New Hampshire push

Rubio intensifies New Hampshire push

It's just weeks until the primary and the senator is still introducing himself to voters.

By Eli Stokols

In Hooksett, New Hampshire, Marco Rubio joked that the book he wrote that enabled him to finally pay off his loans is “now available in paperback.”

The well-worn laugh line is exceedingly familiar to the reporters who’ve followed Rubio for months, but the overflow crowd gathered to see him erupted in laughter as if they were hearing the joke for the first time.

Because they were.

While Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich — Rubio’s rivals for mainstream Republican support — have been camped out in the state for months, shaking hands and answering questions in one clapboard town hall after another, Rubio’s campaign in New Hampshire is just now approaching full throttle.

With the first-in-the-nation primary just five weeks away, the Florida senator is still making his first impression on many voters here. The good news for his campaign, which from the start has been a bet on the preternatural political talents of the candidate himself, is that those impressions are positive.

“We all know it’s coming, but the crowd didn’t and they laughed,” said Drew Cline, the former editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader, now a Rubio backer, who was in the room for the candidate’s event in Hooksett. “It was clear that there were a bunch of people in that room who’d never been to a Rubio event, and they loved it.”

Rubio appears to be in good shape in New Hampshire, despite criticism from some lower-polling rivals that he hasn’t campaigned there enough. The Real Clear Politics average puts Rubio in second place in the state with 13.3 percent, behind only Donald Trump, but 2 points ahead of Christie and nearly 6 points in front of Bush.

“He’s in everybody’s top three,” Cline said. “At this point, there’s a certain sense that everyone has a favorable opinion of him. Now he’s got to come in a close the sale and convince people that he should be the top choice.”

But the young Florida senator, who is often attacked for a poor attendance record in the Senate and his lighter footprint in New Hampshire, is fighting the narrative that he hasn’t worked hard enough, concerns about his youth and a slight authenticity problem.

That perception hardened after Rubio spent 20 minutes with the editorial board of the Conway Daily Sun last month; reporter Eric Eisele’s rendering of his programmatic interaction with the journalists in the room, which went viral, suggested that Rubio is so gifted a speaker and disciplined a candidate that he sometimes fails to make a deeper human connection. “It was like watching a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points. He said a lot, but at the same time said nothing,” Eisele wrote. “It was like someone wound him up, pointed him towards the doors and pushed play. If there was a human side to senator, a soul, it didn’t come across.”

With the first primary contests finally visible on the horizon, Rubio is intensifying his campaign schedule, joking with reporters Monday that he’s likely to be in New Hampshire every other day over the next five weeks. He spent four days there in the final week of December and plans to spend four of the first eight days of the New Year in New Hampshire, and to return often over the next several weeks even though the final schedule is not set, according to Rubio’s campaign.

Rubio’s low-key gathering Sunday at the Atkinson Country Club, where he gave a truncated stump speech before cheering the Miami Dolphins to a win over the hometown New England Patriots, was an opportunity for New Hampshire voters to see the candidate’s lighter side. “It was a much more relaxed environment,” said Jodi Nelson, who is supporting Rubio. “He made time to talk to everyone one on one, and I think people found him engaging and relatable. I think they are trying to make sure that people see that side of him.”

“There’s definitely a little more consistent presence now, and a sense of some momentum finally with the campaign,” she continued. “And he has a bus up here now, so that’s exciting.”

Rubio is also taking more questions from voters at his town halls than he did months ago. In his responses, he often deviates from more rehearsed talking points to demonstrate depth on policy points that might allay anxiety about his over-reliance on platitudes. “When people ask a question, he can go into detail at a granular level,” Cline said. “That’s what makes people understand that it’s not just a recitation of talking points and lines. And he improvises, sometimes with more personal anecdotes. Somebody asked him about gun control here, and he used example of a 9-year-old in Miami who got shot and was a teammate of his son.”

And yet, many New Hampshire voters aren’t sold, especially those who prefer the executive experience and longer résumés of Christie and Bush. “He’s got a gift, he’s got that golden tongue because boy can he speak, but I still think he’s too young,” said Renee Plummer, a Christie supporter. “I would be afraid that on Jan. 20, 2017, the doors close in the West Wing and he would say, ‘Oh my God, what do I do?’”

Many seasoned New Hampshire political operatives question whether Rubio’s campaign has done enough organizational spadework to match Christie and Bush. One operative pointed to a series of tweets last week from Jim Merrill, a Rubio backer, of photos showing five volunteers making calls at a table and a sixth showing a volunteer knocking on a door with a three-ring binder in her hands. “It looks like they’re collecting data on paper, as if it’s still 2007,” said the operative, who spoke privately.

The super PAC backing the first-term Florida senator took aim at Christie in its first New Hampshire television attack ad of the cycle, reminding conservatives of the New Jersey governor’s transgressions on Common Core, immigration reform and Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion — a sign that Christie is a real threat to Rubio in the state.

Conservative Solutions PAC is also emphasizing Rubio’s experience on national security and foreign policy as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, but in a roundabout way. Multiple direct mail pieces that the group has sent to New Hampshire voters show images of politicians who are criticized for their approaches to foreign policy — President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, among others — but make no real mention of Rubio. “They’re trying to talk about foreign policy as an issue,” said Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire GOP chairman. “But the only person praised on those mailers is Tom Cotton; it’s a double-bank shot to connect this to why you should support Rubio.”

Rubio himself, however, rarely singles out his Republican rivals by name. But during a speech on foreign policy in Hooksett on Monday morning, there was no doubt that he was referring to Ted Cruz (and the fading Rand Paul) when he slammed “isolationist candidates more passionate about weakening our intelligence capabilities than about destroying our enemies.”

Rubio’s campaign says it thinks the candidate himself, not TV ads or mail pieces from a super PAC, can close the sale. And while he is likely to draw sharper contrasts with his rivals in the debates scheduled in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary next month, the candidate’s focus will remain on his own selling points — his policy depth, inspiring biography and promise of generational change — in his face-to-face interactions with voters.

Supporters are encouraged by his growing crowds in New Hampshire and by recent endorsements from coveted Republicans in the state including Chris Ager, a conservative leader who supported Scott Walker last year, and former state Sen. Jim Rouse, representative of the party’s more moderate establishment wing — backers who can help turn out votes and who illustrate the breadth of Rubio’s appeal across the primary electorate.

“I think he is what I would call a hybrid candidate. He does appeal to the more activist, tea party folks,” said Bruce Fuller, 54, of Newfields, who attended Rubio’s Sunday night town hall in Hampton and plans to vote for him next month. “But looking around the room in Hampton, there were people in their 20s and 30s and a broad range of senior citizens, too, who seemed enthusiastic — people who might tend to turn to a more established figure.”