The American Spectator

Campaign Crawlers

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- On Tuesday afternoon the light traffic on Manchester's busiest street snarled to an inexplicable halt. A police car blocking a side street suggested something sinister, a bad crash, perhaps. Nevertheless, after several minutes you could lip read the drivers' frustrated sighs. Lunch hour was clearly almost over for some. When the strange emptiness in the other lane was suddenly filled, however, it was not with ambulances and tow-trucks, but a phalanx of police cruisers, and vans of men wearing dark sunglasses and earpieces all escorting two buses windows festooned with signs reading Change We Can Believe In.

Barack Obama bought into his Iowa bounce and press buzz, it seems, and apparently thought he might as well go ahead and start playing president right away. What could go wrong?

The presumption was infectious. When I called the Illinois senator's campaign press office the morning of the election to inquire what time a reporter interested in covering the sure-to-be raucous victory party that evening should arrive, I was snubbed with a stream of dismissive, haughty talk about the number of very important news organizations already covering the event and how there couldn't possibly be room for one more. As this Guardian video clearly shows, this was no isolated incident, as it turns out.

Lucky thing the campaign packed the VIPs in. Obama's historic tumble from that high horse of his needed to be documented for posterity. Be careful what you wish for.

TYPICALLY I TRY NOT TO overplay the hokey let's-fawn-over-the-good-rural-stock stories that come out of New Hampshire every four years, particularly since I grew up here and, while fully recognizing we have a fundamentally better state government than most other states (no sales or income tax, no seatbelt laws), as people our day to day lives are little different from anyone else's. When that fake-bomb maniac took over Hillary Clinton's office in my hometown of Rochester recently, the coverage sounded like a script synopsis for an early Funny Farm draft. I love New Hampshire but Mayberry North it is not.

Still, it is difficult to not be proud of the Granite State this evening. Not for resurrecting the presidential aspirations of Hillary Clinton, of course. Those tears are long-since dried and, however much we all love chastened Hillary, her wicked stepsister, insufferably confident Wellesley Girl, is sure to make a serious comeback. None of that makes watching a candidate who lacks the basic humility necessary to understand "hope-monger" isn't a title individuals are supposed to bestow upon themselves get the wind taken out of him any less delicious.

Beginning today we'll hear plenty about the state's racial make-up, the hidden racist implications in our failure to climb aboard the progressives' latest well-spoken hobby horse -- has New Hampshire apologized for slavery yet? -- and probably worse from Obama fanatics. These are individuals, after all, completely at ease following the self-appointed Mayor of Purple America who has taken it upon himself to parse and define "hope" for the entire country. It is sure to rattle the carefully constructed messiah complexes of liberal true-believers to have learned last night some knuckle-draggers still stand in the way of their transformational revolution that so manifestly embodies all that is good and necessary.

No, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth in Obamaland. Believe it.

The 2008 Kubler-Ross Primary ended with a bang rather than a whimper, and this Granite State son couldn't be more pleased. The New Hampshire primary in its best years is like a thriller with a great twist at the end. It can take your breath away. With two open primaries, every nook and cranny of this state was filled with reporters, political apparatchiks of one kind or another and endlessly haughty candidates. They wanted a show, and New Hampshire gave them one.

So now there will be an actual nomination race, in which more than two small states have a say. New Hampshire says, You're welcome.

American Spectator Contributing Editor Shawn Macomber is writing a book on the Global Class War.

topics:
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Law, NATO