Quiet Night in Durham NH

I live three blocks away from the Whittemore Center, the University of New Hampshire's hockey rink, so I ducked out early from my monthly DFA meetup to see the pre-debate hoopla for myself.

Even though we are fighting a war in Iraq, and even though the candidates are raising an alarm about "illegal aliens" and (with the exception of Huckabee) competing to see who will be the toughest about securing our borders, there was very little being done to prevent a terrorist from walking literally right up to the gate.

I live three blocks away from the Whittemore Center, the University of New Hampshire's hockey rink, so I ducked out early from my monthly DFA meetup to see the pre-debate hoopla for myself. At 8:25pm, Main Street in Durham was filled with the glare of TV lights and there was a cheerful crowd of young people on the sidewalk. The crowd of students had nothing to do with the debate at all: they were lined up to buy textbooks from the Durham Book Exchange. The TV lights were illuminating Youngs Restaurant, a coffee shop which is normally closed this time of day, but which FauxNews was borrowing to use as a TV studio. One of the extras in Youngs was an old friend who theoretically should be my enemy, former state Senator and longtime GOP activist Jim Rubens.

Ten minutes later, and two blocks to the west, there were lots of signs hanging near the Whit: many from McCain and Romney but most from generally liberal advocacy groups. The Republican signs lacked the "union bat." However, there were very few people outside the arena... they were already inside. Although there were metal detectors at the gate, security was surprisingly lax. Even though we are fighting a war in Iraq, and even though the candidates are raising an alarm about "illegal aliens" and (with the exception of Mike Huckabee) competing to see who will be the toughest about securing our borders, there was very little being done to prevent a terrorist from walking literally right up to the gate.

Only two activists were still waiting outside the arean at 8:45 pm: JoJoseph C. Knorr from Old Orchard Beach, Maine and former Congressional Candidate Gary Dodds, who were displaying an Middle East Memorial wall with the names of the thousands of brave men and women who have their lives while (unlike Romney's and Bush's children) fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Of course, Dodds and Knorr had nothing to say about illegal immigration... they seem think that our nations' biggest problem is that we are bankrupting ourselves fighting a pointless war.