New Hampshire Primary Day

There are some people that have not experienced what it is like to be in New Hampshire during Primary Season. It is absolutely amazing. EVERYBODY takes it very seriously. It is an important job and they don't take it lightly. I don't think that you could get the same candid response from a large state. The candidates would not be able to traverse California to meet people everywhere and would end up parking themselves in front of a TV camera, which just doesn't give you the same feel.
The phone NEVER stops ringing, the mailbox and diners are stuffed full of politician stuff.
The citizens hate being bombarded but accept it as part of the job.
I was watching TV with some teenagers recently and I explained to them during one of the candidate's "very important messages" to the American people during an episode of "Grey's Anatomy" that the rest of the country is still seeing KIA's "Maniac dancing salesman commercial" and are still being told how important "Super White" clothing is and that they haven't lived until they have eaten a breakfast burrito with "real egg byproducts" included with the other secret ingredients. In New Hampshire, these commercials are gone. America's economy can go to hell, there is only one thing to advertise: the candidates. The teenagers in this state just assume that the entire country is being bombarded like this.
Surprisingly the stores are still in business and I looked around and in this little town, the whites are still "SUPER WHITE" so obviously everyone is still buying the correct laundry detergent.
Maybe we don't need quite as many ads as the companies think that we do.

Somebody remarked on TV recently that New Hampshire is one of the only states that EVERY registered voter in the state has at least once been in the same room and listened to a person that has become the President of the United States of America. We listen, we switch sides, we jump ship, and we lend our support to the various candidates based on what they actually say, not on the little sound-bites that are fed to us. Sometimes we meet the candidate and they only speak in sound-bites and there is no real substance behind it. They have to be weeded out.
What the folks in New Hampshire vote for is only our opinion. A lot of thought has gone into it, but it is only one voice out of 50. Our voice IS the most important voice on this particular day because we put so much research into it, but the other 49 states can redirect everything down the correct path if that is required because of new information.
Almost HALF of the state's voters are "Undeclared" which is New Hampshire's legal term for "Independent". We don't just vote for who we are told to vote for, we vote for who we WANT to vote for, tempered of course by the little dance of "electability" and "throwing you vote away" and other little strategy items that cloud the waters.
This year was our first year that we voted in the big city of Keene. They have different checklists and lines for different parts of the alphabet! They didn't even recognise who we were! In Antrim we used to announce who we were because that is the law, but they already were flipping to the correct page before you even speak up. There were no cookies as a reward for doing your civic duty, I REALLY missed the cookies. But Keene did have a nice touch, they had a table right next to the ballot box so that you can switch back to "Undeclared" immediately after voting for a candidate in one of the two major parties. So you don't have to be a full-time Democrat or Republican for more that the two minutes that it takes to check-in, vote, and checkout. I really feel kind of trapped when I am officially in one party or the other because of all those brainless statements that politicians make when "the other side" is accused of something. So Keene makes it very easy to open both ears again. In Antrim you had to loop around to the checklist person again and change your affiliation and sometimes you could forget to do it what with the cookies and talking and jokes an' all that you get at a small town.

Small town or big town, everybody that I know participates and takes it seriously. Of course I have some friends that consistently vote for the wrong people but I don't hold that against them, they think that they are right even though they are so obviously mistaken. My vote counteracts one of those poor misguided souls and somebody cancels somebody Else's vote. We could actually save trouble if we coordinated our cancellation votes and only have those seven people that don't have a counterpart make the decisions, b-b-b-b-but there is the chance that those seven people would vote wrong, so I guess we will keep doing what we do.
I know ANYBODY reading this in New Hampshire has already voted, but if you live in one of those other states make sure that you weed out the propaganda from the candidate and VOTE.
A helpful hint: If the talking head on TV or on the radio sounds like he is frothing up, what he is saying is probably not entirely based on reality, I mean, you could do as well getting your facts from THIS website (which you shouldn't) than you would from a talking head that is just a leeeetle too excited. Entertainment versus News, step carefully.

Remember that during the primaries you get to actually vote for a person. As soon as the primaries are over you are voting for an administration. The candidate is just the public face for the folks working behind the candidate. As Bob Goldthwaite said a few presidents ago "You can't blame Ronald McDonald because you get a bad hamburger". So vote for the figurehead that you think has a leeeetle more skill than the others and during the actual election you should vote for the administration that is slightly less corrupt and self serving than the other one is. Every short term decision has long term ramifications. We are still recovering from stupid decisions made a long time ago that were obviously stupid and short sighted when they were made. The figurehead did not make the decisions, but the administration that is hiding behind the curtain did. We are paying for it this year, and next year. Saying "nobody could predict this would happen" is a lousy excuse when the people that weren't immediately profiting from the decision were saying that it was a bad decision way back when the profiteers were pushing it through.
Profiting for short term results = BAD
Planning for long term results = GOOD
This rant is over.