New Hampshire Teams Prepare For First In The Nation Primary
BEDFORD, N.H. (CBS) - Marcia Kostoulakos and her husband have been hardcore Rick Santorum supporters since they met him last spring.
To have him do so well in Iowa, to have other Republicans finally see what they see, feels pretty good.
"We've been waiting for this moment," Kostoulakos says, as she and her husband assemble yard signs at Santorum's Bedford, N.H. headquarters.
WBZ-TV's Jim Armstrong reports
"I have been pushing him [on] family, relatives, friends, even Christmas day I passed out literature on Rick."
All around this modest office crammed with almost as many reporters as volunteers, there is a frenzy of activity.
"Our job in the next week when he gets here tomorrow," explains Santorum New Hampshire co-chair and Senior Advisor William Cahill, "is to translate that momentum" into a Granite State victory next Tuesday.
It was a much more subdued atmosphere at Newt Gingrich's offices in Manchester, where a staffer asked WBZ not to take pictures inside, saying they were too busy.
"For the most part we're trying to do the same thing we've been doing for every single day of this campaign, which is putting our head down, working hard and talking to voters about the difference between a Massachusetts moderate and a Reagan conservative," said Gingrich's New Hampshire state director Andrew Hemingway.
The former Speaker of the House's New Hampshire team was dismissive of the results in Iowa, even before they came down, saying other state polls have them running a two man race against former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
Just a few blocks down Elm Street in Manchester, Romney headquarters was buzzing with dozens of volunteers working the phones.
In this building, the New Hampshire primary feels like just another stop on the way to a different two-man race.
According to Romney spokesman Ryan Williams, the former Governor's, "Organization in this state [is] second to none. We're focused on meeting people and talking about why Governor Romney is the strongest candidate to defeat the president."
