Thursday, January 29, 2004

New Hampshire Idyll Part Two

WTKK 96.9, as part of it's regular news-and-information bumpers has taken to running a Jay Severin screed decrying the sorry fate of Joe Lieberman in N.H.
Or maybe it's a clip from Sean Hannity, I can't tell the difference.
That nine percent total of Joe's clearly rankles the ranting right...they need Joe to do well enough in order to paint him as a sane moderate and thus cudgel his opponents as extremists.
The problem is, that he is but nine percent of a cudgel really....not enough there to do any serious damage.
The other ninety one percent of the "sane moderate" vote clearly decamped for sunnier climes and candidacies leaving the Hannitys and Severins of the world high-n-dry.
****
Oh how Boston talk radio tried to get in on this New Hampshire primary thing....Howie Carr was hyping the allegedly close exit polls in the Granite State all Tuesday afternoon.
I was going door to door for Kerry that day and was told by one nice enough GOP matron that "Howie sez it's gonna be close".
But in the end this dim-witted plan to callously use Lieberman as a weapon against the democrats came to naught....like everyone else's expectations that day.
Oh don't me wrong, it was (to quote Wellington) "a near run thing" in many respects.
At 5pm on Primary Day, the local headquarters I was in had the atmosphere of a bankrupt funeral home...the fear of a late Dean surge was palpable.
I grabbed a sign and disappeared into the night to do a last visibility at a local polling place...better to die on my feet and all like that.
Happily though, Senator John came through like gangbusters...
The best part is that Howie Carr, Jay Severin, Brian McGrory, Eileen McNamara, and Scot Lehigh were proven oh so completely wrong.
A wonderful soul-elevating feeling let me tell you.
No doubt the whole sorry lot will go back to their "Al Sharpton is a truth-talker even if we don't agree with him" routine.
Hell Imus was already hyping the Reverend on today's broadcast...in any other non election year Sharpton is nothing but a convenient target for the I-Man's repertoire of black face style racist jibes.
Alas though, now they need to build Al up as a serious candidate....first Lieberman now Sharpton.
Politics is truly hell.

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