Our New Beau, the Big O

I've received this latest report straight in from the trenches of the Live Free or Die State! Primary fever is on the boil!

New Hampshire (my beloved home state) has become engaged in a full-blown, mammy-jammin' love fest with our new beau, the Big O. What a man! The entire populace has gone stone-cold bonkers over a chap we heartily overlooked last summer, and the frenzy is building like a bonfire! Grown men are weeping in the streets; the sap has stopped running in the maples; drunken ice-fishermen are debating his middle name; bitter Clintonistas are biting their own spleens in vitriolic envy; fake "Obama Ears" are all the rage; crowds of rowdy youth are chanting "Fired Up Ready to GO!" in every little village hither and yon; and even the bitter cold and crotch-high snow of last week is forgotten in our frenzy to embrace this trend and make history. The poll numbers keep jumping like a cat on a stove, and, as Dan Rather pithily put it in a rare moment of clarity, we don't know whether to "wind our watches or howl at the moon." Most of us are cleverly planning on doing both.

New Hampshire residents live in fear that Hillary will be at the door on Monday, wanting to have a lengthy "policy lunch" while her randy husband talent-spots the teens in the house--yuck! Make no mistake: this is Obama's time, and everybody feels the undertow of what is known as "the madness of crowds," after the legendary book of the same title.

Senator Obama may be selling classic feel-good flim-flam, such as hope for the future of our country, and the notion that we can all work together--but man, it feels good. For the moment, at least, from Dixville Notch to Nashua, and from Freedom to Hanover, this funny old state has been stood on its ear, and we're loving it.

Best to you--
Dan'l Webster's Ghost