Kudos to my favorite cartoonist, Jeff Danziger for applying some down-home humor and killer logic to snatching New Hampshire’s golden goose right out from under her nose.
declares Danziger in his delightful Washington Post op-ed, which was picked-up by Seven Days.
Danziger reasons that, since the Granite State has writ into law that New Hampshire shall hold its primary before that of any other state, the best way to outfox them and grab some attention for us, their infinitely more deserving neighbors next door, Vermont’s legislature has only to make it a rule that our primary will be held concurrent with the New Hampshire primary, no matter on what day that might fall.
In the spirit of generosity so characteristic of Vermont, Danziger suggests that it would be even better if Maine and Massachusetts followed suit with Vermont and held their primaries the same day. A regional primary would make all of New England much more relevant in the early days that shape campaign messaging.
After all, our old timers can be just as crusty and colorful for the national media as those of New Hampshire and we could sure use the extra commerce at our diners and truck stops.
Who knows? Deprived of their lucrative singularity in the primary department, maybe New Hampshire would rethink the whole “Live Free” thing and start trying to raise some revenue through…oh, I don’t know…taxes?
Probably not, but we can dream.
It would be nice to not have our governor looking wistfully eastward all the time.
I accidentally inserted a second “n” in his name (now corrected). ‘Don’t know where that came from. Alphabet soup?
Thanks to Jack for pointing it out to me.