PRIMARY COLORS
LAST, JONATHAN V.
Casual PRIMARY COLORS For a reporter, going to New Hampshire in primary season is like going to the ballpark: No matter how many times you’ve been, you might see something you’ve never seen...
...I didn’t either...
...and the audience cheers, partly in self-satisfaction, partly in derision at the rubes who think babies are not choices...
...We were there to watch the encounters on big-screen televisions, while the actual debates took place in the building next door...
...But here’s the oddity: Sitting at the table in front of me, veteran Beltway Boy Mort Kondracke spent the entire night carefully watching the debates and taking notes, longhand, on a reporter’s pad...
...This is an example of nobody hearing each other...
...He fi led to get on the ballot the same day as Hillary Clinton, and you could spot him with his megaphone outside the rallies of the major candidates...
...A superior clown-candidate, a media star not resting on his laurels, a calm and civil politician: a mere week’s worth of wonders in New Hampshire...
...The audience, a bit stunned, didn’t quite know what to make of this...
...I saw the best nut-ball protest candidate in a long time, a fellow named Vermin Supreme...
...The crowd began booing lustily, and suddenly Obama turned on them...
...Sometimes the intruders are the “community of peacemakers” who call themselves Code Pink, sometimes they’re LaRouchies...
...This year, the Granite State provided more than the usual incidence of the unusual...
...Barack Obama was in town, fresh from his Iowa triumph, and the circus was in full swing...
...till midnight...
...JONATHAN V. LAST...
...Casual PRIMARY COLORS For a reporter, going to New Hampshire in primary season is like going to the ballpark: No matter how many times you’ve been, you might see something you’ve never seen before...
...The Obama partisans desisted once more...
...But at the Obama event, something extraordinary happened...
...At which point Obama turned on them again...
...And that’s hard, too—standing in the midst of people who don’t agree with you and letting your voice be heard...
...The anti-abortion chanters continued, and Obama tried to engage them...
...the speaker tosses off a barb or two...
...And that is part of the American tradition we are proud of...
...He gave them time to make their point, and eventually they were led away...
...Unlike most protest candidates, Vermin seemed to be in on the joke: His campaign manifesto attacking the tyranny of the twoparty system read: “No longer should people have to choose between the vanilla and chocolate of a two-party system...
...Those people got organized to do that...
...security escorts the demonstrators away...
...Let me just say this, though,” he said...
...Possibly dipped in chocolate or maybe with sprinkles...
...This sort of thing happens all the time at political events...
...From my point of view, it would be much better if Barack Obama were willing to help protect the lives of the unborn...
...After silencing the crowd, Obama turned back to the protesters and said he appreciated their point and would be happy to talk with them afterwards if they’d let him fi nish his speech...
...There’s no need to boo,” he chastised them...
...The protesters chanted “Abortion is abomination...
...I watched as big name media types spent the night kibitzing or surfi ng the web, all but oblivious to the event they were supposedly covering—no surprise there...
...Obama lost his place in his speech and stared up into the balcony, looking to see who was interrupting him...
...The protesters continued, and the crowd, thinking Obama simply didn’t want them to be negative, tried shouting them down, chanting “Obama...
...Just about everyone in America (except the voters) was ready to escort him into the Oval Offi ce, and he was being followed by crowds of adoring supporters, many of them working journalists...
...The other surprise came in a little jewel of a 100-year-old opera house in Rochester...
...America has a new choice...
...The crowd cheered wildly as the demonstrators were taken down the back staircase by the local police, and here Obama cut through the applause to lecture them one fi nal time...
...A chocolate-vanilla swirl...
...When anti-abortion folks disrupt an event, the response is usually the same: The pro-abortion audience heckles the banner-wielding protesters...
...A few minutes after Obama took the stage, a group of about a dozen protesters in the balcony interrupted him, chanting, “Abortion is abomination...
...Still, his treatment of those protesters—and especially his treatment of his own supporters— spoke to his intellectual seriousness and his temperament, both of which seem to be fi rst rate...
...Hold up,” he commanded...
...Obama...
...Vermin Supreme...
...Then at the debates at Saint Anselm College, hundreds of us journalists were penned up in a gymnasium from 4 P.M...
...For the folks who are opposed to abortion, I understand your position, but this isn’t going to solve anything,” he said plaintively...
Vol. 13 • January 2008 • No. 19
