As it turns out, our indefatigable guest bloggers from New Hampshire, Kevin Flynn and Rebecca Lavoie, are fatigable. They filed this report before going back to bed.
Imagine if you threw a bucket of water, started to sing and dance, then turned around and found that the woman with the broom and the black hat didn’t melt. She just stood there, staring at you, water dripping down her face. That’s kind of how many New Hampshire voters felt watching the results come in on Tuesday night.
Here in New Hampshire, we woke up Wednesday morning with a bit of a headache, a little nauseated and cotton-mouthed. Yeah, we had too much to drink at the pub while we watched the results roll in. But we think we're suffering from something a bit more than the after-effects of our beer binge. We're pretty sure we woke up this morning with a primary hangover.
Even with the early call, Republicans didn’t hit the bars afterward. They seemed to know ahead of time how well they’d do, and planned to make it an early evening. At one point, two dozen well-dressed staffers from Bill Richardson’s campaign grabbed a table, making their presence known only after cheering a replay of the Governor’s concession speech.
It wasn’t until after midnight, after Hillary declared victory, that elated Clinton supporters burst in and took over the pub. Obama easily had ten times the volunteers Clinton did (I counted more than 50 people holding Obama signs at my polling location), but somehow this rag-tag bleary-eyed group of drinkers shocked the world and threw the nomination process into confusion.
Hillary Clinton's victory in New Hampshire really shouldn't be called an upset, nor should she be able to adopt the "Comeback Kid" mantle worn by her hubby all those years ago. She was, after all, the frontrunner for the entirety of the campaign. But New Hampshire voters had been convinced since Iowa that what they long suspected was right, that Hillary was just not our guy. Obama's camp had perhaps the most energetic organization we've seen in recent primary history, but it seems like their efforts may have been a bit scattershot, calling everyone, knocking on the same doors repeatedly, without doing the one thing that mattered....TARGETING HILLARY'S BASE.
Richardson people bought pints for some Clinton supporters. Last call was less than an hour away. The group swelled to include college students, political operatives, union workers, even a former ambassador. For one hour they drank in relief, in relief of months (for some of them, years) of hard work.
Today, campaign workers from all over the country will pack up and vacate our fair state. Hillary's people are still partying, Obama's are retreating like college co-eds doing the Walk of Shame. And those of us who actually live in New Hampshire? We've got a Primary hangover to shake off, and then we'll go about our business as usual. Some of us cure the hangover with a little hair of the dog, watching the wrap-up pundits, savoring every last moment of our quadrennial importance. But most of us take two aspirin and pretend the whole thing never happened.
RSS 2.0
http://www.playboy.com/mt-tb.cgi/8941