Presidential Campaigns’ Holiday Giving Roundup from the Granite State

In addition to the ServeNext Presidential Straw Poll to benefit the New Hampshire Food Bank, which rolls on through December 31, 2007, several campaigns have stepped up their own supporters’ giving and volunteer service to local initiatives this holiday season.

Former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN)

From a recent e-mail to supporters:

Fred08 NH is participating in the “The ServeNext Presidential Food Bank Challenge”. This non-partisan statewide food drive will address the immediate critical need that the New Hampshire Food Bank currently faces.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL)

Obama for America sponsored a food drive at the recent the Obama/Oprah rally to benefit New Horizons. In a holiday e-greeting to supporters this afternoon, Mrs. Michelle Obama sent the following message:

This is also the season to remember that we’re all in this together by helping those in need in our own communities and around the world.

You can find a way to help here:

http://www.charitynavigator.org

Thank you for welcoming us into your lives and believing in what we are trying to do.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NYC)

According to a recent e-mail from the Guliani campaign, those attending tomorrow morning’s house party at the home of Mayor Frank Guinta (R-Manchester) are asked to bring not only family and friends, but also food items.

Donations of frozen turkeys and nonperishable food items will be collected for local Manchester families in need this Holiday season.

The request is a part of Guinta’s week-long focus on providing support to the Manchester-based New Horizons for New Hampshire.

U.S. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT)

On top of appealing to supporters to get involved locally, Senator Dodd will spend his final day of campaigning before Christmas volunteering as a way to focus on his National Service plan.

Most campaigns said they considered how close to Christmas they could campaign without alienating voters. Top contenders like Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards as well as Republicans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani chose to take off Christmas Eve as well as December 25 itself.

But Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, a long-shot Democrat who temporarily moved to Iowa to boost his bid, decided Christmas Eve was the right time to wrap up his holiday-themed ’12 Days’ campaign.

“It’s a good event to finish our ’12 Days of Results’ tour (in Iowa) focusing on national service,” spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan said.

Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR)

Team Huckabee has a campaign Christmas tree, under which it is collecting non-perishable food items to benefit local food pantries.

Former U.S. Senator John Edwards (D-NC)

Senator Edwards’ One Corps has been collecting canned goods throughout the entire campaign and continues through the holiday season. This week he airs a special holiday TV ad asking voters to consider that one out of every four homeless people on our streets is a veteran and 37 million people in our country live in poverty.

Obama aims “to make government and public service cool again.”

Guess who wants to make serving their country cool again? That would be U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), who recently sat down with TIME Managing Editor Rick Stengel on a flight from Portsmouth to New York City. Here’s what the Senator had to say about The Case for National Service, TIME’s September 10th cover story…

One of the things I think I can bring to the presidency is to make government and public service cool again. There’s such a hunger among young people for some outlet for their idealism. That’s why you see these movements around Darfur or climate change. You don’t see it expressed in terms of people wanting to serve in the Justice Department or the foreign service. Why should they, when the core missions of those agencies have been gutted?

Clearly, as the Des Moines Register reports this morning, the message is resonating with voters.

Jane Kennedy, 48, of Ames said she expects Obama’s message to inspire young voters to show up on caucus night.

“He’s very inspiring and there’s tons of energy (among students) that’s been untapped,” Kennedy said. “They just have to hear the right message, and he’s got it.”

A pair of ISU students who support Obama said they would be out of the state on caucus day.

Leslie Freehill, an ISU senior from Chenoa, Ill., said she had already made plans to travel during her break from school. Freehill said she’ll face a significant debt load after she graduates, and Obama’s concern for college students partially drew her to his camp.

Emily Eggleston, an ISU junior from Marshalltown, said she won’t be able to caucus for Obama but his resistance to the Iraq war resonates with her.

Eggleston and Freehill expressed interest in performing national service in exchange for having some of their loans paid for by the federal government, a policy Obama advocated during his remarks.

The Senator returns to the Granite State on Sunday – with Oprah Winfrey in tow – for an evening rally in Manchester. His wife Michelle, former Executive Director of Public Allies Chicago, is back for a New Hampshire campaign swing tomorrow.