A day on the campaign trail: even in the Internet age, you can't run for president without meeting voters face-to-face. Upfront spends a day with Republican candidate Jon Huntsman in New Hampshire.

• Author: Smith, Patricia

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It's the day before Halloween, and New Hampshire has gotten smacked by an early snowstorm: As much as 20 inches of heavy, wet snow has fallen in parts of the state, knocking down trees still full of leaves, toppling power lines, and leaving almost half the state without electricity.

But snow or no snow, New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary is just two-and-a-half months away. Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman is getting ready to spend a full day pressing the flesh. About 25 people--plus almost as many campaign staffers and reporters--are waiting in an old mill-turned-art-gallery when he arrives at 12:45 p.m. in Laconia for a talk with voters.

He takes the microphone and gets right to the point: "I need your support, I need your help, I need your vote."

Huntsman launches into his standard stump speech, touching on the nation's economic woes, how its foreign policy is adrift, and how his leadership will get things back on track. He talks for about 15 minutes and then spends the next 45 minutes taking questions.

The questions run the gamut: Would you be willing to reduce foreign aid to Israel? ("I'd be willing to review our aid policy around the world; we just can't afford to do it the same way anymore.") What about the health-care crisis? (Repeal "Obamacare" and let states innovate.) What about the gridlock in Washington? ("The solution is called leadership.") Your stand on illegal immigration? (Secure the borders first and then deal with those here illegally.)

15 Handshakes Per Voter

This kind of direct access to candidates is a big part of how New Hampshire voters decide who to support, and it can be tricky: Candidates have no control over what people ask, and their questions can force them to take stands on issues they'd rather not draw attention to.

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Huntsman, a 51-year-old former governor of Utah and more recently President Obama's ambassador to China, is one of 10 candidates vying to become the Republican nominee for president in the 2012 election. (President Obama is not being challenged for the Democratic nomination.)

Despite all the bells and whistles of politics in 2011--from bloggers, TWitter, and YouTube to 24-hour news channels--you still can't run for president without campaigning the old-fashioned way: shaking hands, answering questions, and meeting voters face-to-face. In late October, Upfront spent a day with Huntsman on the campaign trail in New Hampshire.

The January 10 New Hampshire primary--coming the week after the Iowa caucuses--is important for all the candidates, but it's critical for Huntsman, who is trailing far behind front-runners Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Herman Cain in national polls.

Huntsman has bet everything on his performance here, even moving his campaign headquarters to Manchester, the state's biggest city. He's thrown himself into the state's tradition of meeting individual voters and impressing them one at a time. It's often said in New Hampshire that primary voters expect to shake each candidate's hand 15 times before making up their minds.

"I think we're on about handshake 10," Huntsman says...