Ovide Lamontagne & Chris Christie in Atkinson NH

I scooted up to Atkin­son NH to cover Ovide Lam­on­tage & Chris Christie doing an event together in the small town of Atkin­son NH at the Fresh­wa­ter Far

I arrived an hour and scoped out the area

Sign wavers were already in evidence:

I spoke to sev­eral peo­ple here before the event couples

Indi­vid­u­als

and Young Republicans

I also talked to don who runs a the Val­ley Patriot:

the area were they were assem­bled was aside of the store:

and the view from the “stage”

I sat myself on the ground in front of the makeshift stage and waited,

before I did I counted just over 200 peo­ple but they con­tin­ued to come

When things were ready it started with a local state senator:

Fol­lowed by Steve Mer­rill the for­mer governor

Ovide Lam­on­tagne spoke and the crowd was very recep­tive. It was a smart move, although as the can­di­date he under­stood he wasn’t the pri­mary attraction

I remem­ber the Bill Clin­ton event I cov­ered dur­ing the first Brown race Martha Coak­ley fool­ishly came after Clin­ton and like that day Chris Christie gave one of the most mem­o­rable speeches I’ve heard

I thought Gov Christie’s speech was the sin­gle best speech I’ve heard in the entire elec­tion sea­son to this point

When all was done I asked Mr. Lam­on­tagne about the event, he was under­stand­ably happy

While Chris Christie answered my ques­tion in a way that fit in per­fectly with his “ride right through them” persona.

While I have some issues with Christie, one can’t help but like his direct ways. If peo­ple think he will not be a con­tender in the future they have another think coming

The entire gallery follows: