Kerry, Frogs, and New Hampshire

Over on National Review Online's The Corner, they've been blogging up a storm, talking bout tomorrow's New Hampshire primaries. A reader commented about the influence of French descendants on the New Hampshire results and that as a result John Kerry was actually campaigning in French.

I thought the commentator made a good point about Kerry's choice of language since French is regularly spoken through a good portion of New Hampshire (and parts of Vermont).

The national press hasn't really picked up on the importance of this fact and I can only think its because they don't travel too far from the Massachusetts border. Few ever make it North of the White Mountains where French is as common as Spanish in Miami. The same French trappers who founded Quebec settled the state and their descendants still speak the same French dialect as the Quebecois.

It is also vitally important to remember (and again, the mainstream press from New York and Washington certainly is too dense to pick up on it) that in New Hampshire, many people get their news not from Boston but from Montreal and/or Quebec City.

Since moving to D.C. (from the Upper Connecticut River Valley of Vermont), I've been disturbed at how the mainstream press misses this important aspect of New Hampshire life. This year, as in the last election, the focus seems to be on the liberal twits who've at least the sense not to give their money away to the fools running Taxachussets, and populate Southern NH and focus attention at Boston.

New Hampshire's independent, libertarian, spirit does not come from these transplanted Massholes, and while I have few good things to say about Kerry, at least he seems to have the good sense to know what appeals to them.