Senator hoping to ride the momentum
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- For John F. Kerry, the margins of victory in Iowa and now New Hampshire matter far less than the political validation that he has sought for his candidacy for so long.
Kerry has come from behind to score victories in the first two states that voted -- a rarity for a first-time presidential candidate -- and is now the Democratic front-runner as the campaign heads toward more than a dozen state primaries in February. His second win is all the more sweet because of the traditional bounce that winners in New Hampshire receive in the next round of primaries. Seven states vote Tuesday.
"Well, I love New Hampshire!" Kerry said at the start of his victory speech last night. "And I love Iowa, too. And I hope with your help to have the blessings and the opportunity to love a lot of other states in the days ahead."
Earlier, in between shaking hands with about 20 voters as they went to cast their ballots in the freezing night, Kerry said a New Hampshire win would have special meaning for him after he struggled for months to attract Democrats and independents who had protested early on that he seemed stiff, uninspiring, and too much a creature of Washington.
Asked what it would take for him to come out the front-runner, Kerry added: "Just win. That'd be great. All I have to do is just win. That would be the biggest turnaround in American politics in a long time."
Kerry won in a state next door to his home of four decades, one where thousands of former Massachusetts voters live, and where voters perhaps know him best second only to voters in the Commonwealth. Yet New Hampshire had seemed to write him off as politically dead last fall, as voters assailed his support for a congressional resolution authorizing military force in Iraq and turned in favor of former Vermont governor Howard Dean and another military veteran like Kerry, Wesley K. Clark. By the beginning of January, Kerry had fallen well behind both.
Throughout yesterday, Kerry's camp exuded cautious optimism. By 2 p.m., officials had received exit poll numbers that indicated Kerry was leading Dean by 7 percentage points. But Kerry's camp also was eyeing another set of data that had the race between the two New Englanders much closer. About 8 a.m., Kerry went to Jewett Street School, a polling place in Manchester where he greeted voters and shook hands with every one of his poll workers. "Thanks for freezing for me, man," Kerry said to a supporter.
Kerry swung back to his Manchester headquarters in the early afternoon to join a dozen Vietnam veterans at a long table covered with telephones and coffee cups, where they made calls to voters. He returned to his suite at the Tage Inn until 3 p.m., when Kerry spokesman David Wade said the candidate decided "he wouldn't stay in his hotel room" and went instead to the intersection of Granite and Canal streets to shake hands. (In fact, aides had said hours earlier that Kerry probably would do a "visibility event" to be seen by undecided and last-minute voters watching the evening news.)
Inside headquarters, Kerry aides hovered all day around a "get-out-the-vote" room -- off-limits to reporters -- where campaign officials called and e-mailed their most committed supporters to track turnout.
The room's walls were covered with lists of voting precincts and Kerry's target numbers for each, constantly updated with new sets of numbers, aides said. A fleet of 154 four-wheel-drive vehicles were at the ready around the state to pick up voters who needed rides to the polls.
At one end of Kerry's offices, based in a warehouse-sized loft, the veterans worked the phones as the campaign chairwoman, former New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen, gave interviews to reporters and consulted on strategy with the campaign workers.
"I'm exhausted," said Shaheen, who had stayed up late Monday night stumping for Kerry in the North Country with singer Carole King and Representative Edward J. Markey of Malden.
"People were still trying to choose between all the candidates and figure out who could best beat George Bush. That's the priority we heard in most places."
Political analysts say that many Democrats in New Hampshire knew Kerry well but were not sure that he was a winner. But when he won Iowa, his stock quickly shot up in the polls by 20 percentage points -- more than the usual 5 to 10 after the caucuses. Kerry also relied on a strong political organization built by Shaheen and her husband, Bill, two veteran operatives who were behind the hard-fought victories of Al Gore in 2000 and Gary Hart in 1984. The Shaheens and other staff focused on beating Dean and Clark in major cities like Manchester, Dover, and Nashua.
While his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire came after grueling campaigns, Kerry now faces what some aides call "his real tests." He has to compete for votes over the next two weeks in South Carolina, Michigan, Washington, and nine other states where he is a relative unknown, raise money at a breakneck pace to cover an anticipated explosion of campaign spending, and adapt from wooing small groups in school cafeterias and social clubs to rousing voters at rallies in populous states where he cannot spend as much time.
Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com.
