Quietly, Edwards Works New Hampshire (campaign presence in NH rivals that of HRC and BO)

[draft_mario_cuomo]

==BEDFORD -- This is a quaint, upper-middle class suburb of New Hampshire, and because it lies catty-corner to vote rich Manchester, presidential candidates generally don’t campaign there too much. So it was a little impressive that Elizabeth Edwards was able to pack about 200 Bedfordians into a very small single-family home yesterday. (That's about 40 more than Rudy Giuliani attracted to his town hall meeting in Concord yesterday).

John Edwards’s New Hampshire campaign manager, Beth Leonard, is adamant: for all the talk of Edwards putting all of his chips into winning Iowa, his campaign is investing heavily in New Hampshire, too. The campaign has ten field offices open now and Leonard oversees 40 full-time staffers. Those totals rival the Obama and Clinton campaign presences in state.

Leonard is a veteran of John Kerry’s Iowa state operation in 2004, and she is therefore very methodical. Edwards isn’t so much interested in endorsements, which is good because he’s getting very few, and he’s not interested in splashy day-long canvasses involving hundreds of volunteers. The campaign has identified hundreds of potential precinct campaigns and is targeting them. (One early source of recruits: the campaign of congressional insurgent Carol Shea Porter.)

If Edwards does well in Iowa, his New Hampshire operation needs to be strong in order to harness the momentum. Edwards couldn’t translate a strong, second place showing in Iowa to New Hampshire: the campaign had only seven paid organizers that year.==

Read the rest at http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/quietly_edwards_works_new_hamp_1.php

[saltpoint]

1. Edwards knows what he's doing. I don't know if he will

appeal to New Hampshire Democrats. They're an unpredictable, if delightfully unpredictable bunch. I thought Mondale would defeat Hart. He didn't. I thought Bradley would upend Gore. He didn't. It's a fool's errand to bet money on a New Hampshire Democratic Primary.

And that being the case, I think John Edwards' campaign could prevail. He's impressive in and of himself, but I think he will appeal to a lot of primary voters.

If he can also invite Elizabeth along for a lot of his campaign appearances, that shouldn't hurt one iota.

Yes, I know what the polls say so far.

But Yogi's adage holds true, especially in politics.

Go, Johnny, go.