Beaver Hill-er’s Primary Pitch Gets Personal

Keene, N.H. — Trudging up to chilly New Hampshire from New Haven with two pals, Idelier Pettigrew wasn’t about to back down when a potential, but still undecided, Hillary Clinton supporter declined to commit.

The Keene wind whooshed by as Pettigrew listened to what the woman had to say. In a sprawling yard just behind the porch, a puppy dropped the squirrel he was chewing on, and perked up, ready to hear an argument.

“I mean, I’ve just always liked her, I like what she stands for,” said the voter, who asked not to be identified in this article. ​“But she’s scarin’ me a little bit … Before, she used to be really good on the health care, she seems to be drifting away from the health care, and a lot …”

Pettigrew had found her in.

“Oh, no, no, no, that’s quite the opposite,” she said. ​“She’s wrappin herself around that health care like it’s nobody’s business.”

The woman paused, voicing her enthusiasm for Sanders’ single-payer health care plan. Pettigrew drew a breath, didn’t miss a beat.

“Well for them to accomplish that. They would have to raise your taxes. Are you willing to have your taxes go up?” she asked.

“No,“ the woman responded.

“Well, that’s where he would get the money from to pay for the single-payer health care,” Pettigrew shot back.

The woman was quiet, weighing her options. The scales, it seemed in that moment, had shifted.

Malloy Preps The Message

Pettigrew, a Jamaican immigrant who lives in Beaver Hills and works with Construction & General Laborers Local Union 455, found her way to Keene Saturday morning with the help of friends Audrey Tyson, New Haven’s Ward 29 Democratic co-chair, and Jacqueline Kozin, legislative program manager at Office of Connecticut State Comptroller Kevin Lembo and the chair of Connecticut’s chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW).

Pettigrew’s 17-year-old son, Dylan Watson, also joined ​“so that I can be more informed” by the election, as did Yale Political Science graduate student Alicia Steinmetz and Yale School of Nursing Project Manager Valen Grandelski, handling the minutiae of address lists, commit to vote cards and what literature to leave if someone wasn’t home.

Pettigrew’s morning had started with an early pickup from Steinmetz, a three-hour drive to New Hampshire, and serious marching orders from Connecticut U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, Keene Mayor Kendall Lane, and Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, who arrived in Keene before most of Connecticut’s volunteers did.

“It’s great to be with everyone,” Malloy began as close to 40 Connecticut canvassers filled the office. ​“We’re going to cover Keene, and it’s really important.”

Malloy had given the speech 30 minutes before, to an early wave of volunteers who had already left to canvass. Now, he modified the speech to make it state-specific.

“There are dividing lines in this race,” he told Pettigrew’s group. ​“This gun issue, which is very personal to me, and very personal to everyone who’s from Connecticut, is a dividing line … I listened to his [Sanders’] explanation about why we shouldn’t hold gun manufacturers and stores accountable, it doesn’t make sense … we need a safer America.” (Malloy has successfully pushed through nation-leading gun-control legislation and orders in Connecticut.)

“I will remind everyone that after Columbine, when she [Clinton] was first lady of the United States, she’s the one who convened the conference at the White House,” he added. ​“She brought people together about how to make schools safer, how to make our society safer, and how to control guns.”

From the front row, Pettigrew nodded her head vigorously, uttering a quiet, but perceptible, yes.

Malloy also echoed the emphasis of volunteers like Kozin and Tyson, who expressed enthusiasm for not only Clinton’s experience, but her gender. ​“She’s the person who equated women’s rights with human rights and human rights with women’s rights, and that’s important,” he said. Kozin led a round of applause. ​“We gotta stand up for our candidate. We got a candidate who’s worth fighting for, because she’ll be the best president of the United States, so let’s get that job done. Knock on those doors, get us some votes!”

As they walked out the door, volunteers had one more reason to put a little pep in their step: The New York Times had just endorsed Clinton.

Tyson, grinned, punched the air a single time, and headed outside with a carload of canvassers.

“I’d love to see a woman in the White House,” she told me. ​“She’s going to fight for everybody.”

A Personal Pitch

Once they hit the doors, it was Pettigrew who brought a personal fire to the case for Clinton. ​“When you can create a respectable relationship,” she said of choosing Clinton over Sanders, ​“you can push things forward. Without respect and trust, you just can’t do anything.”

For her, that meant speaking to some potential supporters for 10 minutes or more.

One of them was Paul Hoffman, a Keene resident who liked Hillary, but said he worries that she is too ​“of the establishment” to make sizable change in the country. ​“I was excited about Obama in 2008, and then disappointed,” he said as she listened. He didn’t want another Democrat to feel the same way.

Pettigrew saw it as a chance to share her story. When she arrived in New Haven 17 years ago, she told Hoffman, she was poor. Very poor, in fact. She had worked her way up from the bottom of the economic ladder, and wasn’t about to have Sanders — or a Republican — take that rug out from under her through a tax hike or refurbished health care system that didn’t pass muster in Congress. (Sanders argues that the Clinton camp is misrepresenting his position by saying that his health plan will raise middle-class voters’ taxes, because their premiums would fall far more than taxes would rise.)

Hoffman nodded slowly, giving the occasional ​“yep, yep” in response.

From the road, Audrey Tyson waved to her at the 11-minute mark, as if to say let’s move on.

For Pettigrew, every door was that kind of challenge. When a Cruz supporter suggested she had the wrong house, she stuck it out to ask him what it would take to change teams (more than humanly possible, it turned out).

Which ultimately brought her to the undecided woman, who was still on the fence five minutes after that initial Clinton pitch.

“I could go either way, and I like it that way,” the woman said.

Pettigrew didn’t like it that way. Not at all.

“So, I’m thinking that even if taxes has to be raised for the single-payer system, if that’s the issue you like, what is the cap, and for how long?” Pettigrew persisted as the woman dipped one foot back inside her door.

“Where’s the cutoff point? Hillary knows how she’s paying for it.” 

The woman smiled politely. Pettigrew wasn’t ready to back down. But her carpool was.

“All right, thank you!” Steinmetz said as she ushered the group away from the door, ready to take the message to the next door. ​“And your dog is very cute.”

Lucy Gellman and Thomas Breen are spending the week in New Hampshire with canvassers, campaign staffers and volunteers, and candidates. To listen to some of the voices from the Clinton camp, click on or download the audio above, the first installment in a Soundcloud playlist of many voices from the road. 

Thomas Breen contributed reporting to this story.