Happy anniversary, New Hampshire!

February 9 will be the centennial of the New Hampshire presidential primary, first run in 1916. Early on, however, it had very little significance, since what the citizens were voting for were delegates, not actual candidates. It was only in 1952 that we gained the opportunity to name the man (they were all men) we preferred to see as president.

I just got my hands on the Republican ballot and am enchanted to see that in honor of the hundredth anniversary, no fewer than thirty candidates are willing to take on the job, and two of them are women. In addition to the names that are at least vaguely familiar to me, I note the following:

J Daniel Dyas
Jim Gilmore
Kevin Glen Huey
Walter N Iwachiw
Frank Lynch
Robert L Mann
Andy Martin
Stephen John McCarthy
Peter Messina
Chomi Prag
Joe Robinson
Richard P H Witz
Stephen B Comley Sr
Tim Cook
Brooks A Cuilison
Matt Drozd

I had to check out Ms Prag in order to determine her gender, as we are now required to say. (Sex seems to have become a dirty word, or at least a politically incorrect one.) In addition to running for president, she is an attorney and an author (How to Deal With and Defeat Gang Stalkers, 2014, and Cult of Mirrors, 2013). She is also kind of cute, at least when wearing sunglasses. We could do worse, and probably will.