Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Law Students Blogs -> Harrell Blog

Law Students

: Harrell Blog

The voters in New Hampshire

By pharrell

Meryl and I were in New Hampshire this past Saturday, knocking on doors to try to persuade undecided voters to support Barack Obama next month. And while I do think we need to open the primary system up to a broader selection of states, my few hours in New Hampshire gave me at a modicum of appreciation for the current system. The voters we met with seemed far more engaged in the process than I've seen in my (admittedly limited) experience canvassing elsewhere--they had studied the candidates and were weighing their options carefully. A couple of friends we went with said that several of the voters they spoke to had actually gone and seen multiple contenders in person, a level of political commitment you just don't see elsewhere. (Or course, over time giving another state disproportionate influence over the nominating process might get that state's voters engaged in the political process). And the fact that New Hampshire is a small state still comprised of close-knit communities preserves an element of retail campaigning, in coffee houses, living rooms, bars and VFW halls, that would simply disappear if large states dominated the early primaries. We as a nation would lose our last personal connection between voters and candidates, making the primary process even-more dependent on money (for ads) and on the self-appointed political arbiters of the media to tell us who to vote for. There are upsides, of course--fairness being the largest--but after my time last weekend I'm sympathetic to arguments that, as we modernize the primary system, we figure out ways to preserve the virtues in the current system.

Full post as published by Harrell Blog on December 03, 2007 (boomark / email).