You don't have to be a history major to know that every four years we have a presidential election. And you don't have to be a graduate of one of those "Mr. Memory" correspondence courses to recall that New Hampshire becomes a very important factor in deciding who is essentially gets to the White House.
This very thought --New Hampshire as a big deal-- is appalling. The idea of having it loom so large on the national horizon is ludicrous, yet it is happening again.
It is a state with more pine cones than people. And there are some who live there who take 2 hours to watch 60 minutes on television. When people stay at motels up there, they mention a year instead of an hour in leaving a wake-up call.
Sure they do a few things well:plowing the roads, wear red and black hunting hats, and walk around for 8 months of the year saying "holy crow was so cold today that I froze the toe".
It is a truck stop, not a state. Whenever you mention the mainstream of American life, everyone eat runs out the door with a pole in their hand yelling, "Look up the stream, the fish are swimming down."
There are a few cities-- Portsmouth, Manchester, even Concord-- where you can bump into somebody who relates to 198. But by and large, when you're talking New Hampshire, you're talking tundra.
You're talking about a lot of people who think kindergartens and sex education in high school are the Kremlin's ways of getting a foot in the door. You're talking about a place where you're poor only when you don't own a snowmobile. You're talking major league buffoonery.
And look at the candidates who have rolled out of New Hampshire on their way to Washington. Forget Ike and Kennedy, because they won their nominations in the good old days, when a few sensible political bosses were allowed to slam-dunk things through a convention hoop.
Start with 1968: The most amazing thing about that primary is that Gene McCarthy did not really clean Lyndon Johnson's clock. Instead, he finished a close second to an incumbent president who thought he was a combination of Douglas MacArthur, George Patton and Rasputin.
In 1972 Muskie just edged George McGovern. Aah, you're probably still tingling all over from the excitement. In 1976, Ford and Carter claimed the hearts and minds of the Granite State. Poor Jerry Ford would have lost a debate with a turnip, and Carter, supposedly one of the smartest guys ever, had the personality of a day-old glass of water.
In 1980, Reagan reminded people of the Old Man of the Mountain and came out ahead. Carter won the Democratic primary by whining about what a great job he was doing monitoring the condition of the hostages.
And 1984 promises more of the same. Already, room and restaurant revenues are up simply because of the moronic belief that what happens in New Hampshire is relevant.
Yet the only reason the primary vote up there in Snowball Heaven is significant is that the national media made it out to be a really big deal. This is further proof that the networks and national newspapers and dominated by individuals with absolutely no sense of reality.
A candidate can win the New Hampshire primary by getting fewer votes than it takes to get a seat on the Boston City Council. A candidate can see more minorities getting off the train at Park Street Under than he will ever see going back and forth from Laconia to Dover by dog sled for 18 months.
You can learn more about America by talking to a skycap at Logan for 5 minutes than by attending a day long seminar with the thumbsuckers from Dartmouth. You can meet more real people with real problems at the Meadow Glen mall than you will ever meet in Cow Hampshire.
Of course whenever all of this is mentioned, there are those who come back with the claim that New Hampshire is important. Why? And to whom? How come?
People sit down, crayon in hand, and print nasty notes from little villages with names like Swollen Gulch, Bird Drop, and Franconia Notch. The notes say "We don't have murders, rapes, corruption, and political hacks the way you big city people do. You're just jealous, and if you don't like our state, stay stay home."
No problem. There is no inclination here to set up light housekeeping in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, and spend spare time watching milk trucks unload.
But the very items always mentioned-- crime etc --are the biggest reasons not to pay any attention to what goes on in the igloo capital of the world. The whole state is a microcosm of an order of the Moose Lodge. New Hampshire is to the country what Barry Manilow is to good music. The only thing that makes the Granite State look good is Iowa--and that's reaching a bit.
Mike Barnicle
The Boston Globe, 1983
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