Miscellaneous Musings from the Technical Director
Well, election day is finally here, and I would submit that there is no place in the country that is more happy about this than New Hampshire. We are about to get out from under the blanket of politicians, pundits, proxies, and talking heads that have covered us for more than two years. Election “un-coverage”, if you will…
New Hampshire is an interesting place. Less than a million residents, and we can walk to a foreign country. Its a long walk for most of us, I’ll grant you, but much of the NH seacoast turns into South Quebec in the summer so we’ve been keeping an eye on foreign nationals for many years. (Looks like someone here missed an opportunity to be Vice President. Sorry. It was an easy shot, I know…)
New Hampshire is the location of the first presidential primary and the place where the first community in the nation (Dixville Notch) votes in an election. Independently minded, the people of NH take their democratic responsibility very seriously. We still have town hall meetings to establish policies for our local communities. Our state electorate is virtually an all volunteer collection more than 400 representatives – which I have been told is the third or fourth largest representative body in the world. We know our representatives personally, and conduct our local government business personally. At some level, everyone here participates in politics first-hand.
I would agree that NH has what would seem to be an unusually large amount of political significance given our modest size. We understand this, appreciate it, and bemoan it at the same time. We only get two years off before it starts all over again for us. While I have had breakfast with a presidential candidate and turned a corner in town only to bump into an “up-and-comer”, I have also been “requested” by the Secret Service to close early so that Chris Mathews could hold an interview with George W. Bush and Al Gore in a restaurant in our building, and I see the thousands of decaying political signs that litter our highways long after the debates go silent.
We in NH are covered by the press, covered by political BS, and covered by printed matter. So, for the next two years, election “un-coverage” is welcome relief.
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