Living in New Hampshire during an election year can be frustrating.  Holding the nation’s Primary shines a spotlight on the state that isn’t normally so bright.  The Granite State can tolerate the scrutiny, though, and most television interviews with its residents don’t make me hide my face in shame – most of those “regular” people questioned appear to at least have some semblance of intellect in their speech, if not their lumberjack-inspired clothing choices and 1970’s hair styles.  New Hampshire was never really known as a trendsetter in the fields of personal grooming – we’ve got more important things to worry about, like Primaries.

But my frustration does not lie in the poor dress and freaky hairdos of my fellow Granite Staters, it’s placed squarely on the candidates – all of whom seem happy to either smear their opponents with rancor or regale you with stories of their own saintly deeds that made them the amazingly superior person they are today.  Shy they are not, nor can they be in such an important race, but we, the New Hampshire residents (and perhaps Iowa, the limelight-stealing bastards) have to put up with this mud-slinging contest a little bit longer than everyone else.  For nearly a full year before the actual election, political commercials flood the airwaves, both TV and radio – you can’t hear more than one or two regular commercials before hearing two or three political hopefuls crying, “I’m better than all of them – and I approved this message!”

I wish there were a better way for them to get their message across aside from repeatedly beating us over the head with it, but I’m not sure there is.  It might not be so bad if we could even believe what they’re saying – the way they tell it, you’d think they were all gods among men, performing selfless acts of kindness and generosity throughout their illustrious, yet humble, careers.  The first commercial reports how wonderful candidate A is and why candidate B falls short in every way - then the next exalts candidate B as angelic and candidate A as Satan incarnate.  In commercial number three, candidate C claims to be above it all until the polls show C to be surging – then A and B tag-team C, and it’s gloves-off.  Slanderous statements and enough mud getting slung around to build a pueblo village all while prattling on about their perfect home life and recounting their glowing political record (a record that the public has little opportunity to verify).  Every career politician gunning for a seat in the White House “speaks with forked tongue” which, if course, only lends to the frustration that New Hampshire citizens must suffer through every four years.  Who can you believe when they’re all doing and saying the exact same things?

Then there’s always one who truly is above the smear campaigns – an honest person with dignity and intelligence who wants to focus on the issues that really matter, like immigration, welfare, the economy, Iraq, Iran, healthcare – all the hot-button items.  But you can’t win this kind of race with those tactics.  Like the old saying goes, you don’t bring a pillow to a knife fight (okay, it’s my saying then).  Candidates who “fight fair” don’t win.  And two of these dirty fighters, the very same people who relentlessly bash the each other for months, will almost invariably choose one of their rivals as a running mate.  Last week A said B was a peddler of kiddie porn but this week he’s a great guy, just the sort to be the country’s vice president.  It’s always amazed me how everyone just seems to forget that these two pols had been hurling insults at each other for the past eight months.

I understand that this is all part of the democratic process, but it often gets out of hand and we all suffer for it, New Hampshire resident or not.  Perhaps there should be some kind of rules in place that disallows slander and put-downs in political races.  Maybe a rule that forces candidates to speak only of themselves, their record and their promises.  Unlikely, but I can dream – we all can.  Things won’t change any time soon (the flipside of the First Amendment that I hold so dear), nor will any of the other problems with our system of election.  For example, can someone explain to me why, if the popular vote dictates one candidate, another candidate can win the election?  It’s like, “The people have spoken – just ignore them, they’ll shut up.”  I understand the whole Electoral College idea, but it may be an idea whose time has passed.  In today’s world of technology, why doesn’t one vote count for one vote (loose chads notwithstanding)?  We don’t need the Electoral College any more, things have changed too much.  If we, the people, are supposed to elect our officials, then every person’s vote should count toward the total votes put forth for any candidate, not just tallied up and chunked together by state.  It makes a lot of people feel their vote doesn’t actually count as a full vote – like their franchise has somehow been diminished.