Of Seabiscuits and shortbread

ryanteaguebeckwith — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:41:13 -0500

DERRY, N.H.—Tom Grodt, a Londonderry lawyer, took his 7-year-old daughter, Lilly, to see former Sen. John Edwards speak at Gilbert H. Hood middle school in nearby Derry Sunday night, an event that ran well past 8:30.

Thanks to democracy and the New Hampshire primary, Lilly was exempt from bedtime, Mark Johnson reports.

"It'll be tough to get her up for school tomorrow," Grodt said.

The middle school event was also the beginning of a dessert theme. Edwards described himself a couple days ago as the Seabiscuit of the race, referring to the champion racehorse that beat expectations. So Edwards workers passed out shortbread cookies: "Seabiscuits," they cheerfully suggested.

At the next stop at a Nashua restaurant, the campaign had a modest plate of desserts and coffee for the press riff-raff. (The press, by the way, pays for all the food.)

When Dome, bracing for the all night campaign tour, sought some sweetener for the coffee, state Sen. David Gottesman, a Democrat and Edwards supporter scoffed: "This is New Hampshire. We're tough. Break off some brownie and put it in there."

Dome was polite, but "tough"? Okay, yeah, lots of snow, but try a hurricane every three or four years and we'll see how you do.

Oh, and the brownie didn't help much.

Edwards rises early in New Hampshire

ryanteaguebeckwith — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 08:47:13 -0500

MANCHESTER, N.H.—Former Sen. John Edwards was the first out of the gate in New Hampshire this morning, joining a rally in downtown Manchester as early light led a brittle New Hampshire morning from night into dawn.

"Well, good morning!" Edwards hollered to a crowd of some 300 supporters just before 7 a.m. "Boy, there’s energy in this room."

He flashed his grin to cheers in the dim innards of an old mill, the kind of textile factory in which his daddy toiled down South, pumping up the middle class here in the Granite State on the tide of his second-place finish in Iowa, Barb Barrett reports.

His voice was hoarsened and his shouts for change emerged more like squawks, but Edwards gave a version of the stump speech that has carried him this far: corporate greed bad—middle class good—change is tomorrow and tomorrow begins today.

"What we learned last night is that the status quo is yesterday," Edwards told the crowd. "Now we have four days, four days in New Hampshire."

More after the jump.