Wellner, who works as an applications engineer, spoke with Democracy in Action before Sen. Edwards arrived for the meeting with activists from the southern tier communities in the club house at the Victorian Park Family Entertainment Center in Salem.
 

Q: When did you first meet Sen. Edwards and why are you supporting him?

I first met Sen. Edwards last summer when he came through southern New Hampshire and met with activists and met with a small group of people in Derry, and started following his campaign and started volunteering and I've supported him ever since last summer.

Q: Why?

I like how he conveys his message and I also like his message, and I think you have to have both to be successful in this campaign.  There are a lot of candidates in the field, but it's not just the content of the message, it's the delivery and how well it's conveyed to the voters, because especially in southern New Hampshire with as many registered independents as there are, I think the way the message is delivered becomes very important.

It's a positive message.  I mean the first impression I got out of the Senator was that he had a positive vision of the future and of what a Democratic candidate needed to do for the country.  And it seemed to be more positive and less focused on past policy and on some of the partisan battles that happen in any campaign but also in the Senate and also in the House.

Q: You decided pretty early.

Well last summer there were about five candidates that were making regular trips up to New Hampshire.  Sen. Edwards was, Gov. Dean was, Sen. Kerry was, and Rep. Gephardt.  I moved to New Hampshire in August of 2001.  And...I think the first candidate that I saw was Rep. Gephardt and that was that December already.  So he had already been making trips then and the other three had been making trips also.  And Sen. Lieberman, he did a couple appearances.  So there was enough exposure...to be able to make a decision.

Q: When you get somebody like Sen. Graham coming in does that make you reconsider?

No.  I think that the field gets crowded after a while and if anything for Sen. Graham it becomes difficult becuase he now has to distinguish his message in a much more crowded field, when candidates like Sen. Edwards had at least a less crowded field six months or a year ago to start getting their message out to voters.