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Christie, others turn to McCain’s town hall playbook in 2016

FILE - In this Jan. 30, 2000, file photo, then-Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his wife Cindy, smile as confetti falls on them at the end of their 114th New Hampshire town hall meeting with voters at the Peterborough Town House in Peterborough, N.H. Peterborough was the sight of McCain's first town hall meeting in April 1999. It was the summer of 1999, and McCain didn’t have many big names on the side of his campaign for president. He didn’t have much money or decent crowds, and even resorted at one point to giving away ice cream to lure voters to an event. Enter the town hall. McCain will be back in New Hampshire on Aug. 1 campaigning for friend and fellow Sen. Lindsey Graham at a town hall. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, File)
FILE - In this Jan. 30, 2000, file photo, then-Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his wife Cindy, smile as confetti falls on them at the end of their 114th New Hampshire town hall meeting with voters at the Peterborough Town House in Peterborough, N.H. Peterborough was the sight of McCain's first town hall meeting in April 1999. It was the summer of 1999, and McCain didn’t have many big names on the side of his campaign for president. He didn’t have much money or decent crowds, and even resorted at one point to giving away ice cream to lure voters to an event. Enter the town hall. McCain will be back in New Hampshire on Aug. 1 campaigning for friend and fellow Sen. Lindsey Graham at a town hall. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, File)

By Associated Press 5 min read

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – In the summer of 1999, John McCain didn’t have many big names backing his campaign for president. He didn’t have much money, either, and even resorted at one point to giving away ice cream to drum up a decent-size crowd.

Enter the town hall.

Driven to “desperation,” McCain decided to meet as many people as possible at as many of the Q&A events as he could. It took months for the strategy to pay dividends, but when it did, McCain was packing ’em in.

“It was just jammed,” McCain said of one town hall, held at a fire house at 8 a.m. “That people would get up real early in the morning to go to a town hall with me – that was the first real indication that we had some momentum.”

That momentum turned into a victory of 19 percentage points over George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary. He lost the 2000 nomination to Bush but later rode the same strategy to a victory in the state’s 2008 primary – his first on the way to becoming the GOP nominee that year.