By MICHAEL DAVIDOW, Radio Free New Hampshire
Tuesday is the primary, which means one thing around here: our friend Chloe Schlagobers, political correspondent for the New York (bleep), will be heading to South Carolina that night. In fact, she has already packed her bags. She can hardly wait to go. Let’s check in and see how she is doing these days.
Moi-meme: Hi, Chloe.
Chloe Schlagobers: Hi, Michael!
MM: How have you been? What’s shaking in Chloe-ville?
CS: I just got these new Uggs. It’s cold up here! But first. Can you believe what happened in Iowa? Those pig farmers should be ashamed of themselves.
MM: I know what you mean. They certainly managed to take something simple and make it pretty complicated. With the help of some over-priced computer program slapped together by a company owned and operated by a handful of former Clinton campaign aides. It’s as if knowing the right people, is more important than doing quality work, when it comes to making money off the Democratic party!
CS: I know! Completely! Wait. What?
MM: But in the end, you know. Putting aside that nonsense. Iowa actually did what it was supposed to do. It held some sort of vote. It showed everyone that Biden has real problems, and that Bernie has real legs. And now the rest of our country gets to have its say, too.
CS: Biden was supposed to win, though. Hillary finally let him run, and look what he did. He lost.
MM: Imagine that.
CS: Thank god for South Carolina, though, which looks more like America than Iowa and New Hampshire does, and which will put everything back in order. Phew. I can’t wait to be surrounded by my own kind again! By which I mean reporters.
MM: But wait. Didn’t that happen in 2016? And didn’t that prove to be a losing strategy? All those southern votes don’t matter in the general election. Those states remain beet red, and the electoral college remains stacked. What gets said and done in New Hampshire and Iowa must still be understood as important.
CS: Which is totally unfair, how nobody explained that to Hillary, back when it could have helped her. When did they invent that electrical thing, anyway?
MM: Chloe, you sometimes sound as if you and your friends plan things out in places like Washington and New York City, then you get upset when people disagree with you.
CS: Because we know what’s best, Michael. Anyway, isn’t it great about Mayor Pete, who represents the future, plus his high school? And Amy Klobuchar, who represents Minnesota? I think? And have you noticed that Amy’s clothing now fits much better, plus she seems to be brushing her hair more often?
MM: Chloe.
CS: [satisfied smile.]
MM: Was that you?
CS: I took her to that outlet mall in Merrimack. But anyway. Squirtle.
MM: Yes.
CS: America loves real candidates, who are real people, who do real things. Like get angry at people, and lose their tempers a lot, and yell when they get mad. Our own version of Trump, but ours will be right all the time, instead of being wrong all the time. Biden tries to do that, but I think he just scares people. Probably because he’s old.
MM: I always thought we loved people who transcended their hard upbringings and became sensitive and intelligent human beings, who never forgot that things were tough for most of us, but who could still hold their own in the circles of the rich and mighty. Which is slightly different from people who fetishize their own rough edges.
CS: Hmm. That’s strange. So what do you think New Hampshire will do on Tuesday? And do you know any good restaurants in South Carolina?
MM: I don’t, but it should be easy to find one in Charleston. As for your first question, let’s say this. New Hampshirites are against the radical right, against the radical left, and against the radical middle. Like other people of good faith around our country, we seek a politics based on kindness and basic human decency, one that leaves plenty of room for people to disagree on the details, but places a premium on responsiveness and flexibility. And I actually borrowed that formula from the late great Walt Kelly, an American poet from the 1950’s. So it must be good.
CS: Never heard of him.
MM: He probably never made it to Princeton. He mostly wrote about wildlife.
CS: Mayor Pete for Congress?
MM: And Governor Sununu for President. Take care, Chloe!
CS: See you in the funny papers!
Michael Davidow is a lawyer in Nashua. He is the author of Gate City, Split Thirty, and The Rocketdyne Commission, three novels about politics and advertising which, taken together, form The Henry Bell Project. His most recent one is The Book of Order. They are available on Amazon.
Views expressed in columns and opinion pieces belong to the author and do not reflect those of InDepthNH.org.