Free Dirty Sexy Politics by Meghan McCain

me, or restraint. Every day there felt unblemished, pure, organic, and wholesome—and every second made a mark on me in a powerful way. New Hampshire is where I fell in love with politics, head over heels.
    The beauty of the state is incomparable, to begin with. I had seen it in autumn, for some early campaigning before primary season, when the landscape glowed with color—red and orange and yellow—and the sharp sunlight was golden. And later, just before the New Hampshire primary in January, it was bitter-ass freezing, so cold that my body was screaming, but, at the same time, it was so magical, so clean, an amazing winter wonderland.
    Growing up in Arizona, we weren’t a skiing family and never went to snowy places. When Christmas vacation came every year, my parents took all of us to an island in the South Pacific for a week, a sunny resort where my mom and dad had been going for years, since before we were born. And although I had gone to college in the Northeast and had certainly experienced snow, I had never really seen it fall like that outside of New York City. I had never seen the way it settles on a small town, or covers a forest in white. For me, there is nothing like it.
    And the people of New Hampshire are just as amazing. Unlike the Iowans, who didn’t care much for my dad, the people of New Hampshire couldn’t get enough of him. Maybe they just couldn’t get enough of politics. They are more active and involved in the political process than quite possibly any other population in the United States. Because New Hampshire is “first in the nation”—meaning that it is the first state in the nation to hold a primary—it can really dictate how the season of primaries and possibly the election will go.
    In other words, their votes truly count, and they feel it. In a day and age when it is so easy to become jaded or apathetic, and stay away from the democratic process of electing a president, the people of New Hampshire relish electing them. At times their enthusiasm was so intense, it was palpable and infectious. To this day, whenever I start to give up hope about America, I think of New Hampshire and the people there.
    The town halls in New Hampshire start early, and in December 2007—a month before the primary—there were four of them, crammed with life and excitement, and a poignant small-town charm. One of them was attended by a white goat named Binx that everybody knew. (There are zillions of photos of Binx online, and Beanie Babies of him.) It isn’t unusual for a voter in New Hampshire to attend several town halls before deciding how to vote. People take their time and really ponder the issues—and hear firsthand how each candidate responds to a good grilling. My dad used to tell a joke on the stump about a barber in New Hampshire who asked another barber what he thought of Morris Udall—a one-time candidate for president also from Arizona—and the second barber said, “I don’t know, I only met him twice.”
    The venues of the town halls change—from VFW halls to school auditoriums—but they all follow a similar format. A politician arrives, gets on a small stage with a microphone, and gives a speech about why he is the best candidate and should earn the people of New Hampshire’s vote. After that, it’s an open field. People stand up and ask whatever question they want. And ask they do. A town hall in New Hampshire can last several hours—something that used to drive my father’s staff crazy. The questions vary wildly, from issue to issue, but share an underlying motivation: People need to be heard. They have problems and concerns and worries, and at the end of the day, they just want somebody to hear them.
    It’s no secret that President Obama is better than my father at delivering a speech. But nobody is better than my father at conducting a town hall. He loves the unplanned quality of it—the raw, uninhibited, unrestrained atmosphere. In the insanely controlled environment of