Politics

Campaign in Fla.? They don't dare

By ADAM C. SMITH, Times Political Editor
Published October 16, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT It's Your Times Join the discussion about the Florida Democratic primary [AP photo] You won't see this in Florida: Hillary Rodham Clinton, above, greets area residents at Hackleboro Orchard in Canterbury, N.H., on Thursday, while Barack Obama, below, shakes hands after a visit to Mack's Apples in Londonderry, N.H. Neither Democrat is campaigning in Florida. [AP photo]

PLYMOUTH, N.H. - Listen up, readers. I have a dire warning. Something sinister and mysterious is terrorizing the Democratic presidential candidates. I'm afraid I can't yet explain its dark power, but I'm working on it.

The candidates are so terrified of drawing the wrath of Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, they won't dare kiss a baby, give a speech or talk to a voter anywhere in Florida, except in closed-door, fundraising receptions. So I went to the heart of darkness - New Hampshire - hunting for answers in a place where, legend has it, candidates and citizens talk easily to one another. But Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign made it clear the terror is worse than I imagined. I wanted to ask Clinton a couple of questions: about the national catastrophe insurance fund, offshore drilling, maybe Florida's primary. I might as well have asked to show the former first lady my anthrax spores. "She's only doing local press," Mo Elleithee, a Clinton adviser, explained by phone. "And I'm local press from Florida," I said. "But now I'm in New Hampshire, so I'm legal to talk to." "But you're still from Florida," Elleithee sighed. "A tiger can't change its stripes."

I'm not naive. I understand why candidates might welcome a pledge not to campaign in any state that violated the national party rules by holding a primary earlier than Feb. 5.

For the cash-strapped underdogs - Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, John Edwards and Bill Richardson - signing the pledge was a nice excuse to avoid a state they can't afford to campaign in anyway. They need to concentrate on staying alive in those earliest contests.

Barack Obama and Clinton, however, have the money to compete in America's biggest battleground state. Yet they're scared even to talk to Florida reporters.

"I'm not allowed to talk to the press!" Illinois Sen. Obama shouted back at me recently after I tried shouting from 100 feet away as he left a $1,000-per-person fundraiser in St. Petersburg.

"Isn't it up to you?!"

Obama: "Nope!"

"Aren't you the guy trying to lead the country?!"

Obama: "I signed a pledge!"

Skipping convention

None of the candidates would even risk sending their spouses to address the Florida Democratic convention later this month. Imagine the blow to the countless Florida fans of Mrs. Dodd.

"These states have conspired to intimidate the presidential candidates. ... They can destroy any presidential campaign," Florida Senate Democratic leader Steve Geller said, explaining why he's about to sue the four early states for alleged voting rights violations.

Candidates who contend they can stand up to al-Qaida are intimidated by the Democratic chairs of South Carolina and Nevada? They seem like such cute little states.

Would voters in these early states really punish a candidate for courting voters in a major battleground state that held an election after their own?

Before visiting New Hampshire, I called one of the most influential opinion leaders in Iowa, David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register. He wasn't so sure Iowans would have rejected a candidate who refused to sign the pledge against campaigning for Florida's Jan. 29 primary, though it could have required some explaining.

"But now it's elevated to a matter of you've given your word," Yepsen said of the pledge. "My perception has always been that people in New Hampshire are much more protective of their primary than Iowans are about their caucus."

So I headed to the Granite State, which has held the nation's first presidential primary for nearly 90 years. I wanted to talk to these fearsome voters.

They didn't seem that scary to me.

In an apple orchard barn, a university gym, a historic theater and at a solar power company, I couldn't find a single New Hampshire Democrat willing to admit they would destroy a candidate for violating the Democratic National Committee's calendar.

Over and over, these voters professed to be oblivious to the whole issue, or simply unconcerned about pledge violators. So long as Florida wasn't butting in front of New Hampshire, voters said, no big deal.

"You mean the candidates can come to Florida and take money, but not talk to reporters or anybody outside of a fundraiser?" said Brandon Miller, 35, a kitchen manager in Plymouth who was waiting to hear Obama speak. "That would make me mad."

"Candidates should be allowed to speak to voters wherever voters are who want to hear them," said Dana Weaver, who was at a Clinton speech.

"This has nothing to do with real voters," said Steve Medaglia, an engineering consultant. "The power guys that control the party set up these rules to maintain their own control of the party, and the candidates have to kowtow to the power structure in the party. Does anyone really think a lot of voters are not going to support a candidate because that candidate campaigned in Florida or Michigan?"

'Rinky-dink state'

But then, at last, some Granite Staters bared their dark souls.

"You're a rinky-dink state, and it serves Florida right," barked educator Mary Ann Reynolds, before an Obama rally in Plymouth. "The people of Florida didn't stop Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris from stealing the election in 2000. We don't forget. Maybe we ought to punish Florida more for what happened in 2000."

At a solar energy company in Merrimack, retired social worker Mary Moriarty initially professed indifference to candidates campaigning to win Florida's primary. But I pressed until she blurted out the truth: "Look what you did to us, you gave us eight years of George Bush, when Al Gore should be our president."

Shocking, I know. It's hard to believe they could be this angry after all this time. But at least it's an answer, which is more than we're getting from the candidates these days.

Adam C. Smith can be reached at asmith@sptimes.com or 727 893-8241.

[Last modified October 15, 2007, 22:01:25]