Volunteers Drive, Fly, Bus to NH for Primaries

MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan. 8, 2008 -- Less than 200 miles long and almost 70 miles wide, New Hampshire certainly carries some undeniable geographical appeal for presidential retail politics.

The compact state is good for the candidates, of course, but also for the campaign volunteers who descend upon the Granite State from across the country come primary season, eager to put feet to pavement to prove allegiance to their presidential picks.

They do for the all important first in the nation primary state what they often don't even do in their home states. They drive undecideds to campaign events. They go knocking door-to-door. They stand for hours at crowded intersections during rush hour, smiling, chanting and waving signs for their candidates, many of them on hiatus from their real lives to be ground soldiers here.

They say there's an intangible satisfaction in the process of campaigning face-to-face in New Hampshire, and that somewhere along the way, they find a community that inspires them.

Lenny Gail, a 40-something volunteer for Sen. Barack Obama's, D-Ill., presidential campaign who arrived from Chicago just Sunday morning, says: "Looking around, it's an awfully invigorating atmosphere both for our candidates -- who we are all hoping and expecting to be the next president -- and also for democracy."

Gail, an attorney, jokes that he's two decades older than the average Obama volunteer on the ground in New Hampshire but that the stakes are so high in this presidential election that "when Obama became a top-tier candidate ... I said 'I'll go to New Hampshire -- I bet I can be helpful there' ... doing whatever the campaign tells me to do."

Virginia Miller flew to New Hampshire from the Washington, D.C., area Friday following the Iowa caucus to support Sen. Hillary Clinton's, D-N.Y., presidential bid because she believes "one person can make a difference." She campaigns for the presidential races every four years in New Hampshire and says "to be part of a movement of people who believe that they personally can help make a change in this country is an awesome thing."