Editor’s note: Jeff Danziger is a cartoonist and writer who has penned images and stories for Vermonters for more than 30 years, including for VTDigger.org.
[M]r. John Margolis casts doubts and statistics on the idea of Vermont holding a presidential primary on the “same day” as the new Hampshire primary, an idea prompted a few weeks back by Sen. Anthony Pollina. The original idea came from me in a lightly toned column in the Washington Post, Jan. 11, 2015. I like to think I am responsible for something in this life. The column ran in the Times Argus and others, and was responded to by an unnecessarily sour rebuttal by a New Hampshire columnist. She was not content to provide a counter-argument with some facts and historical analysis, but descended into slagging Vermont, its people and our politics in general.
Mr. Margolis helped the sour-tempered New Hampshire writer along by pointing out that having a Vermont primary on the same day as the New Hampshire primary would not be a good idea because it would (A) cost money, (B) make no political sense and (C) the press, being in his opinion lazy and shallow, would ignore it. It would also mean that the political parties would fight the idea because they already had their schedules set. All of these ideas are a little bit accurate, but only a little.
I suggested that the New Hampshire laws that make it first in the nation are based on the income derived from all the attention and hotel rooms and meals needed by the press. I further suggested that the New Hampshire Legislature has often sought schemes to make money, witness their history selling lottery tickets long before anyone else did, selling cut-rate liquor on the highway, collecting a toll on an interstate highway until the federal government made them stop. They use all these funds, collected from non-citizens so they could avoid paying the full cost of life themselves. I mentioned that the only other state that took this beggar-all-thy-neighbors approach was Delaware, a dark dank cubbyhole of a state with a history of indefensible corporate shennagins.
Vermont is a more liberal state, and a same day primary would counter the right winginess of New Hampshire, and its tight-fisted, misery-loving, suspicious, self-centered legislators, whose record of reactionary law-making is shameful. Naturally, I wish them well.
Mr. Margolis says that a Vermont same-day-as-the-first-in-the-nation primary would cost money. But it wouldn’t cost any more than our current primary, so where is the objection? He also claims that it would make no political sense. But that’s true only if you think New Hampshire’s primary makes no political sense. Vermont is a more liberal state, and a same day primary would counter the right winginess of New Hampshire, and its tight-fisted, misery-loving, suspicious, self-centered legislators, whose record of reactionary law-making is shameful. Naturally, I wish them well.
Last Mr. Margolis thinks the press is too lazy to cover a Vermont primary and a New Hampshire primary. But the press loves a good fight, and this would a story whether Vermont voted contrary to New Hampshire or the same as New Hampshire. As far as the press being lazy, Mr. Margolis must be thinking of the Gannett chain.
I doubt the Vermont Legislature could get the work done to bring about a same-day primary in time for 2016, and I wouldn’t suggest they try. But if it were tried for 2020, it might be a major change in the game. The real issue isn’t whether Vermont challenges New Hampshire, but whether a regional primary comes out of the attempt. Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut should join. Even Rhode Island, yes, even Little Rhody, bless their crooked little hearts.
It’s a good idea, an idea whose time is coming, and most of the objections have been answered. If the Vermont Legislature begins to look at it seriously, and the press stops being lazy, we might be able to negate New Hampshire’s inordinate influence on electoral politics in this country. Such a change would expose the real reason New Hampshire defends its scheme with such desperate twists of law. As I suggested, it’s the money. So all in favor of money, signify by saying aye.
