New Hampshire primary voters get up close and personal with GOP candidates

By David A. Fahrenthold,
WashPost
Thursday, January 5, 6:00 PM

MANCHESTER, N.H. — What do you learn when you try to meet every single Republican presidential candidate in person?

You learn that Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) is awful at small talk. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a ham, breaking into funny voices and goofy faces. And former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is . . . not like that at all. “Like talking to your doctor,” one voter remembered.

And, as it turns out, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr. is surprisingly calm after he’s been bitten by a goat.

The voters who attempt this feat during primary season — trying to meet every serious candidate, preferably more than once — are the earnest heart of this politics-obsessed state. They make New Hampshire what New Hampshire is: a place where the contest to lead a nation of 312 million takes on the intimacy of a junior high student council race.

But, during this chaotic primary system, even some of these people — the Platonic ideal of the American voter, close enough to look each candidate in the eye — are still struggling to make a choice.

(More here.)