No one knows how long it will last. I frequently hear speculation on New Hampshire Public Radio that this year may be the last year that New Hampshire will be able to pull off its “first in the nation presidential primary.” The most extreme example of “First in the Nation” mentality is the handful of residents of Dixville Notch, a hamlet in Coos county, up at the top of the state, even north of Mount Washington, near our border with Canada, who have been voting just after midnight in the wee hours of election day since 1960 so that they can claim to be the first of the first. New Hampshire has been fighting over our status with Iowa for more than twenty years. Just what is a caucus, and how does the caucus work in Iowa?
There is no doubt that Iowa and New Hampshire enjoy huge economic benefits from the year long invasion of candidates and media that is brought to our states because we have appointed ourselves as the two “firsts” in the process of selecting the next president. The picture at the top of this post was taken at The Flying Goose, a local brew pub and eatery. It shows my wife shaking hands with Elizabeth Warren at an early campaign event on January 18, 2019, over a year before the primary!
After over a year of debates, Internet requests for campaign donations, and constant TV ads, we will soon get a first look at what two very atypical American populations, the citizens of Iowa and New Hampshire, really think about all that has been said and done. My local newspaper, The Valley News, reports a poll today, two weeks before the election, that Bernie Sanders is leading with 25%. Joe Biden has 16%. Pete Buttigieg is third with 15%. Elizabeth Warren has 12%. Other candidates are in the single digits: Klobuchar 6%, Gabbard 5%, Yang 5%, Steyer 2%, Bloomberg and Delaney 1%, and Deval Patrick and Michael Bennet with less than 1%. The big news in that article is that 49% of Democratic voters report that they are still undecided.
In 2016, when there were 17 Republican candidates in the running, Jeb Bush spent over $1,000 for every vote that he got. I am sure that we will discover that Tom Steyer has spent more than that for his votes when we know the results of the election. This year there have been as many as twenty five Democratic wannabes. I became a registered Democrat in New Hampshire in 2016. Since the primary focus of attention in 2016 was the Republican race, the run up to the 2020 presidential primary process has been a unique experience for me.
For this year at least, our state remains important, but I have not seen as many of the candidates in person as I thought I would. My wife has seen more. It’s not that I am not interested. It’s just that when I heard stories of people standing in the cold for several hours unsuccessfully trying to get into a 500 seat auditorium to see “Mayor Pete,” I decided that I had better things to do. I respect some of my neighbors who do seem to believe that it is their patriotic duty to try to see most, if not all, of the candidates in person. I know the owners of restaurants love the “first in the nation” process that brings a tsunami of candidates to every little eatery and greasy spoon in the state. The picture shows wine and beer on the tables at 4 in the afternoon purchased by voters waiting to get their chance for a “selfie” with Senator Warren.
As we have gotten closer and closer to primary day, I have felt myself becoming more anxious as I realized that like many voters, I was undecided. I found that I was frequently humming or singing the words from The Lovin’ Spoonful song from the 60s, “Did You Ever Have To Finally Decide?” The first two verses sum up my dilemma:
Did you ever have to make up your mind?
And pick up on one and leave the other behind?
It’s not often easy and not often kind.
Did you ever have to make up your mind?
Did you ever have to finally decide?
And say yes to one and let the other one ride?
There’s so many changes and tears you must hide.
Did you ever have to finally decide?
I am not alone in my confusion. With less than a month before the caucuses in Iowa and the primary in New Hampshire more than one poll reports that less than half of the potential voters have made their final decision. My wife and I had gone around in circles until she attended a presentation by Amy Klobuchar. There were only about fifty people present so it was almost an “intimate” event. She was impressed with Klobuchar’s personality. She had a self deprecating humor that appealed to my wife, as did her intelligence, her style, and her sincerity. She left the meeting with pins and bumper stickers convinced that Amy was the one. I was envious that she had found “the one” for her. I tried hard to say that Amy was the one for me, but I kept having the feeling that the shoe did not quite fit. I could not fake it well enough to convince myself.
My problem is that there is something that I like in all of the candidates, even the ones who are not doing well in the polls. Michael Bennet and Deval Patrick are polling below 1%. I like them both, and think that either one could do a credible job as president. But, I am drawn toward those who have the most progressive ideas, especially the ones with the boldest ideas about healthcare, the environment, and the economic inequity that undermines the health of so many people who suffer from the “diseases of despair.” I believe that the “electability” issue has made selecting “the one” difficult for me. I know that I am drawn most naturally to Sanders and Warren. I have also been interested in “Mayor Pete.” I had positive feelings for Harris and Booker before they dropped out. Castro was intriguing, but he is no longer in the race. My only problem with Klobuchar was that she is intentionally moving to the center and focusing primarily on her midwestern attitudes and demeanor as the reason to vote for her. I was not drawn to her analysis that she should be the nominee because she has a proven ability to attract voters in Trump’s base. That just did not seem to be the best fit for what I wanted to see in a leader.
I began to panic when we realized last week that we were going to be in Florida on election day. That meant we must get an absentee ballot. Was it too late? Would it be hard?
It’s not hard. Step one is getting a form to request a ballot. We did that on the Internet. Step two is to use the form to request a ballot by mail or in person. Both steps can be done in person at the town clerk’s office. We downloaded the forms and yesterday morning my wife stopped at the town offices and voted while out for a yoga lesson. I was getting nervous as I participated in a book group discussion that was meeting in my living room. It was easy for her since she was absolutely certain about who would get her vote.
I had the same feeling as I left the house to make my trip to the town office that I had as an eight year old when I climbed the diving tower at the town pool, and then realized that I needed to jump into the water sixteen feet below me or back off in shame and work my way around the other kids who were on the ladder waiting for their turn to jump. I jumped off the board all those years ago, and yesterday I took my ballot request form in hand and headed for the town offices.
It’s about two miles to the town hall. It sits in the middle of the town green and dates back to the 1830s when it was the Colby-Sawyer Academy. As I pulled out of my garage and headed up my drive into the glare of the midday sun of a cloudless winter day on my way to vote, the words of “Did You Ever Have To Finally Decide?,” were playing in my head.
About the time I passed the Post Office, which is about halfway to the town offices, an image of Elizabeth Warren popped into my head. It was not the image of her having a pleasant conversation with my wife at an early event in January 2019. It was the image that I remembered of her from a chance encounter on the shuttle from Boston to Washington shortly after her election to the Senate in November 2012. I was headed to Washington for a meeting at the offices of CMS in the Hubert Humphrey Office Building a few blocks from the Capital. I assumed that she was headed to Washington for some transitional activity. I was sitting on the other side of the aisle one row behind her. She is easy to recognize. I think she always wears the same uniform with a purple, baby blue or red jacket and dark slacks. She had a huge carry on case that was filled with large three ring binders. As soon as we took off she pulled out one of the binders and began flipping through the pages while making notes in the margins. She could have been an earnest graduate student. Things did not change much for the duration of the flight as she went through several of the binders making her notes. As I watched, I was glad that I had voted for her. She looked like she meant business. After watching her, I was certain that as my senator, she would be attending to my business.
About a half mile later as I turned on to Main Street and neared the town offices, it occurred to me that I was a victim of other people overthinking the situation. Why would I not vote for a person for whom I had great respect? Why would I not vote for someone whose thoughtful presentation on every issue was a testament to her focused scholarship and creative thinking? Why would I not vote for someone whose position on the issues according to a Politico analysis was similar to my preferences on almost every question? Why would I not vote for someone who Don Berwick was helping since I was an admirer of everything he had ever written or said, and whom I knew from personal experience to be someone deserving of canonization as a secular saint? The only answer that I could formulate was that I had become reluctant to give her my vote because some analysts said she was too strident and unelectable. Was her passion a liability? Was her intensity a turnoff to voters? Was her willingness to modify her position after consultation with advisors evidence of some weakness that meant I should run from her toward a candidate whose views were not as closely aligned with mine? As I parked my car, I decided that I should use my vote to support the person whose ideas and philosophy I most admired.
Beyond her history of being a passionate advocate for the economic rights of ordinary people, I believe that her natural empathy and integrity will bring a fresh breeze of dignity back to the office of president that will be a positive force at home and abroad. I most admire the emphasis that Senator Warren has put on healthcare and her focus on the inequity which is the primary driver of the social disadvantages that undermine the health of so many Americans. It is time for major changes in how we deliver care as Don Berwick described in an editorial in USA Today last October. Don wrote:
With costs rising painfully, insurance companies denying care and nearly 30 million people still uninsured, America desperately needs an honest health policy discussion. That’s why it has been so disappointing over the past several weeks to watch multiple candidates parrot right-wing attacks on “Medicare for All,” like claiming that it will greatly increase spending on health care or ringing alarms about raising taxes on the middle class.
The truth is the opposite: Medicare for All would sharply reduce overall spending on health care. It can be thoughtfully designed to reduce total costs for the vast majority of American families, while improving the quality of the care they get…
The case for Medicare for All is simple. It would cover everyone — period. Done right, it would lower costs, a lot, while letting us leverage health care dollars to respond to public health crises like the opioid epidemic, invest in disease prevention and modernize care delivery with telemedicine. And it would be simpler, easing the onerous burdens of billing for doctors, endless paperwork for all health care professionals, and navigating the confusing coverage system for patients and families.
It would be easy to say that I decided to vote for Elizabeth Warren because she was one of two chosen by the New York Times for their endorsement. The other candidate was Amy Klobuchar. As much as my wife and I respect the opinion of the New York Times Editorial Board, we made our choices on our own. I respect the opinion of the Times, but I chose to vote for Senator Warren because of her intelligence, experience, sincerity, personal courage, and her ability to continue to improve her position on a program or idea as she diligently studies the subject.
The next two weeks in New Hampshire will be intense. I can relax because I have already cast my vote for Elizabeth Warren and the Triple Aim. The next Democratic Debate is scheduled to be here in New Hampshire on February 7. I will be in Clearwater, Florida with friends that night. As I left the town office with my ballot waiting to be counted on February 11, I chuckled as I thought about those brave souls who will shuffle in the cold to town hall in Dixville Notch at midnight in two weeks so that they can vote first in the “first in the nation” presidential primary. They don’t know it, but we beat them and the folks in Iowa in the race to cast the first ballot! They will be freezing while I will be 2000 miles further south soaking up the sun in Key West on Presidential Primary Day. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had the luxury of “early voting.”
