• Primary colors

  Catt Center sends two students to New Hampshire for Democratic primary

• You can't turn the corner on a downtown street without running into a member of the media, a presidential candidate or a campaign staffer.
  
  That was Iowa in January leading up to the caucuses.
  
  But as Iowa State students Jessica Carlson and Hannah Schoenthal-Muse found out, the same could be said of New Hampshire just a week later.
  
  The two students associated with the Catt Center for Women and Politics traveled to New Hampshire for a conference and three days of up close and personal looks at the New Hampshire primary. The two, who were active in the Catt Center's caucus preparations a week before, attended rallies by the Democratic nominees and interviewed New Hampshire voters.
  
  "It was really fun to talk to people outside the rallies," said Carlson, a senior public relations major from Omaha, Neb. "There were all kinds of different viewpoints."
  
  Once Carlson and Schoenthal-Muse identified themselves as being from Iowa State, the reactions were mixed.
  
  The Emerson College students from Boston, who had attended the Iowa Caucuses the week before at the invitation of the Catt Center and escorted Carlson and Schoenthal-Muse in New Hampshire, were at one end of the spectrum.
  
  "They really, really liked Iowa," Carlson said. "They talked about the caucuses to everyone.
  
  "They said that hands down the caucuses were the coolest thing they saw in politics. They had never seen people so involved in politics."
  
  The other end of the spectrum was the campaign worker for Howard Dean who became defensive when Carlson and Schoenthal-Muse walked into the former Vermont governor's Manchester (N.H.) headquarters. She wanted to know why two Iowans were in New Hampshire.
  
  Other New Hampshire residents questioned the value of Iowa's first in the nation status.
  
  "It was so interesting to hear people's perspective of Iowa," Carlson said. "Many thought we are only concerned about jobs, the economy and health care and that national security wasn't a main interest of ours."
  
  The pair even had an opportunity to talk to reporters from ABC News and the Washington Post on election night in a Manchester restaurant as they watched the returns.
  
  "We talked to them about the difference in the campaigns the candidates ran in Iowa and New Hampshire," Carlson said.
  
  During their stay in New Hampshire, the two appeared on an Emerson College radio show and attended rallies by Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Joe Lieberman, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Dean.
  
  They also were in the audience when Dean spoke at his election night headquarters and made it to Kerry's headquarters as he was finishing up his media interviews.
  
  Carlson even got to ask Lieberman a question at an earlier campaign rally.
  
  For Carlson one of the most exciting things about the trip was an Edwards rally at a local high school. She said that while she had heard the stump speech in Iowa, it was the fact that Edwards appeared at the high school during school hours on election day.
  
  "Here he was spending some of the last hours he had to campaign talking to a group of students, most of whom couldn't even vote," she said. "It was neat to see young people get excited about the process."
  
  And despite a whirlwind tour, Carlson says she would do it again in a heartbeat.
  
  "It was just awesome to see a whole different set of values and ideals in New Hampshire," she said. "It was interesting to hear them discuss what they thought of us (Iowa), the caucuses and the caucuses' influence on New Hampshire.
  
  "That was neat to see what kind of effect the caucuses had on New Hampshire a week later."

Jessica Carlson and Hanna Schoenthal-Muse with Democratic activist in New Hampshire

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February 9-22, 2004