The Worst Form of Government Possible: Except for All The Others

Plaice Cove, Hampton, February

Scott Brown will try to take Jean Shaheen's seat in the United States Senate this Fall. The man who wore pink leather shorts on his first date with his wife may just win.  Now Mad Dog  has nothing (much) against a man who wears pink leather shorts, as long as he wears them on a first date, but really, is this lightweight going to waltz into a seat in the United States Senate because enough ignoramuses in New Hampshire, who have not been personally hurt by Obamacare will vote for Brown, because they have heard Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and the whole chorus of Tea Party hyenas howling how terrible Obamacare has been for the unnamed, mostly imagined masses?

Hampton, March Storm 

And the Democrats, good as they are at managing and parsing date about the electorate, are facing obliteration because they have not managed to get out from behind their computers and make a visceral connection with the electorate, which is to say with Joe Sixpack and Josiah Whitebread Yankee, who reads the Manchester Union Leader or Foster's, if he reads any newspaper at all, but mostly he just listens to Greta and company on Fox News.

Clearing a Driveway on Garbage Collection Day

Mad Dog loves his adopted state. He has real affection for the cynical Yankees who are his neighbors, but he despairs of their lack of sophistication when it comes to Washington and their place in the global marketplace.

He despairs, that is, until he thinks back to his experiences canvassing door to door last election for President Obama. Wandering up a driveway, toward a house, with all the wrong indicators in place--work van in the driveway, American flag hanging out front, dead deer strung up from a branch on a nearby tree, Country music blaring from a radio as the man of the house, with a half drunk six pack of beer next to his truck, and he is deep over the front fender, working beneath the hood of  his truck.  He finally notices Mad Dog , when he is  about three feet from him. Mad Dog looks  around for the Pit Bull dog, who he knows will be bounding out from behind some shrub, hungering for Mad Dog's vital organs. 

Mad Dog is wearing his  "Obama" hat.

The weekend mechanic is holding a wrench like a bludgeon, and he looks at Mad Dog's  hat and at his clipboard, which Mad Dog  holds as a shield.

He says, "I can guess what you want."
"Just want to ask if you are planning to vote Tuesday."
"Yeah, I'll be there," he says. "Wouldn't miss it."
"Fine," Mad Dog  says and turns to go.
"Don't you want to know who I'm going to vote for?"
"That's okay," Mad Dog saya. "I just have to check off I've talked to you."
"Obama," he says, looking at Mad Dog  from the corners of  his eyes.
"Really?" Mad Dog  cannot help blurting. "Hasn't been an easy first term."
"I figure with the shit sandwich they handed him, and no help to eat it, he deserves some more time."

So there you have it.  Independent thinking in Hampton, New Hampshire. Doesn't show up at the polls often enough, far as Mad Dog is  concerned. But it can happen. Maybe it will happen this Fall, if lightning can strike twice in the same town.