I've been in a campaign bubble since Saturday, working for the Clinton campaign in NH.  With all of the polls being wrong, I thought I'd write a brief diary on what the ground game was like in one small part of NH for the Clinton campaign.  Full disclosure:  I'm just a volunteer and I've never participated in any kind of GOTV effort before, so I'm not the best person to give comparisons to other campaigns.  I can say that our area of NH had incredible success in turning out HRC voters. We were supposed to help off-set Obama strong-holds in other parts of the state.  The result was that there were record turnouts in several wards and overall in our town Clinton beat Obama almost 2-1 and Edwards 2.5 or 3 to 1.

We got to NH over the weekend.  When we arrived we found out a couple of things.  The first is that the Clinton GOTV organizers for our area had already canvassed just about all of their "1s" and that they were relieved to find that almost 100% indicated they were still sticking with Clinton.   They also were keeping almost all of their 2s. So they knew their hard-core support was still there.  (FYI, as has been reported, the Clinton campaign categorizes voters on a scale from 1 to 5 with 1 being Clinton supporter, 2 a leaner, 3 an undecided, 4 a leaner the other way, and 5 a supporter of another candidate.  

The other thing we asked the local coordinator about was the Obama GOTV effort.  We learned that it was good, but might have some weaknesses.  First, much like Clinton in Iowa, Obama arrived later than Clinton in the towns where we were.  They were also using fewer grassroots NH folks to run their GOTV effort in our area.  The Clinton GOTV effort was run by a local resident and she had been working for the Clinton campaign for six months.

However, in our area the big battle wasn't between Clinton and Obama.  It was between Clinton and Edwards.  Obama had his support, which the Clinton people thought was solid among college students, upper income, etc., but a lot of working class voters were undecided between Clinton and Edwards and they dominated the area.  Interestingly, during all of our canvassing we did not meet a single person who said they were for Obama (although some didn't say and I'm sure some of them voted Obama).  But that should give you the idea of how targeted the Clinton organization was.  I met Edwards, Richardson, Kucinich, and Ron Paul (???) supporters.  All of whom were polite and wished us well and we did the same.  We thanked Democratic supporters for voting Democratic and asked the Paul people to consider the Dem candidate in November 2008 if Paul wasn't on the ballot.  

We canvassed on the weekend.  Things started changing on Sunday, whether this was because of the debate or not, I don't know, but Clinton was picking up votes all day during the canvasses.   On Monday when we arrived, we were told that Clinton had picked up a ton of undecideds and Edwards' voters or leaners.  So they gave us revised canvas packages to try to hit more folks, including some they had previously written off.  We picked up even more voters on Monday.

So I guess we saw it on the ground before it was in the polls, but I don't think anyone was sure it was real.  It's like you see the shift, but it's only in a very concentrated part of the state.  We were working wards where the total vote would be 500 and that would be a record (and we did set records in several wards in our area and they went 2-1 for Clinton over Obama).

On Tuesday, I'm sure all of the campaigns worked incredibly hard and the GOTV for everyone was amazing.  But in canvassing, we noticed a couple of things.  First, of the voters we could reach (i.e. those home when we knocked on the door) almost everyone who said they were going to vote for Clinton, even those with iffy voting histories, had already voted and had voted for her.  Moreover, in homes where there were couples or family members but we only knew of one Clinton supporter, we more often than not picked up both votes.  

Second, we hit areas that none of the other campaigns appeared to have canvassed.  I think this may have been the difference.  On some canvasses in working class and middle class neighborhoods, we would almost be running over Edwards and Obama volunteers.  But in some areas the only literature we saw was Clinton's.  We hit one trailer park late Tuesday.  We were the second canvas team to hit the park for Clinton THAT DAY.  That followed an early morning lit drop in the park.   Plus, the Clinton team had already hit the park several times in the week leading up to the primary.   By the time we got there late Tuesday, nearly every person we contacted had already voted and most had voted for Clinton.  They had taken their family members, including in one instance an elderly disabled veteran who couldn't have been easy to get to the polls.  They showed up en masse.

I also think, as bored as the MSM was with Clinton's long Q&A sessions, they had an impact.  We saw her at one and it was impressive in a completely different way than Obama.  It was inspiring because she took an incredibly wide-range of questions on issues ranging from Bolivian stability (no, really) to her first 100 days and her depth of knowledge on almost everything was stunning.  After almost eight years of having a president that can't pronounce nuclear, it was - yes - inspiring.  What can I say, I'm a geek at heart.  And I don't care what the MSM said, the crowd liked it.   I think it definitely turned some voters.  We saw a couple of college-aged women there who came in probably leaning Obama, definitely not Clinton, you could see it in their body language.  Then Clinton talked about getting Plan B and they nodded.  When she said she'd sign the stem cell research bill and reverse the gag order immediately upon taking office, they clapped and looked at each other like "hey, she's pretty good!"  I don't know if they voted for her, but they came in pretty closed off and left open to her candidacy.   (One of the other things I learned is that young voters have absolutely no idea of what Clinton has accomplished and old voters know nothing about Obama's pre-campaign experience.  It's kind of weird given all the info that's out there on both of them.)

Which brings me to the biggest thing I learned in NH.  I tend not to romanticize politicians.  I don't think any of them are perfect.  And even I, a Clinton supporter, fell for the MSM (and some bloggers like Yglesias's view) that Clinton doesn't have a passionate base of support.  That could not be further from the truth.  I cannot tell you how many older women invited us into their homes to see news clippings of Clinton displayed everywhere.  Who told us how much they loved her.  And it wasn't always older women or even just women.    

We met a single mother in her 30s, clearly struggling financially and in other ways, she had only voted once in her life and that was for Bill Clinton.  She got a Christmas card from Hillary (how they found her, I have no idea because she wasn't registered to vote in NH, having not bothered after moving there and we just happened to run into her on the street when she saw our shirts).  All she could talk about was that Christmas card and how much Hillary had helped children and how Bush had cut Head Start.  (BTW, I cannot tell you how many people invited me in to see the Hillary Clinton Christmas card - best investment of money ever.)   I often see political talk as spin or sloganeering, but to this woman, Clinton's talk about seeing people who were invisible rang true.  She said that Clinton was the only one who had ever shown any concern about people like her.   I told her that she could register the day of voting and pointed out her polling place within walking distance, she said she'd consider it (she seemed intimidated by voting, like she was afraid she'd screw it up).  I would give anything to know if she voted or not.

This diary is getting long.  I have some other thoughts about NH, including additional differences in GOTV efforts between Obama and Clinton (small ones, but they may have made a difference, things like Clinton stopped canvassing at 7 and I think Obama may have gone until 9 at night or at least that's what we heard), and if I ever catch up on my sleep, maybe I'll write them down.

One final thing, all of the Edwards and Obama volunteers we met were incredibly nice to us, even after Clinton looked to be winning.  I hope they found us nice back.   I wasn't very happy with Edwards this weekend (although perhaps in retrospect I should thank him), but he has fantastic supporters.  I met fewer Obama people, but the ones I did meet were also very gracious.   Yay, Democrats!