It’s no secret that we rarely ever see presidential candidates in Illinois because they’re spending all their time in states like New Hampshire and Iowa. New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) has decided to help out those of us in “flyover country.” They’ve started a website called Primary Place Online where you can vicariously see, hear, and ask questions of the candidates through the residents of Exeter, New Hampshire.
In New Hampshire, voters get to see the candidates face-to-face. The Write-Ups posted here are the words of real people from the Town of Exeter, doing their best to tell you what made an impression on them. We hope you find it useful. You will also see Field Notes. These can come from anyone in New Hampshire — including you if you live here. Everyone can comment on any post and post a question that they think should be put to a candidate.
Jonathan Ahl blogged about this last month, and he sees a lot of benefit in it. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s seemingly a pretty cool way to leverage the power of the Internet to gain access to the candidates. But on the other hand, I’m not sure what more it gives me that I can’t get from C-SPAN and the two billion news and blog reports out on the internet.
I’m also not seeing evidence that submitted questions are being asked of the candidates. Of the questions listed here, not a single answer has been posted. Not that I blame them. If I lived in Exeter, it’s not likely that I would ask a question submitted by some stranger in Peoria, Illinois, when I’m probably going to get only one shot at asking a question at all. (It’s not like each voter has unlimited face time with the candidates, even in New Hampshire.)
The write-ups that Exeter residents give are interesting to read. They give impressions of the candidates that one can only get from a face-to-face encounter. But even though it’s interesting, it doesn’t really make any difference in helping me choose a candidate to support.
Have any of you visited the site? What was your impression?
Your points about the limits and benefits of Primary Place Online are well taken. Some of the best posts really capture how people are wrestling with the choice they face. On the other hand, many voters are still ramping up to full engagement with the candidates and voters on the site are still figuring out how to express themselves. I find most of them more willing to be interviewed by me for my radio reports on Weekend Edition Sunday than to put their thoughts on the web.
But it’s interesting that you pointed out the Questions section because we just changed that today. Now, you can use that feature to plumb the thoughts of these NH residents. As we’ve built this project, we’ve assembled a pretty good focus group and rather than pose questions to candidates, you might find it more interesting to pose questions to the people who will be voting on the candidates.
When you post a question there, I will relay it to the entire list — subject of course to some very basic moderating parameters. If you want certain types of voters to respond, you can indicate that in your question.
How does that sound?
Jon Greenberg
Executive Editor, NHPR