Reading Robert Frost this month, I come across New Hampshire.
"...
I met a poet from another state,
A zealot full of fluid inspiration,
Who in the name of fluid inspiration,
But in the best style of bad salesmanship,
Angrily tried to make me write a protest
(In verse I think) against the Volstead Act.
He didn't even offer me a drink
Until I asked for one to steady him.
This is called having an idea to sell.
It never could have happened in New Hampshire.
The only person really soiled with trade
I ever stumbled on in old New Hampshire
Was someone who had just come back ashamed
From selling things in California.
..."
New Hampshire had a primary at the time Frost wrote this, but it wasn't until 1952, when Eisenhower soundly defeated Taft, that anyone paid it much attention. Frost paid a little attention. A little further down he notes that,
"Easton goes Democratic, Wilson 4
Hughes 2"
But that was back when the New Hampshire primary could have been a painting by Grandma Moses.
Robert Frost died in 1963, long before the 24-hour-newscycle began to forage in New Hampshire. But I think we can imagine his response.
"...
How did he get so? (Rich was understood.)
In dealing in "old rags" in San Francisco.
Oh, it was terrible as well could be.
We both of us turned over in our graves.
..."