Exclusive to Victory NH, here's Senator John McCain on what the New Hampshire Primary means to him and our country...

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The NH Primary is Good for Our Country

by John McCain

My wife, Cindy, and I had the good fortune to spend this St. Patrick’s Day taking the Straight Talk Express to town hall meetings in Lebanon and Manchester, where we had a chance to see old friends and meet new ones. We even had a chance to stop by the Capitol Convenience Store in Concord to do some beer tasting.

“Is it like old times,” the media riding the bus kept asking, “the good old days of 2000 come back to life?”

The answer was a little more complicated than just yes or no. Sure, the candidate and the setting were familiar, but the backdrop was certainly different, what with a host of other states moving their primary dates up to the first Tuesday of next February.

At the time, pundits were pronouncing that the shift in states would alter the dynamics of the way voters pick their party’s nominee for the highest office in the land – that the traditional emphasis on the early states no longer applied.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Little can rival the influence New Hampshire has on the primary process. After all, it’s one of few places in America where retail politics is still king: slogans and sound bites don’t work here; neither do drop-ins and fly-bys.

I say that from experience. When I first set out to run for president in 1999, I didn’t have the money or the statewide organization that other candidates had. What I did have was plenty to say and a bus to drive around in, so we went about putting together a rigorous schedule of town hall meetings in communities all over the state.

We were proud to say that we didn’t screen audiences and we didn’t plant questions. Of course, considering we started out with just 20-30 people at a time, we were willing to take any and all comers.

By the time we did our last town hall in Peterborough, the crowds numbered in the hundreds and we had people dressing in costumes in order to increase the likelihood that they might have their question answered. I’m proud to say that we still took every question we could, no matter the topic.

If the people of New Hampshire hadn’t done their part to test me eight years ago, I’m not sure I would have been in a position to consider doing it all again.

Here’s some straight talk, though: I don’t expect a free pass this time around just because I’ve been through this all before, especially now that New Hampshire’s famously well-informed voters have had their primacy challenged.

As long as I am a candidate for President, I will not take a single vote for granted in New Hampshire, not when so much is at stake for America, not when we have hard things to do and tough decisions to make.

Finally, I’ll do everything in my power to preserve the Granite State’s first in the nation status. Not just because it’s tradition, but because it’s good for the country.