151: Primary
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From W.B. E.C. Chicago and Public Radio International, it's "This American Life." Good morning, everyone. I feel like a school teacher. Good morning, teacher. It's very overwhelming to see such a great turnout this morning. I'm just so excited because I know it was very hard to get out of bed on this very, very cold New England morning. I've just been given the overwhelming task of introducing this amazing man. And I am like totally speechous right now. I am just extremely excited. It started all over again. The moment I looked in your eye. All of our stories today brought to you from New Hampshire, where it has started again. The voters looking to fall for a candidate, candidates, pointing the voters. I'm very happy to be here this morning. This is the 70-something town hall meeting I've had in the state of New Hampshire. I had a guy come the other day just before Christmas. He said, "Senator McCain, this is the fifth town hall meeting you've had that I've attended." And I said, "That's ample testimony to my inability to close the deal." I'm like, "We've started all over again. The moment I held you so tight." I want to talk about just a couple of issues of the day with you because the thing I know about the people in New Hampshire, they're not particularly interested in long speeches. In fact, they're not even interested in short speeches. They're interested in making comments, asking questions, and an occasional insult. It started all over again. The moment I looked at you. Today in our program, people looking for something to believe in, and many of them finding it, and what they know about the candidates that you don't know, take, for example, Kahari Mosley and Garcia Suzanco. Three days into the beginning of the new millennium, they left home to do something they had never done before. They hopped on a bus in Pennsylvania and headed up to New Hampshire to volunteer for a presidential campaign. Kahari had never been to New England before. He looked at the bus window. He says, "I saw trees all close together, boxy houses, 100 years old." "I was blown away, you know what I mean?" Because I was tapping him on the bus. You know what I mean? I was about 10 minutes from Manchester, so I'm tapping him on the bus like, "Yo, man." I started getting scared because I mean, it's like country in Pennsylvania, but it's a different type of country. You know what I mean? It's more kind of like NASCAR WWF-type country. I mean, this is like American Gothic, like scary movie country, you know what I mean? In rural New Hampshire, wherever Kahari and Garcia went, they could pretty much count on being the only African-Americans for miles. Knocking on doors for their candidate, they found a surprising number of people who wanted to tell them how great Colin Powell is.
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