My View from NH - Counting Down to January 8

Earlier this year, I discovered a high school friend was blogging, and I've followed her adventures with delight, thinking "I should be blogging too."    For the last couple of years I've been considering blogging, but seeing her blog pushed me to go ahead and do it.  There is certainly no time like the present, especially since I live in NH -- and we are mere days from our Presidential Primary.

For readers who don't live in NH - and let me add that I am not a NH native - this is a fascinating place to be during the primary season.  Of course, it seems that season never really ends.  We've already been hearing from potential candidates exploring bids for 2012, and the current crop of candidates is still very visible on every street corner (I live just outside Manchester, one of the states largest cities.)   

When my husband walks in the door from work, for the last couple of months the first words out of his mouth have been "how many pollsters called today?"  You see, I work at home most of the time, so we have three residential phone numbers, one business phone number, and two cell phone numbers.  The pollsters have lots of ways to reach us, and reach us they do.  I must have done something to get high on their list (could it be that I'm still undecided about who to vote for, but I'm 100% certain I will do my civic duty and vote?)  For the last month, we've averaged a poll a week.

Unfortunately, all polls are not created equal.  Recently I participated in a UNH/AP poll that was very professionally done, and took about five minutes.  A week later, I got a call from a polling organization I didn't recognize - that was my first warning.  It started out as a standard poll, but when I said I was undecided the person on the other end of the line started pushing me for a commitment to some candidate (Honestly, I'm really undecided right now.)  Then she started reading all these statements about "if you heard a candidate says he will do this, but we could show you he did this instead, would you be less likely, somewhat less likely, more likely, or somewhat more likely to vote for him?"  And it wasn't just a few statements, I made it through about ten of them before I told her I was not completing this particular survey.  

So while the rest of the country is counting the hours until the New Year, we're counting the hours until January 8, when all the CNN trucks and candidates pull out of our state.  Of course, the primary is incredibly early this year, thanks to attempts by other states to move forward in the process.  So we've had to deal with politics over the holidays, not a particularly jolly topic.  

But in just ten more days, our state will return to normal - as we welcome all the 2012 contenders.....