan and Ford. And that year, the “Union Leader” ran 59 editorials over three months …

MARK: Wow.

CULLEN: … that are either pro-Reagan or anti-Ford. And the “Union Leader” isn’t going to break that record this cycle, but they’re doing their darnedest.

And they’ve been conducting a sustained aerial bombardment that is pro-McCain this cycle and opposing his rivals. Any campaign would want to have that kind of ally in their battle.

But it really does lend credibility to a candidate. It’s not the only thing. It certainly doesn’t replace an organization on the ground. And I think the “Union Leader’s” endorsement this cycle is having more impact than it’s had over the last couple of Republican presidential primaries.

CHADDOCK: Would you help us understand John McCain’s comeback in New Hampshire? You know, back in summer we were talking about, you know, it was broke, the campaign was badly managed.

And there was this immigration thing that wasn’t going to go away. Well, immigration now appears to be one of the top issues. John McCain was on the wrong side of it.

So, how did he rise from the ashes?

CULLEN: Yes, I remember seeing Senator McCain in Concord, New Hampshire right in early July when all these problems were happening in his campaign as sort of the dead man walking tour, if you will. Look, he’s alive.

To everyone’s surprise.

John McCain has sort of a special role in New Hampshire. He’s able to tap into a deep reservoir of good will and good faith, stretching back to his 2000 campaign. He’s got a core group of supporters who have been with him all the way through.

And those of us who believe that the first-in-the-nation primary serves a national purpose take heart in the fact that, regardless of the outcome, somebody like John McCain – universally respected, a genuine American hero – had an opportunity to stumble, regain his footing and started dancing again. Bill Clinton was able to do that to a certain extent here in 1992, as well.

And we think it’s important that a candidate have that opportunity again to make a mistake, make some struggles, recover and started dancing again. That might not happen if the nominating process worked a different way.

SLEN: What’s the role of the New Hampshire Republican party in a primary?

CULLEN: You know, to be a neutral paper, roll out the red carpet and create a level playing field for all the candidates.

You know, two candidates are going to win the New Hampshire primary on either side. Two will go on to win the nomination. The rest will go home defeated at some point along the way.

And even if they are dissatisfied with the outcome, that they lost, it’s important that they aren’t dissatisfied with the process, that they’re able to look back and say, you know, the people in New Hampshire really did give me a fair hearing. I did have an opportunity to get a message out.

And unfortunately, it didn’t take, and I wasn’t able to get my candidacy going. But I had an equal opportunity, regardless of the resources or the name recognition.

We’ve seen a celebrity candidate in this cycle really crash and burn in New Hampshire. That wasn’t enough to sustain them. And I think that’s really important for the process, that it works in New Hampshire that, again, couldn’t be recreated in just any other state.

SLEN: This is C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program. Our guest is Fergus Cullen. He is chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party.

Questioning him, Gail Russell Chaddock of “The Christian Science Monitor,” and David Mark of The Politico.

Next question.

MARK: Mr. Cullen, I wonder if you could expound a little bit about the best forms for political communication in New Hampshire. You mentioned the importance of personal, one-on-one town hall meetings.

How much of a role does television play, direct mail, even e-mail? What’s the best way to actually reach the populace in New Hampshire and convince them to vote for you?

CULLEN: Well, it’s got to be a mix. But my observation is, the candidates who are doing the best in New Hampshire are the ones who have been running the most traditional campaigns here, characterized by the most in-person visits and the most town hall meetings.

A town hall meeting – and I just went to two of them this past Saturday and saw Rudy Giuliani, and then an hour or two later I saw Mitt Romney. And I try and see most of the major candidates as frequently as I can.

At the Mitt Romney event, for example, which was in Londonderry, New Hampshire, there were at least 250 people there, high energy. The candidate comes in, speaks with their stump speech for about 15 minutes, and then will take Q&A for the balance of an hour.

And then typically, the candidate will stick around long enough afterwards, that anyone who’s interested enough to meet them will be able to go up and shake their hand, maybe get a picture taken, or something like that. So, everyone has the opportunity to do that.

What’s important about the audience that attends a town hall meeting is, they are interested in politics. And among their friends, they’re sort of the political guy. And so, they look at them and say, oh, there’s my friend John. He’s kind of weird. He’s into politics. And they have disproportionate influence among their friends.

If I was looking to buy a car, I don’t know enough about cars. So I talk to my friends who are interested in cars and gather their advice.

Well, the kinds of people who go to town hall meetings serve that role in politics among their friends. And so, you get all these ambassadors that then go out to their communities and start saying nice things about your candidate when they’re not around.

So, the town hall meeting, I think is critically important. John McCain and Mitt Romney have been doing the most of them for the longest period of time, and they’re having the most success.

But you also have to back that up with more traditional, paid voter contact, because most voters don’t care enough to go and attend a town hall meeting, even though they have the opportunity to do so. And so, that’s where the TV, the direct mail and radio comes in.

It still is a cheap media market state relative to most. Romney has done the most TV on the Republican side. I’ve received at least 20, I think, direct mail pieces from them (ph). But somebody like Ron Paul has been sending almost as many direct mail pieces, talking to a broader electorate, a broader audience.

CHADDOCK: One of the things that stunned me about one of Ron Paul’s – several of his town meetings, actually – is the applause lines. You know, he’d mention something about the Federal Reserve or the gold standard. I mean, how arcane does that seem. And there would be whoops in the audience, cheers, standing up by not just – there were students. There were, you know, financial people who had come in from out of the state.

Is this an issue that’s resonating in your state?

CULLEN: Well, that goes to, again, the idea that we have a highly informed, highly educated electorate that takes its role in this process very seriously – that’s why the New Hampshire primary, we believe, serves a national purpose – so that the audience actually knows things about federal trade policy and deficits and the trade imbalance with China. And that matters to them.

So, that’s something which I don’t think can be recreated in any other state. And I think that, if you go back to candidates who have lost the nomination, who ran in past cycles, they’d say, there’s nothing like that New Hampshire electorate. It’s like baseball players who go to Fenway Park for an opposing team and say, wow, those Red Sox fans really take this seriously. Well, that’s what New Hampshire voters in New Hampshire do.

MARK: At the outset, you mentioned the almost unique role that Independent voters play in New Hampshire, where they can go with either side.

I’m wondering at this point, who have the Republican candidates been targeting the most? Are they traditional Republican voters? Have they been putting resources into courting those independents? And what kind of message do you think would resonate, is resonating, with these Independent voters, which have the choice of voting for Democrats or Republicans on primary day?

CULLEN: Right, for the benefit of viewers who may not be familiar. What happens is, you can be in New Hampshire a registered Democrat, Independent – or undeclared voter, we would cal them – or a Republican.

And if you are undeclared, you can walk into your polling place on election day and say, I would like either a Republican or a Democratic ballot. You can vote in that primary, and then you come out, and you can either stay with that party or re-register again as an undeclared voter.

So, they tend to be a little bit like football fans on a Sunday afternoon without a home team to root for. What they’re looking for in many cases is a competitive contest.

And just like generals tend to prepared to fight the last war, we look at the 2008 primary through the lens of the 2000 primary. When independents voting overwhelmingly in the Republican primary, and when they got there, they voted overwhelmingly for John McCain – one candidate.

Say what you want about Al Gore and Bill Bradley, the two Democratic candidates the last time, in 2000. Neither one of them was a terribly charismatic individual. And Al Gore was perceived to have a strong lead. So, independents had a real reason to play in a competitive race, which was the Republican primary.

This time around, the Romney campaign made a strategic choice early on that the 2008 primary was going to be unlike the 2000 primary, that it would be dominated by registered Republicans, and not necessarily attract a huge influx of Independent voters.

And everything the Romney campaign has done since day one in New Hampshire has been aimed exactly at the heart of the Republican conservative voter, likely primary voters.

On the other hand, a candidate like Giuliani or McCain has been a little more open to trying to attract support from moderates and independents, but has also been really courting that core Republican conservative voter in a primary situation.

And polls, for what they’re worth, do indicate that independents who plan to vote in the Republican primary are breaking down in similar proportions to how core Republicans are – that is to say, Romney in the lead, McCain behind that, and Giuliani, generally speaking, in third – among independents who say to pollsters they’re likely to vote in the Republican primary.

SLEN: Fergus Cullen, just to follow up on that, in 2000, the Republican candidate barely won in the November election. In ’04 the Republican candidate lost, and New Hampshire went Democratic.

Can the Republicans, given what you’ve just said about the Republican primary voters, can the Republicans win New Hampshire in ’08?

CULLEN: New Hampshire is a purple state. It is the most Republican, if you will, of the most competitive state in the Northeast. In 2000, as you pointed out, George Bush narrowly carried New Hampshire, lost the rest of New England. And in 2004, narrowly lost New Hampshire by about 10,000 votes or so, a very small margin.

We expect New Hampshire is going to be a competitive toss-up state in the presidential election again come November.

But it’s a completely different election, a completely different electorate. And what happens in the presidential primary is really not a good predictor of what’s likely to happen in November.

CHADDOCK: This may be too early to speculate on this, but do you see any impact in the tone of the debate from the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan and the fallout from that?

CULLEN: Well, that’s a great question. And we don’t know yet. It certainly is a tragedy for that country and is a reminder that, you know, here in America, we have elections, we have big battles. Someone wins, someone loses – but no one dies.

And that’s a real difference, and one of the reasons why America is a leader in the world, and showing how democracy really should work.

Certainly, it’s a major international event and tends to bring international issues to the fore, at least on a temporary basis.

And it’s one of those, again, moments where voters are able to look at a candidate and say, how did they react to this unexpected event. And they make broad generalizations about trust, leadership, confidence. And those are the issues that people tend to vote on, I believe – more so, again, than the nuances of someone’s health care policy.

MARK: New Hampshire has, in many ways, a bit of a transitory population. I mean, there’s a big influx of folks in the population moving up from Massachusetts.

I’m wondering if you have any idea about the number of people who have moved into the state, even since the 2004 primaries, or 2000, and what effect that might have on the primaries in 2008?

CULLEN: Sure. New Hampshire is a growing state. It is the fastest-growing state in the Northeast, again. And it is growing due to in-migration, people moving into the state from other places – primarily from other northeastern states.

The in-migration tends to fall into two broad categories – working age professionals, often highly-educated, typically from Massachusetts, who may be looking for a better quality of life and lower tax environment. They may still be working in Massachusetts, but live in the southern tier.

I’m speaking to you right now from Manchester, New Hampshire. We’re about 45 minutes from downtown Boston, so it’s very commutable, and tens of thousands of people do.

The second set of people coming into New Hampshire tend to be affluent, successful retirees – again, also looking for quality of life reasons. They may be cashing out their $600,000 house in the suburbs in a place like New Jersey and buying a larger house in New Hampshire for $300,000. They might be motivated by quality of life, and also by an opportunity to live closer to their children and grandchildren.

So, two large groups of people who tend to be comprising the growing New Hampshire electorate.

Overall, the electorate is at least 25 to 30 percent different than it was as recently as 2000. So, the idea that all these people voted for John McCain last time, they’re still here and are going to vote for him again is not true. And to their credit, the McCain campaign has understood that from day one, too.

This is a different race, a different electorate, and that they can’t assume that just because they did well last time, they’re going to do well this time. They’ve been looking to earn that support all year long.

SLEN: Fergus Cullen, why are you a Republican?

CULLEN: I’m a Republican, because I believe that our party is the one that stands for lower government – smaller government – and lower taxes, and puts more faith in individuals, whereas Democrats tend to put more faith in government.

You know, a friend of mine, the father of an ex-girlfriend said that it all comes down to how you interpret the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence. One party believes it says that you have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The other party, the Democrats believe it says you have the right to life, liberty and happiness. And that one interpretation leads to all your other differences.

So, the Republicans believe you have a right to pursue happiness, but it’s not guarantee. Democrats believe you have a right to happiness, that if you’re not happy, government will come in and help make you happy. Republicans are skeptical of that approach.

SLEN: Fergus Cullen is the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party. Thank you for being on “Newsmakers.”

CULLEN: Thanks. I appreciate it.

SLEN: Gail Russell Chaddock, David Mark, one of the things he said that kind of intrigued me – and let me know if this is new information – but he seemed to say that New Hampshire could be written off after this primary cycle in ’08, and seemed to accept that.

Did you hear that also?

MARK: Well, that was a bit of a surprise coming from the New Hampshire Republican chairman.

I can understand why he may be intimidating that, if not saying it outright. After all, in 2006, Democrats had a banner year in New Hampshire. They defeated two Republican incumbent congressman. They took back the New Hampshire legislature for the first time since the 1920s. They’re now looking to defeat Senator John Sununu, a Republican, in 2008.

So, the state has very much turned purple, if not outright blue. It’s very competitive. And this may not be where Republicans in the national strategizing want to put a lot of their resources.

There’s four electoral votes there, which is not a huge amount, and they may very well be putting it in Ohio and Pennsylvania and the more traditional type states, which would have a lot more electoral votes.

SLEN: Gail?

CHADDOCK: I think there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with New Hampshire and Iowa being this early. It means we’re in for a very long campaign. We’re likely to get very tired of the frontrunners by the time November comes around.

And I think there’s a lot of thought about recalibrating.

And also, I mean, it sounds like a small point, but I spent several scary hours driving up toward Berlin, in the north of New Hampshire, through a blizzard, looking at 18-wheelers who had jackknifed by the side of the road. It’s been a miserable season for weather in both Iowa and New Hampshire – a lot of events canceled, a lot of snow.

I think there are a lot of other states that don’t have that problem, that candidates might be thinking more seriously about.

SLEN: What else did you hear from him?

MARK: I think it was very instructive what he was saying toward the end of our talk about the influx of new voters in New Hampshire, just in the last eight years or so, since the last time there was a contested Republican primary.

As the chairman noted, a lot of people are moving up from Massachusetts. Some of these are the more small government, lower taxes type folks, but many of them are traditional Democrats who like the lifestyle. Maybe they don’t like paying the taxes, which are a bit lower up in New Hampshire.

For whatever reason, the electorate is not the old, Yankee, rock red Republican anymore. It’s a lot more diverse. And I think that can have a big effect on the outcome of the election in November, and also who votes on the Democratic side and in the Republican primaries.

CHADDOCK: I think he also opened the door to some surprises. I was interested in his response to your question about Ron Paul, that he thinks he’s under-polling. A lot of people think that, because a lot of the Ron Paul vote, the people I ran into, had never registered to vote before. They’d never been involved in politics. And they didn’t have land lines. So, these people are invisible.

How important that becomes, I’m not sure. There are people that describe Ron Paul simply as a spoiler. I think there’s more to the set of issues he’s raising and the money he’s raised, that even if he disappears from the race, will attract the attention of other candidates in the future.

SLEN: Will we see you both up in New Hampshire on January 8th?

CHADDOCK: I hope so. I love that state.

MARK: Indeed. I hope so, as well.

SLEN: And you will see C-SPAN up there. We will be live from New Hampshire for several days.

Thank you for being on “Newsmakers.” David Mark of The Politico, and Gail Russell Chaddock of “The Christian Science Monitor.”

CHADDOCK: Thank you.

MARK: Thank you.

END