Granite Dreams

Fueled by an inadvertent late afternoon nap and an 8pm French Press of coffee I can't sleep tonight, and all my thoughts return to last summer which, now that I think about it, may have been the final destination for the biggest dream I have ever had.

I was living in an idyllic setting, had a comfy paycheck, and nearly everything to do with writing about politics and the New Hampshire Primary was new to me. My experience with hands-on primary events did exist, but in all honesty could be counted on one hand.

In 2000 I went to a single Bill Bradley campaign event in Tacoma. In 2003 I saw John Edwards in Manchester in August while I was staying at Harrington Lodge in North Woodstock for cross country training camp living alongside such steely compatriots as Dan Lazarek and Weston Fuhrman. I drove up from Franklin Park in October to hear John Kerry share his wealth of knowledge across the issue spectrum at a pub in Portsmouth.

Then on a January night in 2004, at the zenith of his intrigue, I saw Wes Clark in a high school cafeteria in Litchfield then on the way home to Connecticut, I took the long way through Boston to be closer to the ocean and it snowed nearly a foot in three hours. I pulled over in Westerly, RI to find a Bess Eaton and wound up driving off of a curb because I couldn't tell where the driveway ended and the sidewalk began. At 11 o'clock on a snowy Tuesday in Westerly at a closed donut shop it was as quiet, let me tell you.

That night was when it really set in, the idea of the New Hampshire primary that I had only watched on television as a high school senior four years earlier. It was then that I fell in love with the mountain hotels and their lobby fireplaces, the snowy sidewalks full of sign-wavers (visibility, I would learn to call it), and the cramped town hall meetings. At the Alvirne High cafeteria that night there were maybe 200 people. This time around a late-January event with a third-place polling candidate, 200 attendees would get you laughed off the pages of the blogs at MSNBC and The Atlantic and Time. But that year it felt like something big.

"Why on earth," I wondered, "would two hundred people show up on a cold ass Tuesday night to hear a politician from a state halfway across the country?"

As I pondered this on my way home, having had my first taste of a cold-weather rally, I knew that this was different. Besides, as with most things in life, you don't truly experience it until you do it in cold weather.

It was also the first time, at age 22, that I had ever driven in snow.

Four years later I've worked on a general campaign, written full-time about politics for two thirds of a year, and become a near professional at driving in the snow having lived, among other places, in West Brattleboro, Vermont for a winter where it made sense from a spiritual and fuel economy level to take dirt roads nearly all the way to my job at Mount Snow some twenty miles away.

Here in Washington I can only try my best to remember the snow, and visualize my hands turning red with searing pain as I brushed it off my car with inadequate equipment and clothing on my way to work last December. I can also only imagine what it would be like to see candidates caravaning around the Evergreen State.

When Clinton and Obama came to Seattle, thousands were there to greet them. When John McCain came there were maybe 150. Then again, he spoke at the Westin Hotel ballroom. If I wasn't an absolute presidential junkie, I wouldn't have gone there, either.

But four months earlier I had seen McCain in someone's front yard with forty people around, and at VFW hall with a hundred. And I had seen Clinton with 1,000 and 2,000 and 3,5000. I had seen Obama at Manchester's largest venue with Oprah and, very early on, in Laconia with 500. I knew where the expectations were set, and how much they had grown in less than a year.

In 2000 and 2004, there were no expectations. All I knew was the idea of the New Hampshire primary and how it wasn't unheard of, or irrational, for a presidential aspirant to talk to a general store full of twelve people in an out-of-the-way Lakes region town.

Tonight, when Obama won North Carolina by 15 and Clinton won Indiana by two, the conventional wisdom said that this 2008 batch of the primary season that began in New Hampshire more than a year ago, is finally over. I have been anxiously waiting for Clinton to ceded the nomination since the middle of February. But now that reality has set in and I see it slipping away from me, even though I had paid it the attention of a red headed stepchild for the past two months, I find myself begging for just one more primary. Just one more batch of returns.

I know this dream is over, that for one more person it has become a reality.

But back then, in the summer of 2007, all I could do was sit in the warm weather, drink my coffee, look out at the silhouette of the Holyoke Range and dream. Back then, the dream was still alive and well.

Love Song for the Dearly Departed, or, Dude Where's My Freedom?

The following content has nothing to do with politics. If you are strictly here for a NH Primary Fix, go read the Post and come back tomorrow.

10:00 PM on a Sunday and the chirping of the crickets covers the window's breeze like the blanket on my lap. Gin & Tonics go down smooth tonight. Smooth like a soul record; Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke. I'm leaving the Quabbin soon, we're talking two or three days soon, and the taste in my mouth is bitter beyond the lime and tonic. Smooth and bitter. I guess there needs to be a balance in all things.

I have recently come back from a voyage to the North. Kanc Country, where the mountain faces are rocky, the rivers are refreshing, and the tourists are growing by the hundreds each year. Soon enough it will be just another Vermont, minus the fair trade coffee shops. How unfortunate. Worse still is the increase in police activity. My biggest beef in New Hampshire, to be quite honest, is the police presence.

Considering that the state purports to have the motto, "Live Free or Die," I have been surprisingly hassled by cops from various New Hampshire small towns more than in any other state. Whether it was a warrantless field sobriety test in Litchfield in 2003 after watching John Kerry in Portsmouth because I was "hugging the white line" or witnessing an associate of mine questioned and having his license run simply for walking on the sidewalk trying to work his game with a ladyfriend. This must stop. Worse still, I was arrested a few days ago for merely swimming in a river. Yes, God's own semen stream, the Pemigewasset.

The local Swine rapped me with a knuckle-busting charge of Disorderly Conduct, and gave no reasoning for their charge. Presumptions aside I was forced to tell the young Farva-like deputy, whose fecklessness toward the law was on disgusting display, that I would save any questions I had for the judge.

To Be Continued...

In the Meantime, here is my soulful, pensive playlist for late August. Forgive the lack of artist diversity. And do put it on shuffle.

Nothing Can Change This Love - Sam Cooke
I'll Come Running Back to You - Sam Cooke
If Not for You (Bootleg Session w/ George Harrison) - Bob Dylan
That's How Strong My Love Is - Otis Redding
These Arms of Mine - Otis Redding
Which Way Does That Old Pony Run - Lyle Lovett
To Find a Friend - Tom Petty
The Letter - Natalie Merchant
If You're Feeling Sinister - Belle & Sebastian
Funny How Time Slips Away - Willie Nelson
Soul Love - David Bowie
Cry to Me - Solomon Burke
Cypress Avenue - Van Morrison
Opportunity to Cry (Crazy Demo Session) - Willie Nelson
One More Kiss Before I Go - Ryan Adams

and you can end any mix with ...
Electrolyte - R.E.M.
if you ever want to fly
Mulholland Drive.
I am alive.

Hollywood is under me.
I'm Martin Sheen
I'm Steve McQueen
I'm Jimmy Dean

If you want to fly.
Mulholland Drive.
Up in the sky.
Stand on a cliff and look down there.
Don't be scared, you are alive.
You are alive.

Lodi Doddi

It was a big week in politics, and a rude awakening to Quabbin Qountry about the difficulty of being a part-time blogger. I was so preoccupied with track practice, a New Yorker article about Dem hopefuls, unexpected dates and, hell, even a smutty Stranger article, that the next thing I knew it was Saturday, mid-way through the third quarter of the Ravens-Colts game and I was in a horrible mood about Purple's inability to find the end zone. This doesn't even begin to take into account the numerous newspaper profiles and blog entries in this week's Times and Post. A couple of Keystone Reds later, I knew my only hope was to walk out to my automobile and coast all the way down Gulf Hill at speeds no less than 45mph and find the nearest internet cafe.

I guess to cover the basics, it would be important to mention that one of New England's invisible Senator's has officially announced his entry into the 2008 campaign. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), although the Nutmeg State's senior senator, has been relatively unknown outside of political circles for much of his twenty-six years in the more deliberative body. He is the son of a Senator with a ready-made politician's c.v. including two years in the Peace Corps, six years in the army and the rest in elected office. I love Connecticut and all, but it sounds pretty boring from here. On the bright side, the guy was born in Willimantic and lives in my fantasy basketball haven of Haddam, is known for his sharp wit and at one point in the late 80's as a womanizer side-by-side with Teddy K.

Conventional wisdom has it these days, that Denver will host the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The Rocky Mountain Front is in the "Hickenloop", so to speak. Seeking to reach out to those stubborn Westerners, expect a lot of "cowboy" patterned shirts and major speaking parts by Jon Tester, Ken Salazar, Mark Udall and Bill Richardson. Holy Shit, LoDo is going to be off the hook that week. The last night I recall being in Denver, I was sobbing and nearly passed out drunk on the sidewalk of South 14th and Champa Street, having just tipped over on my bike. The night in question was November 2, 2004. This time it is just the beginning, at the Pepsi Center. You say you want a Revolution? Well, you know, we all want to change the world.

Alas, there is a lot to catch up on, and cold days ahead may prove just cozy enough to provide the time and the place. In the meantime, Go 'Hawks!!

Ahoy,
BTB