Living through the First in the Nation primary.

I love living in NH.
It’s a great state to raise a family with it’s small town atmosphere and very friendly residents.
Then, every four years, hell arrives.

For a small state that doesn’t have lots of money (we have no sales or income taxes) the First in the Nation Primary is very important to us. It brings in a ton of money (we have a rooms tax on hotels) in a variety of different ways.

I’ll admit, in the months running up to the Primary, it’s fun to walk down the street and bump into Joe Lieberman or Rudy Guliani. My Father-In-Law ran into President Bush in the last election. I actually got to speak with Al Gore when he was running. Mitt Romney was in town last weekend…we were invited to hear him speak in our town hall.

However, the fun ends when the last weeks are left. With Iowa ending so close, the hoards of media have descended on our sleepy little state. Fox news and Bill O’reilly are expected tomorrow with just about every TV satellite truck in the country. All of the Hollywood stars show up as well. We had Sharon Stone looking for a bathroom in town a couple of months ago. It made the front page of our newspaper. Paul Newman pops in quite a bit as well, but he doesn’t come for politics.

This will be a weekend from hell trying to get around. Tomorrow we’ll have John McCain in town and who knows who else. People holding “Vote for Hillary” signs were standing on the street tonight in 20° weather.

For me, the worst part is the telephone polls. We are now at 10+ calls per day from pollsters. I am so sick of talking to these people I have not answered the phone for two days now. They are actually nasty when you ask them who they represent! The “push polls” are the worst. These are recorded msgs they force over the phone.

The worst day will be Sunday. My next door neighbor will be hosting an Obama party. Obama will be there as well as the Governor of MA, Deval Patrick. They expect at least 100 people. My road can’t support 100 people standing let alone 100 cars, satellite trucks, news media etc. It will be chaos.

Poll day is Tuesday…I hope I survive.

Have you ever lived in a Primary state? Is it this bad for you?? I’d like to know?