GOFFSTOWN, NH –  John McCain returned to his adopted home of New Hampshire Wednesday and sharpened his anti-tax language as he called on Granite Staters to help the underdog again defy the odds and win on election day.

Referring to Obama’s economic priorities as “skewed,” McCain argued that his rival’s approach to taxes–to “confiscate wealth” in order to redistribute it–puts him out of touch with most Americans.

“As my opponent sees it, there is a strict limit to your earnings and wealth, and it’s for politicians to decide. The proper amount of wealth is not what you can earn, but what government will let you keep,” McCain told about 1,000 supporters at a hockey arena on the campus of St. Anselm’s College. “(Obama) has talked…about how, in our day, ‘the distribution of wealth is even more skewed, and levels of inequity are now higher.’ What are really skewed in all of this are my opponent’s priorities.”

He added that Obama “talks about our economy in a detached and academic way, forgetting that the goal is not to redistribute wealth but to create it.”

McCain also made a personal appeal at the top of his remarks where he talked about his warm feelings for New Hampshire–the state that helped propel him from longshot to the nomination during the primary–and called on them to get out the vote November 4th.

“I love you. I love new Hampshire. I know I can count on you…to again come from behind and take a victory and bring it all the way to Washington DC next January,” McCain said to cheers. “I have learned a lot over the years from the people of this state and I know one thing for certain. It doesn’t matter what pundits think or how confidence my opponent is–the people of New Hampshire make their own decisions…more than once they have ignored the polls and the pundits and brought me across the finish line first.”

McCain also tweaked his horserace language today chiding Obama for his planned primetime network address to the nation.

“My opponent’s looking pretty confident, confident these days. He’ll be addressing the nation soon. He’s got another of those big stadium spectacles in the works. But acting like the election is over, it won’t let him take away your chance to have the final say in this election,” he added.

ROCHESTER, NH — John McCain’s attempt to hit the “reset button” on his flailing campaign sounds like more of the same to Joe Biden.

The Democratic VP nominee preemptively blasted the McCain’s “major speech” today — which the Arizona Senator’s advisers say is meant to right a campaign that even Republicans worry has become a listing ship — saying America wants solutions, not partisan attacks.

“Both Senator Obama and John McCain are giving big speeches today. You’ll read about it in the press,” he said to a crowd of 400 in New Hampshire. “Barack is going to make a major speech on economic policy. He’s gonna further outline what he’s going to do and how he’s going to deal with it.”

“It looks like John McCain’s entire speech is going to be attack. Attack, attack, attack.”

“It couldn’t be clearer to me what’s going on here,” Biden said. “John McCain wants to attack Barack Obama. Barack Obama wants to attackle [sic] the problems that face America today.”

Biden said he was disappointed in McCain - who he often says he’s been friends with since the 1970’s.

Voters’ question about everything from health care, education, and the financial crisis, Biden said, “aren’t going to be answered by negative political attacks that are going on. These questions aren’t going to be answered by attacks on Barack Obama that are coming out of the McCain campaign.”

McCain’s campaign shot back that the economic solutions BIden and Obama are offering are rip-offs of infamously clueless Depression-era President Herbert Hoover. “With sleight of hand and misdirection, Joe Biden continues to pitch Barack Obama’s recipe for greater economic suffering,” said spokesman Ben Porritt.

“The Obama-Biden ticket’s call for higher taxes on American businesses and isolationist trade policies mirrors the proposals that President Hoover implemented at the onset of the Great Depression, spurring a complete economic collapse – it’s plagiarism of the very worst economic policies in American history.”

(more…)

DOVER, NH - On October 24, 2007, Barack Obama held a town hall in Dover, New Hampshire. During the Q + A, the then-long shot candidate was asked how he’d avoid being swift boated - taken down by questionable and ugly claims from foes.

Obama replied, “When people try to swift boat you - you have to respond forcefully, you have to respond immediately, and you have to respond truthfully. What you don’t want to do is get in the gutter and answer a lie with a lie. You have to answer a lie with the truth. But it has to come fast, it has to come strong, and we are prepared for whatever they throw at me and we will come right at them.”

He was met with cheers and applause that fall day by the Granite State voters.

Fast forward nearly a year later - the Democratic nominee for president returned to the same town in New Hampshire for his first town hall since losing narrowly to Hillary Clinton in January, where he was met with voters typical to the state.

That is to say, voters experienced in grilling politicians thanks to their “first in the nation” status. Voters who are not star struck when in close proximity to such “rock stars” as Barack Obama. Voters who are unafraid to ask questions like, “For those of us who have given you our support and more importantly our money, when and how are you going to start fighting back against attack ads and smear campaigns?”

Nearly a year later, nearly the same question. But Obama said he has been fighting back.

“I have to tell you, our ads have been pretty tough, but they’ve been focused,” Obama began. “Look, I just have a different philosophy and that is that I’m going to respond with truth. I’m going to respond with the truth,” he continued, sounding an awful lot like the Barack Obama of October 2007.

Noting that there are some “nervous” supporters who fear a replay of 2004, Obama made a guarantee: “We are going to be hitting back hard – we have been hitting back hard – but we’re hitting back on the issues that matter to families…I’m not going to start making up lies about John McCain,” he said, but vowing to correct the record if lies are said about him.

“We’re not going to sit back and watch, we’re going to make sure that anything that is out there that we are immediately responding to. But this election is too important, it’s too serious to be playing silly games. And I’ve got, I’ve got confidence in the American people. That’s what they’re looking for. They’re looking for a serious statement about how I can make more lives better, how you can live out your American dream, and you know I am not going to be distracted or dissuaded from making, making my case to the American people,” he concluded.

Glenn Grasso of Dover - the man who asked the question - said he was “satisfied” with Obama’s answer and noted “if he keeps coming back to being on message, I think he will win the White House.”

But part of Obama’s problem is getting past all the noise that the media reports on during presidential campaigns. “I think it was Roger Ailes of FOX News who said that the media basically four things - they cover polls, scandals, gaffes and attacks.  Those are the four things they cover.  And so it is very hard to get a focus on the issues,” Obama said at the same town hall.

Never fear - Obama plans on utilizing the three presidential debates to drive his message home. “In those settings there will be an unfiltered opportunity for the American people to see what people’s respective plans are,” he said.

UNITY, NH — Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton kissed and made up on stage in a field in rural New Hampshire today, each pledging to put the divisive campaign of the past 16 months behind them to come together in an effort to win back the White House.

Hillary Clinton was greeted with chants of “Thank You Hillary!” With Obama sitting to her right, smiling and clapping along with the chant and with her words, Clinton told the crowd of about 6,000, “New Hampshire has a special place in my heart. And I’m here today to ensure that, come November, New Hampshire will have a special place in Barack Obama’s heart as well.”

“I don’t think it’s at all unknown among this audience that this was a hard fought primary campaign,” she acknowledged — drawing a laugh when she called their sometimes bitter back-and-forth “a spirited dialogue.”

“We have gone toe to toe in this hard fought primary. But today and every day going forward, we stand shoulder to shoulder for the ideals we share.”

“Today we are coming together for the same goal: to elect Barack Obama as the next President of the United States.”

She spoke directly to her supporters so embittered by the primary that they’ve pledged to support John McCain over Obama. “To anyone who voted for me and is now considering not voting or voting for Senator McCain, I strongly urge you to reconsider,” she said. “In the end, Senator McCain and President Bush are like two sides of the same coin, and it doesn’t amount to a whole lot of change.”

“I hope you’ll join me. I hope you’ll stand with me. I hope you’ll work as hard for Senator Obama as many of you did for me,” she continued.

Handing off the microphone after a 25 minute speech, Senator Clinton stood at Obama’s side as the Illinois Senator praised her toughness and passion — saying “she rocks, that’s the point I’m trying to make.” Obama also implied that both she and her husband will be put to work on behalf of the campaign.

“I know how much we’ll need both Bill and Hillary Clinton as a party and as a country in the months and years to come. They have done so much great work,” he said. “We need them. We need them badly. Not just my campaign but the American people, we need their service and their vision and their wisdom.”

(more…)

The Obama campaign just announced the location for Friday’s much-anticipated joint public appearance of erstwhile Democratic primary opponents Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — the sleepy little town of Unity, New Hampshire.

It’s not just the name that’s fitting; the town split down the middle in it’s Democratic presidential preference, casting exactly 107 votes for Obama and 107 for Hillary Clinton on January 8th.

The two candidates are set to hit another location yet to be determined on Friday — one day after holding a closed fundraiser together in Washington. As one Clinton campaign staffer said about the two rivals hitting the campaign trail, it’s “all in the name of unity…. Literally!”

UPDATE: Obama mentioned Clinton in his remarks to women workers in New Mexico today, praising her and saying he looks forward to working with her on issues important to women and to American families. Check out the video below.

done

Money is still pouring into the Obama campaign - despite the candidate’s New Hampshire loss. According to campaign manager David Plouffe, the campaign has raised $500,000 online since midnight. This is in addition to the $8 million the Obama campaign has raised so far this 8-day long year.

The candidate also hit Boston and New York today for a pair of fundraisers - according to Communications Director Robert Gibbs, the campaign had to cut off admission at the high dollar New York event because there were too many interested attendees.

Senator Obama hit February 5th (aka Tsunami Tuesday) state New Jersey today in between his two East Coast fundraisers, where he was greeted by a couple thousand voters inside the gymnasium at Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City. There were long lines of people who were turned away when the gym hit capacity - Obama told the crowd that some 2,000 were not able to get into the door.

The loud crowd treated the second place New Hampshire finisher with a hero’s welcome. Obama made the best of the disappointing loss. “I have to tell you that one of the useful things - and I told this to my staff yesterday - about yesterday was it reminds us that change isn’t easy,” he told the New Jersey crowd. “Change is always met by resistance by the status quo.” A young man in the crowd bellowed out, “Hillary Clinton is the status quo!”

Obama continued, “You know, there are people who are in power who don’t want to give it up. There are folks who are making money on the way things are working right now. It doesn’t make them bad people - it just means they don’t want a change.”

Team Clinton was too giddy to provide much analysis directly after their 2-point victory in New Hampshire tonight. Communications Director Howard Wolfson hugged Director of Press Advance Jamie Smith. Senior Strategist Ann Lewis exchanged an exuberant embrace with an unknown woman who said “we’re on our way to the White House!” Junior staffers cheered and exchanged high fives in the press filing center.

But, when pressed, advisers were at a loss to explain what happened here. Spokesman Jay Carson said he’d heard anecdotal evidence that her crowds were bigger than Obama’s, and that there were more of the voters likely to support her (mostly older women) than to support him at the various polling places — but that he didn’t believe it after many polls put Obama’s margin in double digits.

Wolfson called the win a “tremendous comeback that nobody anticipated, except for her.” He says “she said to me that she was seeing something different in the last 48 hours.”

Those two days included a fiery debate performance in which she went further than ever in arguing that Obama and Edwards have never achieved substantial change, and contrasting Obama’s soaring rhetoric with her record of results (a debate that could have been interpreted as positive or negative but seems to have landed squarely in the first category); a tearful moment at a small roundtable discussion in Portsmouth that gained national attention (Wolfson called it “critically important); and rallies around the state as well as six stops and numerous TV and radio interviews today.

Clinton’s explanation? “I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice,” she told supporters in her victory speech. Indeed, Wolfson says Clinton herself made the decision to make herself more accessible to New Hampshire voters and to the press — leading to marathon 2-hour Q&A sessions at events and two media availabilities (as well as 2 Fox News interviews) in three days.
Watch a 2-minute run-through of the last 24 hours of those race-changing two days below.

done

Carson says Clinton and the campaign will fall back to NY to figure out what to do next to capitalize on this victory. First up: the morning news shows tomorrow; Obama will also be making the morning show rounds. As for Wolfson, he said “we’re going to take stock of this, and enjoy it for at least the next 10 or 15 minutes” — though it barely took 15 minutes after her speech for the first fundraising note to be sent to supporters touting her win. Check it out after the jump. (more…)

Manchester, NH — Before any results could be tallied, Rudy Giuliani took the stage tonight to concede defeat and say goodbye to the Granite State. He is set to fly to Florida tonight.

Addressing a crowd of about 200 at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Manchester, Giuliani told supporters that he expected a lot of “ups and downs,” and is prepared to overcome his early defeats in NH and IA. He spoke to the crowd for about eight minutes and sent everyone home by 8:20pm, just as FOX was calling the election for Sen. John McCain.

“This race is wide open race…there is gonna be a lot of ups and downs to it. And one thing we can handle is ups and downs. We are very good at that. That’s what it means to handle crisis. That’s what it means to handle problems,” Giuliani said, adding “maybe we have lulled our opponents into a false sense of confidence.”

More Giuliani: “We’ve got a lot work to do, we have got a lot of work that lies ahead. This is just the beginning. Think of it as the kick off. This is the kickoff in what is going to be a very long and very tough game but one in which we are gonna come out…and by February 5th it’s gonna be clear that we will be the nominee of the party…our journey has just begun. It’s now gonna take us to Florida where we are gonna take off for in a few minutes so we get an early start.”

Bedford, NH

Governor Romney is set to speak to his supporters and the media in about 15 minutes. But, take a look below at what Romney and his campaign have previously said about winning the early states. Things look very different after losses in both Iowa and New Hampshire:

“Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney Said Yesterday That In Order To Win The White House He Needs To Win Both New Hampshire And Iowa.” (Garry Rayno, “Romney: GOP Needs Both Iowa, NH,” Union Leader, 12/22/07)

Romney: “I Don’t Know Though That There’s Any Other Candidate That’s Planning On Competing In Both Races To A Significant Extent … But You Know To Win The Presidency In November Of ’08, We’ve Got To Win In Both States.” (Erin McPike, “Mitt: ‘Got To Win In Both States,’” MSNBC’s First Read, http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/12/26/534235.aspx, 12/26/07, Accessed 1/6/08)

“Now, Though, [Romney National Political Director Carl] Forti Said Romney Just Needs To Win Either Iowa Or New Hampshire. Which One? ‘I Don’t Think It Matters,’ He Said. ‘A Win’s A Win.’” (Lisa Riley, “‘Iowa First,’” Deseret Morning News, 12/30/07)

In November, Romney Said The Traditional Strategy Focusing On Iowa And New Hampshire Is Proven Way To Win The GOP Nomination. “Republican Mitt Romney argues that his traditional strategy focused on Iowa and New Hampshire is the proven recipe for winning presidential nominations, dismissing rival Rudy Giuliani’s more untested route geared toward later-voting delegate-rich states. ‘Clearly, someone like myself, who’s not a household name across the country, I want to do well in the early states to drive the attention to my campaign and my message,’ the former Massachusetts governor told the Associated Press on Tuesday. ‘I’m just following the same path that every nominee for president has followed in the past.’” (Liz Sidoti, “AP Interview: Romney Argues Traditional Strategy Is Way To Win GOP Nomination,” The Associated Press, 11/14/07)

Romney Spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom: “No One Has Ever Won The Nomination With A Strategy For Defeat In The Early Primary States. That’s Because You Don’t Win By Losing,” (Dave Wedge, “Strategists: Feb 5 Will Be Rudy Tuesday,” Boston Herald, 10/2/07)

Romney’s Campaign Strategy “Staked” Nomination On Wins In Iowa And New Hampshire. “Romney’s campaign strategy staked the GOP nomination - and his political future - almost entirely on winning the two early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire and using that momentum to raise his profile and propel him through the rest of the primary season.” (Jessica Van Sack,
“Romney’s Pulling Out All The Stops,” Boston Herald, 1/3/08)

Romney National Political Director Carl Forti Said Romney Needed To Win Either Iowa Or New Hampshire. “Carl Forti, national political director for the Romney campaign, said the candidate needed to win either Iowa or New Hampshire but not both to stay competitive through Feb. 5, so-called ‘Super-Duper Tuesday,’ when more than 20 states, including Utah, New York and California will vote, possibly settling the nomination.” (Lisa Riley Roche, “Obama And Huckabee Wn Iowa Caucus,” Deseret Morning News, 1/4/08)

***UPDATE***

Romney camp responds:

This quote is in the context of the GENERAL election. In order for a Rep to win the White House he will have to win Iowa and New Hampshire.  The point was that he was the only Republican competitive in both of the early states.

“Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney Said Yesterday That In Order To Win The White House He Needs To Win Both New Hampshire And Iowa.” (Garry Rayno, “Romney: GOP Needs Both Iowa, NH,” Union Leader, 12/22/07)

The media interest in John McCain intensified on Primary Day.

The Senator stopped by a polling place in Nashua, NH, to greet supporters. But camera crews surrounded him the moment he stepped off his Straight Talk Express bus, and most of the voters never even got a glimpse of him.

So many in the crowd expressed frustration, that campaign aides allowed a few supporters onto the bus to take pictures and shake hands with the candidate.
done

McCain visited the very same polling place in 2000, when he won New Hamsphire.

Hoping for good luck, he’s making many of the same stops as he did eight years ago: He’s staying in the same suite at the same hotel. And he held his last rally in Portsmouth, NH, Monday just like he did in 2000.

McCain spoke to reporters about his other lucky charms.
done

As the New Hamsphire campaign came to a close, McCain’s campaign announced the formation of a Truth Squad in South Carolina to counter any negative or misleading ads against the Senator.

In 2000, a smear campaign against McCain targeted his wife and daughter.
done

Eight years ago, rumors surfaced in South Carolina that McCain’s wife was a drug addict and his youngest daughter was illegitimate.