Nashua, N.H. – Fueled by Barack Obama’s message of hope, Jennifer Just drove to New Hampshire to be part of an historic day. Then, on Butternut Drive, she ran into two other true believers from back home.
Just coordinates New Haven-area volunteers for Barack Obama’s quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. She and a bevy of other local volunteers, many from Yale, hurried up here Tuesday to knock on doors and be part of history. They appeared to be part of a tidal wave of idealistic support that would send Obama cruising to the party nomination. Obama appeared ready to win a second straight contest and even knock top opponent Hillary Clinton out of the race.
The battle proved not as easy as planned. The out-of-state believers Just encountered on Butternut Drive were vote-pulling for Clinton.
Andrew Seitz, a college-aged man from Danbury, Conn., praised Clinton’s Washington experience. “It makes me sad that she’s worked hard for 35 years and they’re saying that’s too many years, like experience a bad thing,” he said.
“This is a very serious decision,” warned Seitz’s vote-pulling partner, Paulette McLaughlin, of New York. If another 9/11 hits, she said, “Hillary is ready.”
Propelled by that kind of sympathy from Democrats (as opposed to independents), Hillary Clinton beat Obama by 39 to 36 percent of the vote in a stunning reversal that defied pundits’ predictions, in this key, first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
At day’s end, crestfallen Obama supporters gathered at what many had thought would be a triumphant post-primary party at high school gymnasium in Nashua.
“We know the battle ahead will be long,” Obama told them. “But always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.”
Click here to watch excerpts of his speech from the Washington Post.
Earlier Tuesday, Jennifer Just joined the Obama battle in the quiet streets of Keene, N.H., where she was plunked down in a housing development with a list of doors to knock on. Wearing jeans and sneakers, she shuffled along icy sidewalks in the name of hope and change.
“I hope you’ll vote for Barack,” Just told an elderly woman through the glass pane of a front door. The woman gave a quick nod: “I’m going to vote,” she said, but she wouldn’t say for whom.
Between knocking on doors (many dogs, but not many people, were home), the 49-year-old Woodbridge resident told how she came from a political cynic to join the Obamenon.
“I’m pretty cynical,” Just admitted. “I grew up in Washington [D.C.] during Watergate. I know how things probably don’t change,” she said. “But there’s something about this election.”
When Obama sailed to victory in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, proving a very white state would vote for an African-American candidate, “I felt proud to be an American for the first time,” Just said.
“I can’t believe I’m saying things like that,” said her cynical self, “but it’s true.”
Back in Connecticut, Just has been handing out DVDs with short clips of Obama speaking. “Just watch him for four minutes!” she says, convinced that “anyone who sees him speak” would feel a rush of hope.
Connecticut Obama fans, including many Yale students, had been going up to New Hampshire on recent weekends, said Just, who’s in charge of volunteers from the state’s Third U.S. Congressional District. Since presidential candidates barely set foot in Connecticut, New Hampshire was the first chance for local activists to insert themselves in the presidential process, and in the national story of how a young black man with a message of hope has changed the course of American politics.
In the southern hills of New Hampshire, Connecticut’s Lex Paulson braved muddy back roads to remind people to vote.
In downtown Keene, Val McCall, CT for Obama volunteer director, worked at the phones at the local Obama headquarters. “We have a lot of hope in this guy,” she said.
Just said that the baby boomer generation is ready for a new vision. “There’s been a sea change. All of a sudden the generational page has turned. The Clintons just don’t see it — they don’t get it.”
That’s what Obama volunteers — and the national pundits — thought Tuesday. Until the polls closed. And supporters of a different history-making quest, to elect the country’s first female president, had their day.
Which means Just and New Haven’s other volunteers from the different campaigns haven’t finished their work. The presidential campaigns will be alive in both parties, after all, when “Super Tuesday” comes on Feb. 5 — and New Haven-area volunteers like Just will have a campaign in their own backyard for which to ring doorbells and transport voters.
Melissa Bailey’s previous presidential trail coverage:
Anderson Goes Undercover
“You Are Ignoring America’s Savior”
How “Hell” Became New Haven
New Haven Swings For Obama
Dodd Drops Out
Dodd Makes Closing Pitch
Can Firefights Rescue Dodd?
Dodd, Ignored, Picks A Happy Place