I should warn you - though I am a liberal, I am a moderate liberal, not your typical Netroots blogger. Although I would never vote for Huckabee (Iraq, Pakistan, gay rights, and the fair tax), I do deeply respect him, and the same can be said for John McCain. These are two men I don't want to be President, but if we absolutely had to have another Republican, I'd want it to be one of them. I won't push that argument here; I just want to give you the heads up on where I'm coming from.

McCain is the only viable Republican to visit Dartmouth, and it was his second trip in two months. Huckabee came once or twice as well, but that was back before Ames and before viability, and I doubt many would consider Paul, Tancredo, or Hunter "viable." Other Republicans have come to the Upper Valley, but stayed away from ultra-liberal Hanover. I do give McCain props for braving that heat. He spoke today at noon - scratch that, 12:40 - to around 350 people (my estimate) in Dartmouth's Hopkins Center Alumni Hall. Given the larger-than-normal Edwards and Richardson crowds, I didn't know what to expect, so showed up around 11. I was the first non-staffer or press member to arrive, which guaranteed me a spot right by the stage. As it was a brief rally, there were no chairs, which turned out to be rather unpleasant given the Senator's tardy arrival. The crowd started showing up in earnest around 11:30, so most folks were waiting for over an hour. The campaign announced the room was so full that many had been turned away, but that just ticked me off. This is the second event McCain has had in that room, and it's the second event his staff has put up partitions blocking off floor space and arranged the press and/or stage in a weird layout. When the College Dems hosted Biden, Dodd, and Edwards events, things weren't nearly so tight. Those partitions were just stupid.

Waiting for the Senator, I had the chance to talk to some of the Republicans in attendance. Though I didn't stroll around interviewing folks, I'm not sure that "the front-left corner of the room" is really a self-selecting crowd. The MSM line is that Obama and McCain are competing for the same independents, and that's exactly what I found. Even the registered Republicans I talked to said they liked Obama, and some had gone to see him in Claremont earlier in the day. I didn't hear a single person bring up Hillary, not even in a negative way.

The campaign passed out tiny buttons, American flags, and signs - more efficient than most. Even with the lateness and another rally scheduled at 2 in Concord, over an hour away, McCain had introductory remarks from his wife and the Governor of Vermont, Jim Douglas (who, by the way, looks like Larry Craig). One thing that impressed me was that McCain actually acknowledged Vermonters and reached out to them two or three times in his speech. Hanover, NH and Norwich, VT have one of the nation's few interstate school districts; the state line is almost imaginary around here, something that goes unheeded by most campaigns. Douglas' remarks really pushed the "Mac is Back" theme, and he cribbed Hillary's line, "ready to lead from day one."

The speech itself was a shorter version of the normal one, focusing on climate change, pork barrel spending, and Islamic terrorism/Iraq. McCain certainly had more energy than he did in November, impressive for a 69-year-old on his third or fourth event of the day. He put an even larger emphasis on climate change than normal, which I suppose is his way of pandering to a college town, though he hadn't done so his previous time through. He had one great line, asking the crowd, if we are wrong and there is no global warming, what happens if we act? We leave our children a cleaner earth, big deal. But what happens if we are right and climate change is real, but we don't act? He doesn't go far enough in his proposed solutions, but he is more serious about it than the average voter. On pork barrel spending,I am very thankful he didn't repeat that awful "tipping point" line about the Bridge to Nowhere, although the Bridge did come up. The speech lasted about 20 minutes, was chock full of good jokes, and was followed with a few minutes of handshaking. (I got the first one, something I've been after for eight years.) One funny note - following a quick peck with his wife, McCain delivered the entire speech with a smear of pink lipstick on his chin.

The Huckabee event was two hours away at an American Legion post in Rochester, a non-college town with about 30,000 people. I'd never been there before; it seemed nice, except for the whole forgetting-where-the-Legion-is-and-getting-lost part. I drove down with a friend who runs the Huckabee campaign on campus (it's a small outfit) and some of the other College Republicans. It was a better trip than you might expect - I mean hey, it's not like they were Ghouliani supporters, right?

I have to be honest with you: I had. So. Much. Fun. The Huckabee campaign really knows how to put on a party! `Twas a chili feed, and while the chili wasn't great, for a crowd that large it was still darn good  - 55 gallons and I'm guessing 600 people. Chuck Norris was there, and I do love me my Chuck facts and my "Walker, Texas Ranger." To top it off, Huck played his bass guitar with local band the Mama Kicks on "Sweet Home" - Chicago and Alabama both. So much fun, and it was hard to tell who was undecided and who was a true Hucker - everyone was getting into it!

It's rather easy for me to blend into these events, what with my goatee, tan Carhartt jacket, Stetson hat, and occasional twang. I didn't have the chance to talk to as many Republicans as I did at the McCain event, but what I did hear was much more in line with what you'd expect from that crowd than it was earlier. The portly chef told me he'd put on similar events for Obama, Romney, and I forget who the third candidate was. I asked him if he was a Huckabee supporters, and he replied, "Absolutely! I like the way he thinks: a gun in every home!" He mentioned that Obama had only a third as many people, and I think I deflated his balloon a bit by pointing out that Huck's crowd was bigger because of the election eve timing, and that Obama was drawing 3,500 elsewhere in the state. He was a nice guy, though, and I hope his balloon gets reinflated - once the election is all over and he's had time to lick his wounds. I heard another man say he put his daughter in Oregon on the phone with Huckabee to try and counter "the big to-do" Hillary Clinton apparently made over talking to someone's sibling in New York.

The opening speakers included Huckabee's Iowa campaign manager, a retired ten-term NH Executive Council member (our EC is like a five-member Lt. Gov), and some other folks. The general theme was similar to McCain's "Mac is Back" focus - look at us, asterisk to second tier to frontrunner! Janet Huckabee came up next, and gave an extended shout out to the Armed Forces. Let's be honest - everyone, Democrats and Republicans alike, agrees that the troops are amazing and that we are in their debt, but it does go over better as a stump line at Republican events. She talked about skydiving, her excitement about becoming First Lady, and her experiences as the First Lady of Arkansas. One line shocked me, and stirred a few other audience members - Mrs. Huckabee mentioned that with more and more women getting elected Governor, she should now say "First Spouse" rather than "First Lady." She started to blame the First Husbands for screwing up the language, and then suggested the real problem was women choosing to run for Governor. It was hard to tell if it was a joke, a swipe at Clinton, or an absurd and hypocritical statement from a woman who once ran for state office in her own right. Then came Norris, who largely refrained from politics and just entertained the crowd, and then the man himself. And yes, the Governor's ovation and applause really were louder than Norris'.

Huckabee's speech wasn't quite as evangelical as Mr. Not-A-Human-Explanation or Gov. White Cross might lead you to expect, although there was some religious imagery, including a plug for servant leadership. That might be because this is the less-evangelical New Hampshire as opposed to Iowa or South Carolina, or it might be because Huck is more Rick Warren than he is Jerry Falwell. I was unable to take notes, but did videotape much of it (in three minute segments - silly little camera). After a folksy lead-in, Huckabee focused mainly on economics and populism. He went on for quite a while about the price of oil and the effect that has on other prices, from eggs to toys. If you removed the policy parts of the speech, you could almost swear you were listening to John Edwards - I'll even go as far as to say that Huckabee actually seems more genuine and heartfelt with his populist rhetoric than Edwards. I truly believe he understands the nature and root of the domestic problems facing us today, and that probably comes from his time as a pastor. The difference between Huck and Obama/Edwards is, while Huck gets the problem, our guys get the solution. There is no way the "fair" tax or massive Reagan-style deregulation is going to help anyone. We need to target corporations, not help them. Remember, Nader wasn't always an annoying obstacle!

I had the chance to meet Huckabee and talk for a quick minute - nothing substantive - as he boarded his bus outside at about 10:00. And so ends another day. I've got to be volunteering at the Obama campus rally in five hours; I'll report back after that, and then vote! `Till then, here are pictures of McCain and the sign wars, as well as Huckabee videos.

The drive to Rochester. Sometimes, you'd never know there's a primary...

...and other times, it's all too obvious.

This college voted 4-1 for Kerry over Bush, so this kind of snow bank is not typical.

Half the fun at these things is the crowd watching, though an hour and forty minutes of it did seem a bit excessive.

The flags they passed out. Also the first photo I think I've ever taken of myself that I'm willing to share.

Their best Al and Tipper Gore impression, I suppose.

Front row - so close I could see his wife's lipstick and his nose hairs. Two faces for the price of one!

Flip flops over Jerry Falwell and tax cuts aside, the man does have a lot going for him. I won't vote for him, but I hope my Republican friends will. Remember - as tough as he might be in the General, a win is never a guarantee no matter who the opponent, so we may as well hope things don't go too much farther downhill if we do in fact blow it again.

The first video below is Huck on bass guitar with the Mama Kicks, with a special message from yours truly towards the end - one in hindsight that maybe is a tad silly and not worth sharing! ;) The second and third are the first chunk of his stump speech. You can watch two more videos of the speech and one of Chuck Norris at my YouTube page.