We’re back in New England. For me it’s a great place to pick a president. It’s cold this time of year, really cold up here in New Hampshire. It’s a place where you have to be practical to live. If you don’t prepare for winter, you don’t survive long. If you don’t have money coming in the door you don’t keep the cold out. Shelter has meaning up here.
And that’s a good character to look for in voters. Do they have their feet on the ground, do they have a firm grip on what it takes to make a living, a good enough one to look out for your family when December turns to January and the long grey winter checks in, when heating oil makes the difference between warmth and survival and freezing to death.
Again, it’s concentrates the mind. It makes for a common sense voting habit. It makes for picking a presidential candidate who’ll be good for your own economic well-being, not just the comfort but the economic survival of your family.
New Englanders have something else that concentrates their minds. History! You can’t call yourself a New Englander and not know about Bunker Hill and Lexington and Concord and Paul Revere and one if by land and two if by sea. You can’t live here and not know about the sons of liberty and the battle for freedom that started this country.
So look to New Hampshire voters to make a sound decision. By Next Tuesday, they’ll will have met Romney more than once, they’ll have a grip on Santorum and the Irish, Italians, French Canadians and Yankees of this part of the country will do their duty. What they’ll do will make sense – to them – and will seem like good sense to the rest of the country. It very often does. It’s why New Hampshire has won this job of holding the first primary. it’s done it the old fashioned way: its” earnnnned ” it. This is where Ike won, where Jack Kennedy one, where Ronald Reagan won. It’s where Eugene McCarthy upset Lyndon Johnson and warned the country about Vietnam. It’s where good things happen. I’m really happy to be here and hope you share the experience between now and next Tuesday night. I really think things are going to happen up here. Santorum and Gingrich and Romney and going to go at it. What comes out of it is going to be something far bigger than what arrived here today. Just watch!
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