I witnessed several iterations of the event of a candidate filing to get onto the ballot for the New Hampshire primary.
It needs to be done in person. There is a $1,000 filing fee. There is some signing of things that take place in the Secretary of State's office, so crowded with people at the moment of filing that I cannot get up close enough to see what happens.
But here is the publicly viewable thing.
1. The candidate appears at a published time, surrounded with supporters.
2. The candidate enters the Capitol Building, charges up the stairway to the second floor Secretary of State office in the corner of a hallway decorated with portraits of NH governors.
3. The candidate pushes his or her way past a scrum of media people with notepads, tape recorders, and cameras, plus protesters with signs. The protesters with signs are about equal in number to the supporters, also with signs.
4. The candidate takes about five minutes inside the Secretary of State's office then stride out to the lobby of the building then across the street to one of several bars on the street immediately across from the building.
5. In the case of Kasich and Christie they came across a school field trip of what I am guessing are second graders. Both of them put on the special singsongy voice some people use with children. Kasich urged them to listen to their teachers, love their mothers, and to say prayers every day. Christie told them to listen to their teachers and to be fair and kind and inclusive to other people.
This is one of the things that is easier to show with photographs than to describe. What the photos do not show is that it is noisy, hot, stuffy, and disputatious as the climate change environmentalists and the Planned Parenthood activists are pressed against the candidates' supporters.
It needs to be done in person. There is a $1,000 filing fee. There is some signing of things that take place in the Secretary of State's office, so crowded with people at the moment of filing that I cannot get up close enough to see what happens.
But here is the publicly viewable thing.
1. The candidate appears at a published time, surrounded with supporters.
2. The candidate enters the Capitol Building, charges up the stairway to the second floor Secretary of State office in the corner of a hallway decorated with portraits of NH governors.
3. The candidate pushes his or her way past a scrum of media people with notepads, tape recorders, and cameras, plus protesters with signs. The protesters with signs are about equal in number to the supporters, also with signs.
4. The candidate takes about five minutes inside the Secretary of State's office then stride out to the lobby of the building then across the street to one of several bars on the street immediately across from the building.
5. In the case of Kasich and Christie they came across a school field trip of what I am guessing are second graders. Both of them put on the special singsongy voice some people use with children. Kasich urged them to listen to their teachers, love their mothers, and to say prayers every day. Christie told them to listen to their teachers and to be fair and kind and inclusive to other people.
This is one of the things that is easier to show with photographs than to describe. What the photos do not show is that it is noisy, hot, stuffy, and disputatious as the climate change environmentalists and the Planned Parenthood activists are pressed against the candidates' supporters. |
| Signs of Conflict. Supporter of Planned Parenthood vs. Supporter of Kasich |
 |
| Christie talks to the kids |
 |
| Kasich emphasizes nightly prayer |
 |
| Scene at the Secretary of State's doorway |
No comments:
Post a Comment