These are not always the Senior Advisor types, or the Strategies folks, but the folks I consider to be the shock troops – the folks that, day in and day out, just do all of the lowest level stuff that has to be done during a campaign – coordinating other volunteers, planting signs, calling people, and doing the setup and take down work for each and every event that a candidate goes to.
I love talking to these folks – the "blue collar" workers. They are often a tad leery to talk to me, for obvious reasons – and I will walk up "to the line" but don’t wish to cross it. Why? Mostly, these are good folk – YOU may not like the candidate (or I, for that matter) that they are working for, but for many, this is how they feed themselves and their families – cut’em a break. Sure, the Lakes Region Rigor Mortis Conservative has a high level of disdain for them that almost matches that of his hatred of the Candidates for which they work or volunteer (like getting into a screaming match with some volunteers that were trying to put up campaign signs near his home that were NOT for HIS candidates – a couple of them thought he was going to stroke out, he went so livid!).
Anyways, back to the campaign workers. This one I had the chance to yak with before going into the hall to set up. He smilingly said "You won’t get one of me!"
Silly person – challenging me to do something? He was actually smiling when I took the pic – THEN I reminded him of his challenge that I wouldn’t be able to get his picture…smile went to ‘downcast’ in a femtosecond.
A couple of others:
To be fair, the vast majority of the candidates running on the Republican side this cycle in NH are decent folks and would be, from a Constitutional / TEA Party / 9-12 viewpoint, a FAR cry better than the Democrat Progressives (remember: incremental Socialism is their stock in trade!).
