Campaign Soldiers on the 'Front Lines'

N.H. Hostage Standoff at Clinton Field Office Highlights Role of Young Organizers

ROCHESTER, N.H., Dec. 1 -- They are the foot soldiers of the presidential race, the young field workers who toil long hours for little pay to man the storefront outposts in small cities and towns like this one, far from the state headquarters where the campaign colonels sit. They are anonymous, often forbidden to speak with reporters, lest they say anything out of step with the campaign message.

And as a five-hour hostage standoff in Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's office here Friday underscored, they, unlike those higher up the campaign ladders, play a role as integral as it is potentially chancy: They exist to talk to any potential voter who walks through the door. Most of the time that means answering questions from curious citizens. Every so often, it means having to humor one of those types known euphemistically to his or her neighbors as a local character.

"You are the front lines," said Mike Hamilton, 27, an organizer in Mitt Romney's Portsmouth office. "You get folks who are a little off kilter every once in a while, and you just try to deal with it."

On Friday, three Clinton field staff members and one volunteer dealt with it under trying circumstances.

With the help of a hostage negotiator, they talked their way to a peaceful resolution after being held hostage by Leeland Eisenberg, 46, a resident of a mobile home park in nearby Somersworth with a court record and a reputation for natty dress and erratic behavior. He demanded to speak with Clinton and threatened to detonate a bomb he said was strapped to his body. After gradually letting the captives go, he surrendered to police, who found that the duct tape around his body held road flares.

It made for a highly unusual interlude in the customary narrative of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

For New Hampshire, the primary is an opportunity to showcase itself at its best: snowy vistas, candidates visiting quaint Main Streets, citizens doing their civic duty by crowding into high school gyms to scrutinize the candidates. On Friday, the national media pack here to cover the primary focused on a less picturesque moment: the ghostly image of a handsome mill town lit for the holidays but with not a soul walking the streets except for SWAT-team members huddling in doorways near the Clinton office.

Residents noted dryly Saturday that Eisenberg's outburst would have gone largely unnoticed by the national media had he made his threats inside a local law office or bank instead of a storefront with "Hillary" signs on the window. "It had a kind of a weird effect. It was all these things coalescing at once," said Caroline McCarley, a former state senator who represented Rochester and who said she is supporting John Edwards in the primary.

Main Street had returned mostly to normal Saturday, except for Clinton's office, which sat empty as staff members and volunteers took the day off to recover. There was no sign of disturbance in the narrow room, with a half-dozen desks and computers and a sparsely decorated Christmas tree. The office, one of 12 in the state for Clinton, was opened last month. An "office wish list" on the wall hinted at their Spartan existence: they hoped for a subscription to the local newspaper, a ward map of Rochester, envelopes, flashlights, "bathroom necessities," a shredder, "coffee, food, soda and water," and cable TV.

At the tattoo parlor just down the street, past the vacuum cleaner store and cellphone outlet, Nick Duboys was wondering whether he was going to get back the customer who came into the shop just after the standoff started, seeking a tattoo -- a "little tribal piece." Duboys, 22, was about to proceed with the $150 tattoo when the police evacuated the shop. "He walked right through all the bomb-squad stuff and said, 'Got any appointments now?' " said Duboys. "I was like, 'Dude, there's a bomb threat right out front.' "

Parlor owner Ellen Park said she expects Clinton to enjoy a brief burst of sympathy with voters, but warned that Clinton has to be careful not to be seen as exploiting the incident. Clinton flew into Portsmouth on Friday night to address the situation but was off to Iowa Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, aside from the empty Clinton office, the campaigns appeared back to normal. Field staffers in offices around the state said their work consists mostly of training local volunteers in phone banks and canvassing, staying in touch with local political figures, and distributing lawn signs. Where they once socialized some with counterparts from rival campaigns, "it's a little less so now that we're getting close to the election," said Courtney Hight, 28, an Arizona native working as an organizer in Sen. Barack Obama's Dover office, just south of Rochester.

And while Friday's events reminded them of the need to be on their toes, they said they will not be any less welcoming to whomever comes through their door.

"We're running a grass-roots campaign, and the only way to do that is to be open and accessible," said Emily Arsenault, 29, a Minnesota native running Edwards's Portsmouth office. "We're going to keep doing what we're doing. I refuse to close my door."