Voting at Dixville Notch, and Other Disappointment

Since I am a political animal I have long been fascinated with the, “first in the nation” vote that comes out of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire.  Due to a curious New Hampshire law i.e. when all the registered voters in a precinct have voted the polls may close, the10 registered voters of Dixville Notch, started gathering at midnight on Election Day, voting as a group and then closing up.  They achieved notoriety as the first Americans to vote (they weren’t, but they had good press agents) and the media presented it as a grass roots event. In my naïveté I accepted this story as it was sold.  Here were the simple, down home folk of New Hampshire gathering around a wood fireplace in a cabin in the woods.  The whole thing was reminiscent of Calvin Coolidge being sworn in by kerosene lantern in his father’s Vermont home after Warren G. Harding died.  I ate that stuff up.  Americana at its simplest and best! 

Wrong!

This American version of the Red and Green Show does not take place in a cabin in the woods, or the village church, or a simple town hall.  Dixville Notch is the home of the Balsams Grand Resort Hotel.  This place is gorgeous, high end, dripping old money and filled with every luxury.  The wood-fired voting actually takes place in the, “Ballot Room” a paneled room just off the billiards parlor.  It is filled with photos of the Presidential candidates who have visited the Balsams (and probably had a darn fine time there).  There is nothing grass roots about this place.  What a shattered illusion!

Well, as it turns out, the first in the nation vote is not going to occur at the Balsams this year.  In May there was an auction to sell off most of the items from the hotel after its sale in December of 2011.  Evidently the economy has taken its toll on this very high end, but architecturally worthy resort.  The resort will be closed, still hoping for renovation and resurrection, on the November 6^th, Election Day.  Fear not, the voters will continue their tradition at a local ski lodge, but it won’t be quite the same.  I am sure the media will continue to present this in a slightly skewed fashion.  God forbid they indicate that our recovering economy isn’t off life support yet.  But I will never see this balloting as quite the piece of Norman Rockwell’s America that I once did. 

This is going to be an interesting election.  I notice that the Democrats are following up their tawdry ad about voting with our lady parts with an equally sleazy add where a young girl (complete with tattoos, because that is a good thing, right?) equates voting with losing your virginity and asks, “Which man do you want to have your first time with?”  What person in the Democratic committee though this approach was a good idea?  Did anyone run this by the First Lady and ask her whether or not she would like her daughters seeing this ad?  And this morning CNN played the first race card by asking voters why President Obama doesn’t have more support among white voters.  I think a better question would be, “Why did so many people vote for Obama last time but are voting for Romney this time?”  Maybe it has something to do with an economy that prompts the closing of the oldest resort in New Hampshire and loss of 300 local jobs. 

Vote Republican on Election Day, and keep the faith.