The New Hampshire primary is now over, and I am almost caught up on sleep. There will be no more skipping class or homework to attend candidate town halls or journalist forums, something that's become almost routine these last two years. No more law school style sleep schedules, at least until grad school. This editorial cartoon sums up my own feelings, as well as those of several other voters I've talked to today. The turnout was amazing - over half a million votes cast, and 18% of them from youth voters, 5% more than seniors! It really is different being here in person. It's one thing to watch it all on TV, but quite another to actually be surrounded by the cameras, signs, and mayhem. My guess is a politically apathetic citizen could ignore most of it if they tried - you can turn off your TV, decline the street corner camera's interview requests, and avoid all the rallies. But try as you might, you can't get away from the sign wars or the screaming activists unless you take Mike Huckabee's advice: "Be sure you vote tomorrow, unless of course you're not going to vote for me - than take the day off, drive to Massachusetts, enjoy some Maine chowder!"

I criss-crossed the state meeting candidates, journalists, and voters; talk about a college education. I saw firsthand the power of the media: had Richardson, Biden, or even Edwards been treated differently over the past year, this could be a whole different ballgame. I learned the value of retail politics: Meeting and seeing the candidates really does make a difference. If I were anywhere else, my support for Biden would have been real but less enthusiastic, and my post-Iowa choice would have been Edwards, not Obama. I confirmed that water is better for soda for energy and hydration, but learned that Powerade is even better than water. (Gatorade supporters, you're a bunch of Naderites and aren't welcome in my comment sections!)

On a more academic note, the results dumbfounded me. The remaining undecideds were mostly female and must have broken to Clinton; there's no way other way to explain how so many scientific polls could have been so wrong. Perhaps there was a last minute shift of leaners influenced by Clinton's debate performance and emotional moment that came too late for the polls to catch - a Dewey Defeats Truman effect. I still trust properly conducted polls, but something clearly went wrong, and I'll leave it to the experts to debate about what.

Yesterday I posted an interview with the leader of Dartmouth for Obama. To help balance that out, here are interviews with his Richardson and Edwards counterparts, Leonard Lewis and Brice Acree. The Clinton leader is now full-time Clinton staff, and I wasn't sure who else to contact. I was literally walking to the interview with Lewis when I got word about Richardson's exit; Acree doubled as pseudo-staff for the Edwards campaign.

My camera only shoots three minute videos, so Brice and I ran out of time before I could ask him his favorite memory of the primary. His response was classic: "Of the primary day? The half hour I slept!" He added that it was always fun to sit back and watch the Edwards phone bankers, whether it was the guy who talked about his wife's "thunder thighs" or the high school intern who would insist to voters, "Hillary IS corporate America!" Ironically enough, walking to grab some coffee after the interview, Brice and I checked our campus mailboxes, and he found a handwritten letter from a student at St. Olaf urging him to vote for Richardson. The letter was impressive, as the student was using Dartmouth-specific lingo like "blitz" instead of "e-mail." I remember writing those for Dean, but the targeted knowledge was nothing like this Richardson kid's.

As we head to South Carolina, Nevada, and the rest of the country, I want to sound a note of optimism: things are getting better. I have criticism for all four of our candidates, but I have praise for all four, as well. Without Hillary's 1992 efforts, health care might not be on the table today. Thank God Edwards is sticking it to corporate America and giving voice to the majority of the world's citizens. Dennis Kucinich has proven to me that he is a man worth taking seriously, with ideas worth consideration. And where would we be without Obama's voice of reason countering the bitter partisans on cable TV? Even the Republicans give me hope - assuming they don't nominate Ghouliani. No, none of their candidates are as strong as ours, but with expanded Democratic majorities to keep them in check, McCain and Huckabee may just be worthy of our respect, albeit not our votes. Maybe my optimism is a bit much, and I can't blame anyone who calls Dr. Cox their hero, but tonight, I am happy for America. Thanks for indulging me in these local dispatches, and I now happily slink back to my weekend role. Yay justice, and yay democracy!