2012 NH Primary Notebook

Obama , Barack (i)  48,143 82%
Total Write-ins  5,889 10%
Cowan , Ed 934 2%
Supreme , Vermin  823 1%
Terry , Randall  444 1%
Haywood , John  424 1%
O’Connor , Cornelius  420 1%
Freis , Craig  397 1%

No other candidate received 1 percent of the vote

(as reported by WMUR)

Romney , Mitt 95,737 39%

Paul , Ron 55,514 23%

Huntsman , Jon 40,954 17%

Gingrich , Newt 22,955 9%

Santorum , Rick 22,738 9%

Perry , Rick 1,711 1%

Roemer , Buddy 919 0%

Total Write-ins 787 0%

Bachmann , Michele 344 0%

Karger , Fred 336 0%

Rubash , Kevin 247 0%

Johnson , Gary 175 0%

Cain , Herman 152 0%

Lawman , Jeff 125 0%

Hill , Christopher 104 0%

No other candidate reached 100 votes.

(as reported by WMUR)

Mitt Romney seems to have solidified his position in the Suffolk University/7News poll.

The former Massachusetts governor had slipped 10 points—from 43 percent to 33 percent—over the previous five days, but rebounded in the final Suffolk poll to 37 percent. Suffolk University has conducted tracking polls in the days leading up to the Primary election today, Jan. 10.

Ron Paul garnered 18 percent of the vote, and Jon Huntsman, who seems to have picked up some momentum, rose to 16 percent. Rick Santorum was at 11 percent and Newt Gingrich came in with 9 percent, while Rick Perry and Buddy Roemer garnered 1 percent each. The poll found that just 7 percent of voters were undecided.

“Mitt Romney may beat his closest competitor by a two-to-one margin,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston. “With two solid debate performances, Romney weathered the storm earlier this week, while no opponent made a serious run at him.”

The poll of 500 likely New Hampshire voters was conducted after the two presidential debates this past weekend—250 people were interviewed Sunday night and 250 more people were interviewed Monday night.

“The battle for second place will be determined by which candidate has the best field organization to bring out the votes today,” Paleologos said. “A good get-out-the-vote-operation accounts for up to 5 points, which can impact an expected outcome.”

Ron Paul supporters high jack Gingrich’s sign outside his campaign headquarters.

Chants are led by Vermin Supreme.

And others…

For months the New Hampshire primary seemed dull. The circus arrived on Monday night when a scheduled meet and greet with Newt Gingrich was canceled perhaps because of too many demonstrators.

Outside of Gingrich’s New Hampshire’s headquarters on Elm Street, Occupy protesters as well as Ron Paul supporters high jacked the event. People dressed as pigs, electric lights flashing on the side of buildings, three police officers and of course Vermin Surpreme were perhaps enough to keep Gingrich away. After more than an hour of waiting, supporters who packed the inside of the headquarters left disappointed.

Adam Coughlin photos.

News outlets have often been criticized for having an agenda, but MTV may have taken things to new levels, according to one local man.

Mark Palos grew up watching MTV back when the channel showed music videos. But Palos is furious with a recent article posted on its website. In the article, Palos feels MTV makes a recent slam poetry night held at Milly’s Tavern seem like a Ron Paul event. But in reality that couldn’t be further from the truth, according to Palos.

Palos of Slam Free or Die routinely organizes a Thursday night open mike at Milly’s. On Thursday, Milly’s manager Rob Weintraub got a call from MTV asking if Milly’s would host a slam poetry night on Sunday, Jan. 8, with poems that were written in response to Saturday’s debate. Weintraub reached out to Palos and Sam Teitel of Slam Free or Die who interested, according to Palos. He said MTV was going to film the show and put it on an episode of MTV Docs, a documentary show.

Palos said he went into overdrive organizing the event and a bunch of poets gathered at Milly’s on Saturday night to watch the debate and take notes, which is something they normally wouldn’t do.

Palos said MTV was supposed to arrive around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday night and the show was to start at 7 p.m. But by 7 p.m., there was still no sign of MTV. There was a good crowd of around 100 people, which is about 40 more people than normal. One table of this crowd was occupied by a group of Ron Paul supporters. The organizers pushed back the start of the show to 7:30 p.m. Palos said MTV arrived at 7:25 p.m. Palos said the MTV reporter only talked with the Ron Paul supporters in the crowd, ate food and then left before the night was over.

Palos woke to find an article with the headline “Ron Paul Inspires Poetry in New Hampshire.” He said some of the lines in the article were taken out of context from poems that weren’t favorable at all to Ron Paul.  And while the story in its current form doesn’t label the event as a Ron Paul event, Palos feels MTV focused just on the Ron Paul supporters and ignored the rest.

This was particularly upsetting for Palos because he has worked hard to preserve the reputation of Slam Free or Die, which supports an “open mike” concept, which means they are accepting and respectful of everyone and every opinion that steps up to the mike. He said in 2008 they were approached by the Obama campaign and asked if they would like to host a slam poetry night in collaboration with his campaign. Even though many of those involved supported Obama, Palos said they declined because they didn’t want to alienate any potential poets or audience members.

But perhaps Slam Free or Die will laugh last. At next Thursday’s poetry night, poet Bill Macmillan is offering a prize to the person who writes and performs the best anti-MTV poem on the open mike.

For those keeping track, Mitt Romney continues to drop in the daily Suffolk University/7News poll. It still doesn’t look like he’ll be caught but Romney would surely like to be moving in the other direction.

Romney dropped to 33 percent in the most recent poll—from 43 percent five days prior—though he still leads Ron Paul who came in second with 20 percent. Jon Huntsman might be gaining a little momentum. The Suffolk poll has him at 13 percent, and a Public Policy Poll had Huntsman at 16 percent and potentially closing on Paul.

Newt Gingrich garnered 11 percent, Rick Santorum got 10 percent, while Rick Perry and Buddy Roemer combined for 3 percent of the vote. According to the poll, 12 percent of likely New Hampshire voters remain undecided. The greatest undecided category is women ages 18-44, where 19 percent of voters remain undecided, according to a Suffolk press release.

“Mitt Romney’s biggest asset is the large number of candidates in this group that are dividing up the remainder of the vote,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston. “With just a 33 percent stake, he can control his destiny, so long as the others in his group continue to battle each other. So the more people in the group the merrier for Romney.”

Suffolk has released two-day tracking polls every day for the past week and will do so right through the primary tomorrow, Jan. 10. This polls was released on Monday, Jan. 9, but was conducted on Jan. 7 and Jan. 8 using live telephone interviews. There is a 4.4 percent margin of error.

Kathy Lubbers (purple) and Jackie Cushman (red) at the Bridge Cafe. Adam Coughlin photo.

As the daughter of Newt Gingrich, Jackie Cushman has traveled the country meeting voters at places like the Bridge Cafe in Manchester. Over this time, she has been able to put her finger on the pulse of what Americans are looking for.

“People want a clear vision of the future of America,” Cushman said in an interview on Sunday, Jan. 8.

She said in 2008 Barack Obama ran on a campaign of hope but that he had never done anything before to deliver that change. She said her father, the former Speaker of the House, had done just that.

She said if her father was the nominee the debates between him and Obama would be phenominal. She said if Obama said he couldn’t balance the budget because of opposition from Republicans, Gingrich could say that he did just that when Bill Clinton as president.

Cushman, who was joined on the trail by her sister Kathy Lubbers, said she tries to humanize her father and remind people how important this election truly is.

As a father, she said Gingrich has passed determination on to her. She said he is driven to be involved because of his own father’s career service in the military.

Cushman has been involved in her father’s entire political career. She said he first ran for office when she was seven years old. He lost and lost a few other races afterwards. But he never gave up (that determination). She said after his first lost she went into school and her administrator told her he was happy that her father lost. She said after that she realized politics could get nasty.

She said it is important to correct inaccuracies in the media because not all reports are true. She said she had no problem when people disagreed or wanted to argue with her father’s policies. She said that was all fair game, as long as what was being argued was accurate.

Cushman said her father would be the best president because he has the longest record of accomplishments in office. Gingrich looks to be in a competitive battle with Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman for second place in New Hampshire but it is yet to be determined whether any can catch Mitt Romney whose poll numbers are far ahead.

Jackie Cushman is interviewed by a reporter from Denmark. Adam Coughlin photo.