Post-New Hampshire Vent

Loose ends on New Hampshire:

• I am so glad Obamamania is over. At least for the moment, and I hope it stays over. Nothing personal: I think Barack is an extraordinarily attractive human being with great natural (and well-schooled) leadership skills. But the last few days—i.e., until 7 EST last night have reminded me way too much of Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern and, yes, Bobby Kennedy—a children’s crusade which was far too likely to leave us all with a nasty hangover in the morning, or rather next November. Barack has a great future and I look forward to sharing it with him. But the idea that we would have to explain away this stripling against a John McCain in the fall, is a thought I do not like to bear.
  
• The Clintonistas are falling all over themselves with delight at the egg on the face of Chris Matthews and others in the press who, as they say “hate Hillary.” Well now. In fact, there are a lot of people who “hate Hillary”—hate her with a visceral and abiding enmity that is beyond all thread of reasonable conversation. But there are a lot of other people who don’t hate Hillary, but who really don’t like her. They’ll put her at the top of her wonkery class, and they will give her merit citations for hard work, for suffering long, and for being mostly right, most of the time. But they think she is a bossy know-it-all who still can’t comprehend why her trailer-trash husband is so much more popular (and effective) than she. This includes an awful lot of the people who know her best (check any list of insiders for any other Democratic candidate). And, yes, it probably includes a good many in the press.

Oh, Buce, are you getting ready to vote Republican? Let’s see, New Hampshire gave us (1) a guy who thinks we should stay in Iraq 100 years; (2) a guy who thinks we should double the size of Guantanamo; and (3) a guy who thinks Guantanamo isn’t tough enough. Ri-i-i-i-ght.

• Finally, on a personal note. I’ve had it up to here with all this talk about flinty, independent minded New Englanders. I say “personal” because I grew up there—in Manchester and Bedford, NH, almost on ground zero of primary central (but back before there was any such thing). I’ve got roots there that go back to the American Revolution (we couldn’t afford to get out). And three things: one, I’m not flinty, I’m flabby. Two, the people I went to school with in Manchester were mostly French Canadian immigrants and nobody ever called them flinty. And three: I wouldn’t be surprised if half the population of New Hampshire today were people who (or whose parents) moved there after I moved away—mostly technobabies from Massachusetts who don’t like to pay taxes. Didn’t I mention someplace earlier that the state motto is “Life For Free or Die!” Oh and by the way, Robert Frost was born in San Francisco.

Thanks, I feel less flinty already.