From a friend in Vermont - re the N.H. primary and the election campaign

Meanwhile, as you luxuriate amid palms, snowy egrets and the occasional sandhill crane, are you withstanding the campaign onslaught in good fettle? I really don't know what fettle is, but I hope it's good since that's the way our culture seems to want it. People we know in New Hampshire are evidently getting back to rationality, but many are still snarling about the barrage of phone calls from 'pollsters,' campaign volunteers, pranksters and weirdos who laid siege to the electorate up until the primary. One man said he hit on a response that seemed to give callers pause. This was a demand that the caller pay for any answers he gave. But, alas, we innocents have no idea. Callers seemed initially to be taken aback but the more aggressive got over the hurdle promptly by saying absolutely. This would be followed by the question, and then the answer that the money would have to be paid first, and then further negotiations and then, sometimes, the caller's exasperated statement that he or she would just put the man's choice down as McCain or Ron Paul or Buster Keaton or whomever. And so on.

The fact that the pollsters and the media got it wrong was food for post-election media commentary anyway. It didn't slow any of them down. Au contraire, it seems to me the media have simply racheted up the volume of words while showing themselves to be good sports who can admit their mistakes gracefully. So, I guess we've officially entered the era of the endless campaign. This chapter will end Nov. 4 and the new one will start Nov. 5. The President will be just another college president, a fund raiser. Executive decisions will be made by deans in the form of department secretaries whipped into line by successors to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Our government will have become the perfect marriage of democracy and totalitarianism, and almost no one will be the wiser.

Yea. Rah, rah.