Portsmouth, NH Herald: “McCain stumps in Granite State”; NH director Mike Dennehy quoted at length
Michael McCord of the Portsmouth (NH) Herald also provided this concise summary of Senator McCain’s new, New-Hampshire-focused campaign. He also interviews McCain national political director Mike Dennehy (based in NH) at length. Here are excerpts from the text:
PORTSMOUTH — Though he didn’t plan it this way, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain has returned to his primary roots…
McCain, the upset winner of the 2000 New Hampshire Republican primary, is flying commercial to campaign stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and he travels with the smallest cadre of aides.
But McCain, who began a three-day blitz of the state Thursday night with a town hall meeting in Merrimack, and who will be in Portsmouth and Rochester today, is enjoying the leaner campaign that requires him, literally, to carry his own bags — and deal with plenty of national media speculation that his candidacy is on the decline.
“There’s no question he’s happier,” said Mike Dennehy, McCain’s New Hampshire-based national political director. “We’re running more efficiently and getting him out in front of voters, which he’s good at and enjoys the most.”
Since McCain’s well-publicized major shakeup of his campaign staff last month, Dennehy told the Herald that the candidate is running the type of small-event and direct-voter-contact campaign that fueled his 2000 New Hampshire primary triumph over then-Texas Gov. and GOP front-runner George W. Bush. Rather than run a costly national campaign, Dennehy said, McCain is focusing on the early contest states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina…
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