Talking Politics

Everyone is busy, but no one is feeling it more than the 2008 Presidential candidates. It is coming down to the wire and everyone is cramming their schedules to make sure that they have seen everyone and done everything they have had to do before it is over. They’re already the norm in the early voting states of New Hampshire and Iowa, and it’s only August.

“We think it’s nonstop now?” says Mike Dennehy, Sen. John McCain’s national political director. “Once we hit Labor Day, it’s going to be blazing fast.” And it’s not just McCain sprinting. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s 14-hour campaign days begin at 7 a.m. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani flew to Iowa for a recent debate, landing less than two hours before it began. And Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton flew from New Hampshire to Chicago and back in less than 24 hours, sandwiching an AFL-CIO forum between twin policy addresses here.

Part of the rush is the ever-accelerating primary calendar, which could well begin this December and produce nominees in February. The race also is the first since 1928 without a sitting president or vice president seeking to stay in the White House. Add to that voracious media attention, top candidates who are virtual celebrities and torrid fundraising, and it’s clear the relative sanity of Augusts of yore is a thing of the past.

“Everything is happening earlier this time around. I think the campaign just started earlier,” said Patricia Harris, a minister in Nashua, N.H., who has met all the candidates and endorsed Clinton. Like many key community organizers in early voting states, Harris was hoping to lay low for a while after being deeply involved in the last primary campaign, for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, in her case.

That didn’t last long. “Things are so bad in this country that we need to do something now,” she said. “I get annoyed when people say, ‘Talk to me in a year.’ We can’t wait.”