Primary Day and Reflections

(Andrew C. Bome is heading home today.  Here are some of his observations from yesterday and reflections on what last night's results may mean for the US Presidential race.)

Tuesday morning was the day of the primary.  Our only real plans were to check out some polling places to see some candidates; we hadn’t seen either Ben Carson or John Kasich and had to check them off our list.  Ben Carson was having an event at a diner; we went, had breakfast and saw the back of Ben Carson’s head.  He teleported out of the diner before I was able to take his picture; at least breakfast was nice.  We did manage to get to a polling place where Kasich was still speaking to the media; it included someone from the Russian media.

Nuggets of Wisdom for Denmark

The evening was taken up by the Clinton victory party.  The doors opened after we got their, so we ended up in a queue in the cold.  I overheard someone at the lineup saying that she hadn’t volunteered yet for Hillary; I am thinking she is a little late.

Hillary Concedes

We were able to manage to get seats in the bleachers with a good view of the podium; being middle aged I prefer sitting to standing. 

Sadly, there was no wifi at the auditorium, the phone coverage was terrible and no-one at the event set up a television to broadcast the result.    Effectively during the first hour after the polls closed Alan and I were effectively in radio silence.    Someone nearby was able to connect to the outside world, so we knew that Hillary had lost on Democratic side and that Trump won on the Republican side.  Neither of the results was surprising, but many, myself included, wanted something different.

The concession speech was good.  She was defiant and she promised to continue on; she said she was knocked down, but she will get up again (but she never said anything about being left down).  The audience was excited and cheering her on.  The next stop for Hillary is Nevada and South Carolina; she has to win those.

On the way out, we got an illustration of how much media there is in New Hampshire during primary time.  Some roving reporter with a camera got an interview with Alan; he was from Danish television.   I’m guessing that Danes will be getting some nuggets of wisdom about New Hampshire from some random Canadian dude.

What it all Means

The results were interesting.  Trump won and won big; that size of his win was a bit of a surprise.  Kashich’s second place wasn’t surprising; he did well in the debate and had been covering the state a lot.  Rubio’s bad debate performance mattered; he came in 5^th place right below Bush.   Cruz eked out third place.  Christie came in 6^th; he destroyed Marco Rubio in the debate, but it did not help him.  He says he is going to South Carolina today, but if his flight connects through Newark, he might deplane.

Bernie at a Campaign  Event on the Weekend

The Democratic results were a bit of a shock.  Bernie was always going to win, but the polls were narrowing.  But the actual results had Bernie 22% ahead of Hillary.  No amount of spin can make that result look good.  I still think that Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States; I am just less sure of that now than I was yesterday.   On the Republican side we know that Christie is going home; news is that he is stopping in New Jersey.  Fiorina and Carson may claim that they are continuing; they won’t be getting any coverage, won’t be getting debate spots and won’t be able to raise any more money.  Rubio is in deep trouble; he will not be able to fund raise off his New Hampshire result and for people not named Trump, campaigns run on other people’s money.  Kasich is out of money, but his result will let him raise lots to let him continue.  As for Cruz, 3^rd is a great result; he wasn’t expecting to do well and came out in a respectable 3^rd place.  His campaign may have legs in the south.   Bush has money and he did somewhat better than expected.  Given that Graham has endorsed him, my guess is that his plan is to put lots of resources in South Carolina and that his plan depends on him winning there.  If Bush does, he will be the candidate; if Bush doesn’t, I have no clue what will happen.

We leave today to head back home.  Both Alan and I had fun, and we may do it again in 4 years.

New Hampshire Day 2, a.m. – Class is in Session

(Andrew C. Bome's second report from New Hampshire in advance of the Primary.)

The plan this morning was to do some domestic things and then head to a nearby Bernie Sanders event.  It turned out the Bernie Sanders event was not across the street, but was across the state.  It took us an hour to get there, but we made it in time.

The event was at the main campus of Franklin Pierce University; the speech was at the field house.  Being a Bernie Sanders event at a University, there were lots of younger folks in the crowd, complete with the more interesting clothing choices of youth (the less said about the hipster in  the trilby, the better).  A few things of note were the dude in with a toque that had a skunk pattern around the base: “skunks on a toque” sound like the name of an unsuccessful Ottawa punk band.  There were a few pro-pot folks wearing T-shirts saying “Keep calm and Bern one”; the logo showed Bernie smoking a joint.

Bernie Sanders at Franklin Pierce University

There also appeared to be a number of Franklin Pierce University journalism students interviewing folks.  None interviewed me; the egotistical lawyer in me was offended.  I did see one of these j-school students interviewing one of the professional journalists in the crowd.  I detect a future Washington Post columnist in the making.

When Sanders was introduced everyone (myself included )raised their phones to get a picture.  It was if we were in church and the priest said the thing that got us to raise our phones and praise someone. 

Bernie’s speech was OK, but I have heard better.  I really felt like I was an undergraduate listening to a lecture by a really cool professor.  It was well organized and thought out, but it was a lecture in any event.  Maybe that is why Bernie Sanders is polling so well amongst university students and grads; he reminds them of their favourite professor.

He started his speech with the line “Are you ready to make a political revolution” and the obligatory bad suit and hair joke; his sweater vest looked like it came from the Rick Santorum collection..  His speech was organized along three connected themes: a corrupt campaign finance system; a rigged economic system; and, a broken criminal justice system.    He would set out the problem and set out how the first problem would connect to the second problem and the third problem.  For example, a corrupt campaign finance system allowed banks to lobby hard to deregulate the financial system.  That led to a broken economic system with banks that were too big to fail and required trillions in bailouts.  While a kid caught with a joint got a criminal record, no wall street bankers have gotten arrested over their activities in 2008; his line was that the banks were too big to fail and bankers were too big to jail. 

This was all really cool, but he really did not have much to say on how to solve any of the problems that he set out.   At best he said that if people come together, there is nothing that they can’t accomplish; that is nice rhetoric, but it don’t fix anything.

It is not like he did not have any policy suggestions.  He did; but it was a fairly standard progressive wish list (single payer health care; $15.00 per hour minimum wage; paid family & medical leave; lower tuition and better student loan terms), but it was unconnected to anything.

At least his speech had a nice end; he said that they would make a political revolution.  Nice parallel to his first line.

                                          

New Hampshire Trip Day 1 – Foiling the Weather Gods

(Following is Andrew C. Bome's first report from the New Hampshire.)

My Friend Alan and I decided that we would be heading to New Hampshire this year to hang out at a variety of Primary related events.  We did this 8 years ago. We saw history being made and had a whole lot of fun.   We are hoping to do the same; if we are lucky we might meet some of the same “whacky” people that we met 8 years ago.

Our trip almost did not happen; we literally never got off of the ground.  The plan was to fly from Buffalo to Boston, rent a car in Boston and drive to Nashua, New Hampshire.  When we arrived at the airport, our flight had been cancelled due to weather in Boston.   We were in good company; Donald Trump had to cancel an event today due to weather in Boston. 

Andrew arrives in New Hampshire

The Airline had rescheduled to Saturday evening at 7:30, or we could reroute our trip to New York and fly from there to Boston; we would have arrived in Nashua past midnight.  Neither were good options.   Alan and I are intrepid dudes so we decided to turn our adventure into a road trip.  We drove seven hours from Buffalo through New York, Vermont and New Hampshire and arrived at our hotel in Nashua at around 9:00.  It was a lovely drive; or it would have been during daylight hours in the summer.

Our only real casualty was a planned Hillary Clinton rally at 7:00 p.m.  We aren’t that worried; we are both pretty sure she will have a few more events before Tuesday.

Tomorrow’s first event is a Bernie Sanders rally in Nashua; doors open at 9:00 a.m. and the rally starts at 11:00.  We should have fun: Sanders supporters are young, enthusiastic and committed.  That makes for some fun conversations.  We had booked ourselves for a 10:30 Chris Christie event; sadly he gets thrown under the bus.  We are also planning to spend time in the “free speech zone” at St. Anselm’s college during the republican debate.  That should be fun and where we get to meet some folks with some “different” ideas.

The high point of the trip will be the super bowl viewing party.  It is with Marco Rubio; looking forward to my Super PAC Nachos. 

I have a few goals for this trip.  First, I want to be able to get at least one selfie with a Candidate; even Jim Gilmore is good enough.  Second I want to steal a few lawn signs.  My home office has framed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton lawn signs from 2008.  I want to replace them with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders lawn signs from 2016.  Third, swag: buttons, hats, shirts, leaflets.  I want it all. If I can do all of this, meet some interesting people and not get arrested, I will have a successful holiday.