Your Man in Manchester
I’m sitting five feet from Newt at the moment. Sean Hannity, too. I’m here in the hustling, frantic epicenter of New Hampshire, where you can’t walk into the hotel lobby without running into a journalist yelling into a cellphone. I tell you, there’s a surge here. It’s not a seismic shift but it’s bigger than a groundswell. Then there’s the cameramen with big blocky bags, squat grizzled fellows with a wildman glint in their eyes, the sound person trying to get the boom mike through the revolving doors. Big sign at the front desk: FOR UPDATES ON CONVENTIONAL WISDOM DIAL #87. Up in the room, there was a basket of fruit from the Romney campaign, and a box of hardtack and crackers from the Paul campaign. No time for that, though - off to the bar where everyone’s meeting to plan how we’re going to handle tomorrow.
Apparently there are three homey, down-home, home-style cafes where real New Englanders meet for some regional biscuit covered in regional sauce - the locals call it “biscuit sauce” - and that famous New Hampshire coffee, which the locals take with a little cream and some sugar, unless they don’t. They’ll give us the view from the ground, as only an old cranky guy who posts as “OldFart48” on Free Republic can give it. Since there are only about 16 people in the entire state we have to divvy them up and spread the quotes around. After that there will be drinking in the old journalist tradition, with war stories (“You were at the fall of Phnom Penn? Well, I survived two downsizings and one modified buyout - one year’s salary with half-bennies for two, and let me tell you, we fought hard for dental, harder than I’ve ever seen”) and then one young guy will go outside for a cigarette, and everyone else will trail along and try to sniff the smoke, just to remember when.
You could believe any of that, but I recommend that you don’t. I am five feet from Newt and Sean, but that’s because they’re on TV in the hotel bar. But the part about being in New Hampshire is true; I’m here on special assignment for National Review and Ricochet, and spent the day on planes of diminishing sizes to get here. Minneapolis to Newark - you’d think it would be a major run, no? My jet was the size of the jet Arnold Schwartzenegger takes to get to his usual jet. After a layover in Newark I took a plane whose size and vintage suggested it had previously spirited Victor Lazlo out of Morocco, but it got me to Manchester, and here I am, reporting.
So far New Hampshire on the eve of Primary Weekend is remarkably calm and unsullied by journalists. There are campaign signs, though. On the bus from the airport, the entire boulevard was filled with small signs for someone named “Romney,” each two feet tall, as if attempting to convince the highly-prized midget vote. Interspersed with the parade of mini-Mitt banners were signs for other candidates. If you read them aloud as you drove - “Mitt Mitt Mitt Newt Mitt Mitt Paul Mitt Mitt Santorum” - you’d sound just like the inner monologue of a primary voter.
Everyone else in the shuttle worked for an airline, and was heading back to crash before rising at 3:05 to “prep for a local.” The leader was a white-haired captain-type guy with a gravelly voice and a commanding aspect. “That’s a lot of signs,” he said. “Man, that’s a lot of signs."
“They call me six times a day,” said the shuttle driver. “Romney, Paul, Newt, everyone, six times a day.”
“Does it work?” said the captain.
“I’m an independent,” said the driver. Smart man. There are tips to be gleaned at the end of this journey, when we palm him a buck or two for hauling our grips out of the trunk. Be neutral until you sense the direction of the wind.
The flight crew started talking about Michele Bachmann, and I steeled myself. This could go south fast. But they liked her. The captain, the younger navigator, the two stews (both of whom were in their late 20s, tall, and gorgeous) - they all liked her at the start, didn’t like the way things went, but liked her at the end. Her rep is intact. I ventured that I was from Minnesota, and knew Michele a tad, and had two reasons for wishing she would have won: she would have been the first president who knew my name, and the first president shorter than me. The men in the party liked Ron Paul’s constitutional fidelity, but regarded him as a blithering spithead when it came to foreign policy, and that made him unthinkable. There was no regret in the sentiment, either.
It was interesting to hear everyone speak well of a Republican in public, because most people in the strangers-throw-together-in-a-shuttle-bus situation approach such things with great care and oblique maneuvers, like octopus foreplay. I gave the driver the tip and said “vote Huntsman, so when the primary’s over you can say you were the one.”
Anyway. I’m in the Nutfield Bar, which is the term most media people would use to describe the GOP field. the people at the end of the bar are talking about “the producer in the truck in Iowa,” which is a guaranteed sign of media people. I’d wander over and chat, but media people are so damned cliquish. The guys next to me mentioned “Iowa” as well, and I made a conversational foray about the Boston Globe Huntsman endorsement, but it was hey yeah great shutup you’re not our tribe.
Every media tribe is a special thing unto its own. Newspaper people agglomerate and bond; TV people keep their distance from the rest of the losers.
The bar is now crowded with people covering the campaign, and from the sound of it, they’re all TV people. One fellow just breezed in, looked around and said “Where can I plug in? Where?” It is VERY IMPORTANT that he get some juice for his machinery. He’s with the crew at the end of the bar, and he’s full of the story that the Mitt count in Iowa may have been 20 votes too heavy. Could change things.
It won’t, but there’s something heartening about the fact that it might. If Santorum got more votes, then the narrative changes - hey, a win is a win - and the machinery of the press recalibrates and proceeds with the newly stamped-out narrative. And so the fate of the leadership of a nation of 300 million swivels on twenty marks on twenty pieces of paper made by twenty folks in a state in the middle of the place all the clever coastal types call Nowhere.
New Hampshire isn’t Nowhere, by the way. You can get here fairly quickly from New York. So it’s got to be Someplace.
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
Now I can rest assured. James Lileks is keeping them honest. Say James, can you ask the candidates who their favorite superhero is? No, wait. A 9 year old boy has done that. How about their favorite sitcom. We know which one Mitt likes (Lucy in the chocolate factory) so you can skip him. And don't bother with Huntsman. No one cares. Seriously, I am looking forward to a humorous view of the craziness that is the primary. Thanks for being there for us, man.
Jun '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
James: This is just the kind of reporting I like. Hard-hitting, analytical, and avoids odd cultural references.
Keep 'em coming. [Though I would suggest you avoid the prejudiced short jokes: they're "unacceptable." And I mean that in the same sense that Obama finds the Iranian A-Bomb project "unacceptable."]
Could you fill us in how many Waffle Houses you see in NH?
Edited on Jan 6 at 9:34amJul '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
Say hi to most of my family up in the Manchester area. You'll easily be able to spot them, the obnoxious ones from Jersey.
Oct '11
Re: Your Man in Manchester
Cool! No Bleat today, but we get this - and it was awesome! I had to stifle some of the louder belly-laughs, here in cube-ville.
Thanks - Hope more is coming!
Jun '11
Re: Your Man in Manchester
Thank you, James, for some of the best primary coverage I've read to date. Laughing hard at the absurdity of the whole campaign process feels so much better than the cognitive/emotive response I've had so far -- known in psychiatric literature as "pissing and moaning."
And this line -- "If you read the [the signs] aloud as you drove - 'Mitt Mitt Mitt Newt Mitt Mitt Paul Mitt Mitt Santorum' - you’d sound just like the inner monologue of a primary voter" -- is simply brilliant.
Keep the posts coming.
Jul '11
Re: Your Man in Manchester
My goodness you can write well. Even my liberal mother next to me was in stitches. I am one hour from you but alas a prior restraining order keeps me away from Huntsman. He's just so controversial in his stances on something, I think. There are rumored Snowy Owls on Plum Island and gawking at them seems more family friendly and productive.
Dec '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
Victor Lazlo and Ilsa took a DC-3 out of Casablanca. The same kind of plane Ricky Nelson took his final flight on. Just something to cheer you on your flight out of Manchester.
Re: Your Man in Manchester
"It was interesting to hear everyone speak well of a Republican in public, because most people in the strangers-throw-together-in-a-shuttle-bus situation approach such things with great care and oblique maneuvers, like octopus foreplay."
Well, it's January 6 and Lileks has already composed Ricochet's line of 2012. That, my friends, is talent on an industrial scale.
Aug '11
Re: Your Man in Manchester
tabula rasa: James: This is just the kind of reporting I like. Hard-hitting, analytical, and avoids odd cultural references.
Keep 'em coming. [Though I would suggest you avoid the prejudiced short jokes: they're, and I really mean this, "unacceptable."]
Could you fill us in how many Waffle Houses you see in NH? · Jan 6 at 8:43am
Edited on Jan 06 at 08:44 am
Zero.
Aug '11
Re: Your Man in Manchester
Isn't Plum Island in Massachusetts?
Nov '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
I agree on that line. A brilliant encapsulation of our experience.
Jun '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
Douglas Kimball
tabula rasa: James: This is just the kind of reporting I like. Hard-hitting, analytical, and avoids odd cultural references.
Keep 'em coming. [Though I would suggest you avoid the prejudiced short jokes: they're, and I really mean this, "unacceptable."]
Could you fill us in how many Waffle Houses you see in NH? · Jan 6 at 8:43am
Edited on Jan 06 at 08:44 am
Zero. · Jan 6 at 9:21am
How can a state not have Waffle Houses? I thought it was some kind of federal mandate.
Edited on Jan 6 at 9:32amMay '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
Our Man in Manchester...
Oh, wait....
May '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
I am very old, so may have some of the details wrong, but in 1988 I was visiting Rob Long, who was living and teaching English literature to callow teenagers at Phillip's Academy and on a whim, we hopped in his green '86? Renault sedan (plus ca change n'est-ce pas?) and raced up to Southern New Hampshire to try to catch a pre-primary rally for... Jack Kemp?
Hard to remember because we arrived only in time to see some discarded placards. So this go around I shall live vicariously through your posts James, trusting that Rob will experience all the home-spun, hard-tack glamour first-hand this time.
Edited on Jan 6 at 9:37amJun '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
Troy Senik, Ed.: "It was interesting to hear everyone speak well of a Republican in public, because most people in the strangers-throw-together-in-a-shuttle-bus situation approach such things with great care and oblique maneuvers, like octopus foreplay."
Well, it's January 6 and Lileks has already composed Ricochet's line of 2012. That, my friends, is talent on an industrial scale. · Jan 6 at 9:10am
I'm a little unclear on this metaphor. Wikipedia was unhelpful and I am not, unlike George Costanza, a marine biologist. Can James elaborate a bit more on this "octopus foreplay" thing?
May '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
Dag nabbit! I was in NH until just days ago, but had to come south for an event tonight.
If I were there, I'd vote for Santorum with both hands and all my heart.
Edited on Jan 6 at 9:44amMay '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
tabula rasa
Troy Senik, Ed.: "It was interesting to hear everyone speak well of a Republican in public, because most people in the strangers-throw-together-in-a-shuttle-bus situation approach such things with great care and oblique maneuvers, like octopus foreplay."
Well, it's January 6 and Lileks has already composed Ricochet's line of 2012. That, my friends, is talent on an industrial scale. · Jan 6 at 9:10am
I'm a little unclear on this metaphor. Wikipedia was unhelpful and I am not, unlike George Costanza, a marine biologist. Can James elaborate a bit more on this "octopus foreplay" thing? · Jan 6 at 9:37am
The Internet is a wonderful thing.
Re: Your Man in Manchester
I mean not to detract from all the hard work and effort I'm sure James Lileks puts into his writing, but I'm convinced he has had delivered by God a holy splash of extra talent for spinning yarn the rest of us have not received.
I enjoyed this report like I did Seinfeld episodes - enough to see it again and again in repeats, while lacking myself the words to describe exactly what it was about if asked.
If there was a symbol on my keyboard for bowing to you James, I'd strike it, with equal parts admiration and jealousy.
Re: Your Man in Manchester
Why, thanks! Much obliged, folks.
Aug '10
Re: Your Man in Manchester
I always thought Waffle House was a Southern thing. Douglas Kimball is right, according to the official Waffle House locator, there are none in New Hampshire.
Don't worry, the candidates will be in South Carolina soon enough. And you can look forward to all the Waffle House and BBQ shack photo ops.
I, for one, am looking forward to a Lileks-brand discourse on how each candidate is a different flavor, just like every state's version of barbecue sauce is different.