Archive for January 5th, 2008
My First New Hampshire Primary
I registered to vote in 1999 in New York state as a Republican. Turns out, affiliating myself with the Republican Party was a grand mistake, not because of what that party was about to unleash on us, but because I did not, not in 1999, and do not reside anywhere in the vicinity of the political right. I registered as a Republican (sigh…) because my twelfth grade, Government teacher told my class that there was no Democratic Primary in New York State.
Perhaps I misheard my teacher, perhaps he misspoke, or perhaps, as one of my high school friends contends, he manipulated me for the sake of the G.O.P.; there is, in fact, a Democratic Primary in New York. Not that my mis-registration really mattered; I made no effort to vote in the 2000 or 2004 primaries and voted in those year’s presidential elections, both times for a losing candidate, through absentee ballot.
Soon after registering to vote in New York in 1999, I moved to Massachusetts for college. I didn’t know it then, but I’d spend most of the next eight years in the Bay State, long enough to convince myself I’ve earned the right to root for the Celtics, Sox, and Patriots, even against any NY’ers complaints. But it wasn’t until the 2006 mid-term election that I registered to vote in MA, this time as a Democrat. That decision came only after hearing that a very weak Republican gubernatorial candidate was running a very, very nasty advertisement against a very impressive Democratic candidate. The Democrat, Deval Patrick, won “in a romp,” though my vote wasn’t enough to earn Boston undergrads the mid-term election consolation prize to end all consolation prizes … booze in grocery stores. (Big liquor-stores helped defeat “Question 1.”)
