Archives » Tuesday, June 05, 2007
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Holly Bailey
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Jun 5, 2007 03:35 PM
It's no secret that folks in New Hampshire love presidential politics.
Well, maybe not everybody. In town to cover Tuesday's GOP debate, your
Gaggler was mingling with the locals at a downtown Manchester pub
("enterprise reporting," we call it) and met a man who manages a
commercial building in the area. The man, who declined to be named for
reasons that will become obvious, said the dirty little secret in New
Hampshire is that commercial property owners hate renting space to
political campaigns, mainly because they have a bad reputation for
being rowdy and obnoxious tenants.
How
so? Without naming names--and believe me, we tried--the man shared war
stories about political types who leased space in his building during
the 2004 primary season. Suffice to say, most of the stories had all
the elements of a really good Motley Crüe afterparty: cops, lots of
beer and drunk people. There was one about a campaign that was so noisy
that people in adjacent buildings complained. "We'd get calls at 10 or
11 at night, and you'd have to go down there to tell them to knock it
off," the man griped. "But you'd get there and find out that no one was
in charge. The person you needed to talk to- they were never there."
But
noise was nothing. One campaign, he says, threw a massive party before
vacating their space, which spilled out into the hallways during the
afternoon workday. During that fiesta, campaign workers, again no
names, started a food fight in which a platter of lasagna was
inexplicably thrown against the wall and left there. At least that's
what he thinks happened. He came across the bloody scene after the
campaign had moved out-the stain of tomatoes and grease still fresh.
Nearly four years later, he's still mad about it. "Lasagna!" the man
said, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "Lasagna on the wall!
These are some nasty people."
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