Land of the Giants

This is known in the trade as "campaigning at 35,000 feet."

The small, retail stuff is still going on. John Edwards is relying on a shoe leather strategy in Iowa, where he finished second in 2004; he doesn't have a job other than presidential candidate. The top-tier candidates can't afford a face-plant in Iowa or New Hampshire (or perhaps even in the intervening Nevada caucuses). They know that retail is traditional, that it looks good, that it's the way candidates are supposed to behave.

But even your basic "town hall" is scaled up and magnified this year. Andy Smith, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, says: "I'm already seeing these big events; they shield the candidates from voters and from the media. They're not getting hit with the hard questions. They're not hearing people explain their day-to-day problems. They're living in that cocoon, that bubble."

He goes on: "The kind of winnowing that New Hampshire used to do is now taking place in fundraising. I think we're ending up with a situation where we're back to the smoke-filled rooms -- only they're not filled with smoke in the back of convention hotels; they're in New York and Los Angeles and Washington, where the checks are written . . ."

One wild card: If New Hampshire begins to feel too crowded by the February 5 primaries, or by Florida's recent acquisition of January 29 for its contest, it could very well move its primary. The national parties show New Hampshire voting on January 22, but Gardner, the secretary of state, has the legal authority to change the primary's date pretty much with the snap of his fingers. He could move it to December or, perhaps, sometime near Thanksgiving. (If another state tried to upstage New Hampshire with an earlier primary, New Hampshire could just reschedule its own vote to remain first in the nation. New Hampshire and Iowa cut a deal in the 1970s letting Iowa go first, but Iowa holds caucuses, where people must stand up and be counted, rather than cast private ballots, as in a primary.)

Even if the current system favors the rich and famous, front-runners are often front-runners for a reason. Rudy Giuliani, for example, is an unconventional Republican who became an instant American hero on September 11, 2001. And Obama is hardly the most Establishment figure in the presidential field. He emerged fair and square, with his well-received speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, a best-selling book and grass-roots support around the country. His Web site gets lots of hits and contributions from ordinary folks. The Internet may now play the role that Iowa and New Hampshire used to play (the "Net roots" launched Howard Dean to the front of the pack four years ago). Obama didn't need Iowa and New Hampshire to go from obscure senator to superstar presidential candidate. Where's the problem?

Retail politics surely has its own distorting effects on the campaign. It probably benefits glad-handers, schmoozers, yackety-yackers, the verbally seductive. It might not necessarily favor people who are going to be good presidents. It's hard to picture George Washington doing retail. He'd be more likely to stare at the crowd from inside his carriage and think, Get me away from this rabble. Another huge question: Why should Iowa and New Hampshire have such an outsize influence on the nominating process? The states are lily-white. They're rural. You can't scrape up a single major metropolis between the two of them.

People have tried to come up with better systems for decades, including regional primaries, or a more orderly progression from small states to large states. Changes keep getting tabled. One reason is simple doggedness on the part of the New Hampshirites. The primary has become as essential to the state's self-image as the White Mountains and maple syrup. To their great credit, New Hampshire citizens take their role seriously. They ooze civic duty. This is a state with -- this is not a typo -- 400 people in its House of Representatives. The people here grill candidates as though it were a paying job. In return, the candidates vow to Keep New Hampshire First.

Someone asked McCain what would happen if retail politics disappeared.

"It would be a terrible loss," he answered. "If it's not this kind of retail politics, it all has to do with money and advertising."

You have to picture him as he is saying this: He's standing next to a snowplow. McCain's campaign hired a snowplow so his bus could make it to the first town hall of the 2008 campaign, in Milford, a modest event with maybe 200 people on hand. Very retail. Lots of questions. When the retail phase is over, no one is likely to need a snowplow. There are no snowdrifts at 35,000 feet.

"WHY ARE WE PAYING SO MUCH ATTENTION?"