Candidates do holiday march through New Hampshire
AMHERST, N.H. — Ah, the Fourth of July in New Hampshire: parades, picnics, pyrotechnics and — and every four years — presidential candidates.
Republicans and Democrats marched up and down New Hampshire on Saturday's holiday, seeking to build support and goodwill seven months before the Granite State holds the first presidential primaries of the 2016 campaign.
"It's great to be in New Hampshire!" former Florida governor Jeb Bush told a crowd in Amherst, N.H., at its traditional July 4 parade.
Former Texas governor Rick Perry and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, both Republicans, also marched in Amherst.
Other campaigns, Democratic as well as Republican, sponsored marchers in the parade that began at an elementary school staging area and wound its way to a village green filled with families, musicians and games of chance.
As is tradition, the candidates walked at the back of the parade, behind exhibits that included a truck carrying a Pop Warner football team, Shriners in tiny red Corvettes, Civil War re-enactors dressed in Union blue, high school bands, a kayak club, a clown car, at least one small horse-drawn carriage and bagpipers blaring Amazing Grace and other tunes.
Graham noted to supporters that he was at least first in the parade line among the politicians.
"This is a good omen," he said. "It means everybody else should drop out, except me."
At one point on the parade route, Bush — the son of one president and the brother of another — walked up to a man wearing a red T-shirt that said: "Bush Hat Trick."
"I told you it'd work," the man told family and friends as the candidate seeking to be the third Bush president strode up.
"Where'd you get that shirt?" Bush said as photographers and supporters converged.
Bush later marched in another parade in nearby Merrimack.
Throughout the parade in Amherst, the candidates shook hands, held babies, posed for selfies and signed campaign placards. At one point, Bush signed the cast of a woman who had injured her leg playing soccer. The two discussed Sunday's U.S.-Japan Women's World Cup final, each predicting an American victory.
Two other Republican candidates — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — walked in the traditional parade in Wolfeboro, N.H. Both Rubio and Christie spent time this weekend at the nearby home of Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.
Democratic presidential candidates also partook in July Fourth festivities in both New Hampshire and Iowa, where caucuses will be the first nomination contests of 2016.
Former secretary of State Hillary Clinton marched in a parade in Gorham, N.H., after a local visit to a Mountain Fire Pizza.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley spent the holiday in Iowa. Sanders, who is moving up in polls against the heavily favored Clinton, walked in parades in Creston and Waukee.
O'Malley, who has been in Iowa promoting his climate change plan, marched in the July Fourth parade in aptly named Independence, Iowa, before hitting the barbecue circuit in Dubuque and Clinton.
Another Democratic candidate, former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee, spent Saturday at the parades in Amherst and Merrimack, N.H.
Surveying the scene in Amherst, as residents hung bunting or positioned lawn chairs in front of white clapboard houses, Chafee said: "It's Americana, isn't it?"