View from the Ground at the 2016 New Hampshire Primary

The New Hampshire Primary is famously the first Primary of the election season. While the Iowa Caucus comes before us… well, it’s a Caucus, and Caucuses are arcane and strange, even to people who’ve caucused all their lives. I grew up in Maine — Vacationland itself — and we were a Caucus state, so I’ve gone through the process. In effect, you all get together and you elect electors, and those electors get together later and assign delegates. By tradition, they assign delegates based on the straw polls that are taken during the caucuses but that’s not a hard and fast rule.

Iowa’s caucuses work differently than Maine’s. In fact, Iowa’s Democratic and Republican caucuses work differently than each other. It’s all a bit mystifying and strange and while it’s one of the first, most crucial bellweathers of an election — this year, several candidates dropped out of the race following the caucus — it’s also one of the least understood.

The New Hampshire Primary, on the other hand? Everyone understands that. It works just like an election. You show up, get checked off the list, get your ballot, get in your booth, cast your vote, hand it to the volunteer who feeds it into the reader, and then you walk out. We don’t elect people to elect people in the Granite State. We vote, and our votes are counted, and the delegates get divvied up accordingly — and they vote for the people we tell them to, by gum! None of this “can vote for who they want to vote for” crap for us! They’re assigned proportionally, with a 10% vote minimum to get a delegate, so in a close race two candidates may split candidates almost evenly. We are the first heads-down, ballots-cast vote for the Republican and Democratic candidates in the nation.

And the candidates know it.

Starting somewhere around May of the previous year — 2015, in this case — we start to see Presidential Candidates. And I don’t mean we see them on television or huge events. I mean we go to the local diner and oh hey it’s Jeb Bush! Before I moved to New Hampshire I lived in Maine, Massachusetts, New York State, and Washington State, and I never found myself within handshaking distance of a presidential candidate in my life. The closest I ever came was sharing a Bar Harbor Airlines flight with then Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. Presidential candidates were like Hollywood Stars — you saw them on your television but you never saw them in your restaurants.

But in New Hampshire? They’re everywhere. I’ve shaken hands with John McCain, Jon Huntsman (who announced his candidacy in the town I live in), Mitt Romney (whose house is within reasonable walking distance of mine), Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and John Kerry. I’ve had the opportunity to shake hands with many more, but after a while it’s just… done, you know? On July 4 of 2015, Governor Chris Christie and Senator Marco Rubio marched in my town’s Fourth of July Parade — a parade, I would add, that I can see from my apartment window. I watched the sitting governor of a state and the senator of a state walk by and wave in my direction while I was wearing pajama pants and an Achewood tee shirt — and only put on the pajama pants because hey, man. My neighbors are out there. No one wants to see that.

This is part of who we are — something that sets us apart from every other state except maybe Iowa. We’re the only First Primary. And we count for a lot. Not so much the win, though of course everyone wants to win, but for the performance. If you outperform expectations in New Hampshire, you gain momentum and money and legitimacy going into the rest of the Primaries. If you underperform in New Hampshire — even if you win the Primary — you are in significant trouble and everyone knows it. We’re the acid test. Fail miserably in New Hampshire and you might as well get out of the way.

And since we’re the First Primary, there’s nothing (other, once again, than Iowa’s weird rituals) before us. Candidates aren’t campaigning hard in other states and then rushing into New Hampshire to grab as much ink and goodwill as possible in the week or two before the next Primary. We’re first. So they’re here for months. They live here. They play tiny venues all over the state to get ‘the common touch’ and they play huge rallies in Manchester and Nashua to get good video clips and sound bites. They refine their stump speeches here. They make their first mistakes here. They write the opening narrative here.

And we — traditionally — love it. I’m a transplantee, of course, and so it was dazzling, but natives seem just as jazzed about it most of the time. This is the most significant thing New Hampshire does, and we do it every four years. I’ve never been to any election day in my town in New Hampshire that didn’t have a palpable feeling of excitement clinging to it. A feeling of momentous occasion. A feeling of destiny.

Until, that is, today. Because today didn’t have any of that.

As with a lot of small towns, our polling place is actually a church basement. In our case, it’s the local Episcopal Church, and it’s large and warm and homey. It’s right next to the local hospital, and on election days the hospital lot gets edged with volunteers. People stand at the corner where you turn off to drive down to the polls, waving signs and cheering. They line the opposite side of the street. Indeed, most Primaries I’ve voted in this Century have featured the Unsmiling Bearded Men for Ron (or Rand) Paul — a group of burly, weathered bearded men who hold Ron/Rand Paul signs stoically and pass judgment on us all.

But they’re always on the far side of the street. There’s no campaigning in the parking lot itself. No campaigning in the church basement. Once you walk in there, everyone’s a citizen and we’re all on important business and we all know it. Republicans, Democrats, Independents and Other are at least polite and generally genial to one another in the polling station. And after you vote? Well, there’s a bake sale for some local group. Have some pie.

But not this year. This year there were signs up at the corner and signs along the other side of the road, but no volunteers cheering or waving. No volunteers holding those signs. No unsmiling bearded men for Rand Paul. (That Paul suspended his campaign after Iowa wouldn’t matter — he’s still on our ballot and the Unsmiling Men always showed up before whether or not their candidate was still in the race). The parking lot was absolutely full — it was hard to park, with people swarming inside. It was probably the biggest turnout I’d ever seen for the Primary, and they’re always big. And bear in mind — it was between two and three in the afternoon. People were at work, mostly. It wasn’t the rushes you get before work, at noon, or in the evening. Normally this is one of the quietest times to go vote.

Not today.

As for the geniality? The excitement? Those were just plain gone — replaced with a slightly angry sullenness. I was worried there would be acrimony when I saw the huge line full of people waiting for their ballots, all of whom seemed quietly upset. Would partisanship finally crack what had always been the great equalizer?

As it turned out? No. There was anger throughout the room, but it wasn’t directed at the other people. If anything, everyone in the room felt like they were in this together — like we were at the DMV of Purgatory, waiting to get a license to drive a mid-eighties Chrysler K-Car. Ahead of me, I heard a couple of people talking:

“Big turnout.”

“Yeah. I made sure to get down here. Not that it makes any difference.”

“I know. Tell me about it. Jesus.”

It took me a long moment before it sank in. Everyone was upset and sullen because no one there was voting for anyone. The turnout was huge, but no one had that kernel of hope that comes from voting for the candidate you truly believe in. Those kernels weren’t present.

The turnout was huge because everyone was voting against someone, without even the sense of common cause. They were voting against Trump, or Cruz, or Clinton, or Sanders. They weren’t voting for a vision of the future, they were trying to forestall disaster. There wasn’t anyone who inspired them — but by God some of these candidates frightened them. This wasn’t a celebration; it was a wake.

And as God is my witness, it was universal.

“If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for…but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.” — Robert Heinlein, “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long”

When I was born, Richard Nixon was President. The office was seen as huge. Presidents were larger than life. Candidates might be saints and they might be devils, but they weren’t mediocre. Mediocrity died quickly on the vine. This was true throughout my childhood — Nixon resigned in disgrace, but he was far from ordinary. Ford might have been overwhelmed, but he had a certain nobility. Whatever else you can say about Carter, he was humble and soft spoke and Godly in a way that practically doesn’t exist any more. Reagan was the cornerstone of the Nation — you might despise him or revere him, but you weren’t bored by him. (The first) Bush seemed almost unreal. (The first) Clinton was electrifying to watch. George W. Bush was many things, but by God he was at the center of our national consciousness. And Barack Obama’s entire persona — including two successful Presidential campaigns — was entirely focused on hope.

Reagan epitomized this sense, it’s worth noting, in one of the most important advertisements of his reelection campaign:

It’s morning again in America. Today more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country’s history. With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly 2,000 families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years. This afternoon 6,500 young men and women will be married, and with inflation at less than half of what it was just four years ago, they can look forward with confidence to the future. It’s morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better.

Bill Clinton was a master of this, too. In the second Presidential Debate of 1996, during an exchange on the economy and California’s recovery, he looked right into the camera and said “If you believe that the California economy was better in 1992 than it is today, you should vote for Bob Dole.” Straight up, right down the plate. If you really believe you were better off under George H.W. Bush, vote for Dole. His message was as key as Reagan’s twelve years before: Things are getting much, much better. It’s working. It’s all working. He did exactly the same thing in his speech to the Democratic National Convention during Obama’s reelection campaign. If you think we’re better off now, vote for Barack Obama. If you think we’re worse off despite the arithmatic, vote Republican.

Reagan and Clinton both destroyed their opponents in the polls. Obama had it much closer, but he still definitively won reelection. Hope and inspiration and a little chutzpah makes people excited.

And now, it’s 2016. And whatever there is out there, none of it’s inspiring hope. There’s a lot of hate out there — a lot of fear. A lot of anger and lashing out. And people are responding to that anger with anger. Some people in support, some people in opposition, but that’s what there is. And it’s turned into a huge turnout at my local polling place — but no one there’s happy. No one’s excited. No one’s inspired.

I know people who ardently, deeply hate Donald Trump and everything he stands for. I know people who ardently, deeply hate Hillary Clinton and everything she stands for. I know people who despise Bernie Sanders as a godless socialist. I know people who despise Ted Cruz as a radical ideologue incapable of compromise. And when I’m talking about these people — bear in mind I’m talking about the people voting in those primaries. I’m talking about Republicans who hate Trump or Cruz, Democrats who hate Clinton or Sanders. We haven’t even gotten to the point where they’re looking across the aisle.

I don’t know anyone who believes in one of these candidates. The number of signs along the road are much, much lower than in any recent election. The people talking about what they believe their candidate will do are nonexistent. The people talking about what they believe the other candidates might do are legion.

And once you get out of the top two or three in each contest… no one even seems to care. Jeb Bush, sounding defeated, actually had to ask the crowd at a rally to “please clap.” Marco Rubio is widely seen as the mainstream candidate for the Republican party, but I’ve seen a grand total of one Rubio sign on a lawn, and that was last week. Successful sitting Governors are polling in the tenths of digits.

No one was on the street today, waving to cars and waving signs. The Unsmiling Bearded Men were nowhere in sight.

And talking to people around me — talking to friends and coworkers and neighbors — the closest thing I’ve seen or heard to a positive message is a palpable feeling of relief. It’s almost over. One more day and then they can go bug South Carolina and we don’t have to deal with them until 2019.

That’s not what I expect when I go to the polls, especially for the New Hampshire Primary. But it’s what we’ve got. Both major parties, and pretty much everyone else, are just sick of the whole thing. They’re voting in a desperate attempt to stop whoever they think they need to stop and they’re waiting for it to just be over.

And hand to God I can’t blame them. For the first time in my voting life, I didn’t know who I was going to vote for until I stepped in the booth and dragged the magic marker on the ballot. And — almost sadly — I didn’t have an active person I was voting against either. I actually made my decision based on who I wanted to get nominated by my party — and it took until the last second before I was even sure who that was.

Not long ago, The X-Files returned to television for the first time in many years. I’ve seen fans of that show wearing buttons — I still want to believe.

I do, too. I think we all do. And maybe by Super Tuesday some of the other states will have candidates they believe in. I don’t know. I just know that for me, the New Hampshire Primary is behind me and I’m just as glad. Tonight, we’ll find out who wins, but unlike other years I’m not going to watch the coverage. I’ll find out soon enough for my taste. I titled this essay “View from the ground at the 2016 New Hampshire Primary,” but maybe “View of the ground” makes more sense, because way too few of us seem to have a reason to look up.