CONCORD, N.H. (Jan. 7) – In the election excitement, groups with a special cause try to be heard.
“We are not trying to support any particular candidate,” Emily Adler said. She represented Appalachian Voice at Republican Sen. John McCain’s rally in Concord Monday. “We are trying to spread the word,” she said, “about mountaintop removal.”.
Adler and Appalachian Voice are among the scores of groups in New Hampshire with a specific social or environmental message during the week of the presidential primaries. They go to rallies and events of various candidates in New Hampshire to try to gain visibility and generate awareness about their own issues.
Appalachian Voice is an environmental organisation based in North Carolina. Its goal is to remind the public that 470 mountains have been destroyed for coal in the U.S., and 700 more are soon to face the same fate. Volunteers for the group are trying to put the issue on the public’s radar by distributing postcards and questioning candidates on harm to the environment by chopping off mountain tops.
“It’s a huge health care issue. It’s a huge environmental issue,” said Marqy Bohnure, another representative from Appalachian Voice.
For Mary Lee Sargent, the issue is war and peace. She is a member of New Hampshire Peace Action. She has three items on her agenda: “Troops out of Iraq. No war with Iran. And complete abolition of nuclear weapons.”
Sargent, 67, calls the Republicans “hawkish” and heedless to her organization’s anti-war stand. “I could never support any Republican,” she said. But she acknowledged that Republican Ron Paul, a member of Congress from Texas, has “a strong anti-war message.”
Jim McDonald, a volunteer for Numbers USA, was at the rally to draw public’s attention toward Sen. McCain’s stand on the issue of illegal immigrants. McCain has been criticized by candidates and groups urging tighter immigration policies against those who come to the U.S. illegally. McCain has proposed ways for some of those illegal immigrants to earn citizenship. His critics call that “amnesty,” a charge that McCain disputes.
For McDonald, the primary is an opportunity to make the group’s criticism more widely known. “We are trying to make sure,” McDonald said, “that the public is aware that John McCain has a strong record, which we think is bad, on allowing ill-legal aliens to essentially get the amnesty.”
(Trina Joshi, a magazine-newspaper-online journalism graduate student, is covering the New Hampshire primaries for The Indian Express of New Delhi, India.)
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