Ohio Governor John Kasich, a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, meets voter Elizabeth Ross at his town hall campaign event in Salem, New Hampshire on December 3, 2015. (AFP)
Elizabeth Ross drove 25 miles (40 kilometers) to attend a recent campaign event in Salem, New Hampshire, part of a political quest she hopes will align her with the Republican candidate best equipped to defeat Hillary Clinton.
Ohio Governor John Kasich is looking to be her man. When the two spoke at his town hall here and Ross revealed that her father was celebrating a birthday, Kasich pointed to her cell phone.
"Let's call him right now," grinned Kasich, who proceeded to leave the man an uplifting message in front of a bemused Ross.
The 2016 US presidential race is rolling out at speed in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, where residents, Ross said, are spoiled for choice as White House hopefuls attend endless town halls, rallies, barbeques, house parties, church socials, women's forums and American Legion luncheons.
Iowa votes first by eight days, but perhaps nowhere in America is hand-to-hand politics the lifeblood of the presidential primary race as it is in New Hamshire, known as the Granite State.
The 14 Republicans and three Democrats still in the White House hunt have attended more than 1,200 events this election cycle in the small northeastern state alone, according to the New England Cable Network's candidate tracker.
Some voters attend a dozen events or more before settling on their candidate.
Ross, 52, likened it to speed-dating.
"I'm going to these campaign events this year, knowing I'm voting against Hillary, and hoping it's not (Donald) Trump, and looking to fall in love," Ross told AFP as she waited for Kasich to begin his town hall in a Salem elementary school.
Ross, who is from a town called Kingston, has her particular political interests and turnoffs, as do many here.
Trump, she said, should stick to his business empire.
"At first he was really funny and refreshing, like a sorbet between courses. But he's lasted so long," she said anxiously, "and it's scaring me that he's as popular as he is."
Ross has been spooked by a mini-scandal over candidate Senator Marco Rubio's personal finances, she said. But he is qualified and a sharp, compelling speaker, and she acknowledged she would give him a chance.
Senator Ted Cruz is among the most intelligent candidates, "but he's got that religious crazy thing going on," she quipped.
"You don't want someone who's going to offend people."
The retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who like Trump is a political neophyte, was not impressing her much either.
Steve Boutin, one of about five dozen voters at the Kasich event, said he liked Carson, "but over the last few weeks his foreign policy stuff is falling apart. That's a key thing right now."
When former Florida governor Jeb Bush was mentioned, voters including Ross winced at the name from yesterday.
She wants "efficiency and pragmatism" in a candidate, she said, someone who can smartly reach across the aisle to get the job done in Washington.
She acknowledged Kasich -- who took some basketball shots in the gym after his town hall -- has "integrity" and the experience. But there was hesitation in her voice.
Ross said she is a political independent who has shifted to the right on the spectrum over the years.
"We were all born Democrats, weren't we?" she posed. "Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, wanting everything to work, wanting to have everyone have everything all the time and have it be perfect."
But things changed for her and her friends as they grew up and recognized the hard political realities in their communities and beyond.
"I just don't think there are good people in politics anymore. They've all sold their souls to the devil."
Perhaps not everyone. Ross is eager to get more politically active, if she finds the right candidate.
"I'm actually thinking for the first time in my life about working for a campaign," she said.
That is, if a candidate can sweep her off her feet.