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Vivek Ramaswamy, the one top-polling presidential candidate to hit the marketing campaign path over Labor Day weekend, is having fun with the eye of his newfound standing.
Throughout 5 occasions in New Hampshire on Saturday, a part of an 11-stop swing within the Granite State, Mr. Ramaswamy drew lots of of attendees, typically exceeding the variety of seats or the area supplied at venues from a state honest in Contoocook to a rustic retailer in Hooksett.
However the crowds and a focus being showered on the 38-year-old political newcomer include one thing of a caveat: A lot of these displaying up at his occasions and driving his rise within the polls see him as a attainable vp or an amazing future president — however not essentially a president but.
“I’ve socks older than him,” stated Pamela Coffey, 69, who got here from Peterborough, N.H., to see the candidate in particular person.
Mr. Ramaswamy, who entered the race in February with little identify recognition and no political expertise, has campaigned at a grueling tempo in early states and adopted an everywhere-all-the-time media technique that in latest weeks has propelled him to 3rd place within the race, simply behind Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
A combative efficiency within the first Republican presidential debate final month, during which he was attacked greater than every other candidate onstage, put a highlight on him that translated into heightened attendance at his marketing campaign occasions. However some voters in New Hampshire stated they nonetheless had reservations about Mr. Ramaswamy’s youth and inexperience.
Mr. Ramaswamy has used his standing as the primary millennial to run as a Republican candidate to lament his era’s being “hungry for a trigger” — primarily to older audiences. Some of the dependable applause traces at his New Hampshire occasions was his controversial proposal to require that prime schoolers move a civics take a look at earlier than they’ll vote.
Mr. Ramaswamy’s “America First” platform and outsider standing are customary after former President Donald J. Trump’s, right down to his predisposition towards falsehoods. Like Mr. Trump, for instance, Mr. Ramaswamy has expressed disdain for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine: He scoffed at “Zelenskyism” and referred to as the president the “pied piper of Hamelin in cargo pants” as cows mooed within the background at an occasion in Dublin, N.H.
Pat Cameron of Goffstown, N.H., stated he noticed Mr. Ramaswamy as a “nice candidate” with “loads of actually good concepts grounded in what this nation actually believes in.” However he added: “I truthfully consider that Trump could be the most effective. Personally, I’d have beloved to see President Trump take him as his working mate for vp.”
And Mr. Trump himself complimented Mr. Ramaswamy final week, spurring questions on whether or not the Republican presidential front-runner would contemplate Mr. Ramaswamy to run as No. 2 on his ticket if he wins the nomination.
On Tuesday, the previous president instructed the conservative commentator Glenn Beck that he thought Mr. Ramaswamy was “a really, very clever particular person.”
“He’s obtained good vitality,” Mr. Trump continued. “He might be some type of one thing.”
However Mr. Ramaswamy, who has stated repeatedly that he’s not working to be second in command, reiterated that stance on Saturday. “I believe President Trump and I share this in widespread: Neither of us would do properly in a No. 2 place,” he stated at a city corridor in Newport, N.H., simply after calling Mr. Trump, as he did within the Republican debate, the “greatest president of the century.”
Regardless of Mr. Ramaswamy’s frequent reward for Mr. Trump — and repeated guarantees to pardon him, if he wins the presidency — he has sought to distinguish himself in delicate methods. Whereas Mr. Trump has continued to invoke the 2020 election and the indictments he faces, Mr. Ramaswamy requires a forward-thinking imaginative and prescient of the US as a “nation in our ascent” with revived patriotism below a drastically altered govt department.
And Mr. Ramaswamy has lately alluded to questions of Mr. Trump’s electability, saying on Saturday that the “America First motion doesn’t belong to at least one man” and that 2024 “can’t be one other 50.1 election.”
“I’m the one candidate on this race who can win in a landslide that reunites this nation, that brings younger individuals alongside,” he stated in Dublin.
Nonetheless, many citizens who got here to listen to him communicate in New Hampshire uttered his identify with that of Mr. Trump, unprompted.
“I like that he’s not like a traditional politician,” stated Reed Beauchesne, 54, of Harmony, N.H. “He jogs my memory of Trump, in a means. I believe he and Trump could be nice collectively, really.”
And for the voters trying to find an alternative choice to Mr. Trump, not being a “regular politician” might be interpreted as a hindrance.
“He’s obtained some factors that resonate with all people, in order that’s fantastic, however my greatest concern is his lack of expertise,” stated David Leak, 63, who added that he most well-liked Mr. DeSantis. “Each politician talks nice on the stump, the speeches are properly rehearsed, however what do they do after they get in?”
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