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When not to drive to New Hampshire
Apr. 6th, 2003 10:14 pmYesterday, I went to the New Hampshire Democratic Party Convention. Getting there was an adventure in itself, which is at the end of this entry.
The convention brought speakers from eight campaigns; none of the actual candidates showed up. The Howard Dean and John Kerry campaigns by far had the most people attending; the groups looked about equal in size, though in my biased view, the Dean group was a bit larger, and louder. The collected speakers stayed very positive; there were no overt attacks by one candidate on another. There were a couple references to voting against the war resolution, but that was the most "attack" anyone got.
After the various candidates spoke, I got a surprise: Ed Rendell was the keynote speaker. He's currently the governor of Pennsylvania, was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee for a year, and was the mayor of Philadelphia who turned Philly around from a disaster on the order of Detroit. His first term as mayor was chronicled by Buzz Bissinger in A Prayer for the City, which is a worthy read if you're at all into local government or interested in trying to understand the dynamics of urban blight. Governor Rendell's speech covered some of the key problems with the Democratic Party: the Democrats aren't as good at getting out their message (going so far as to say that the Democrats lost big in 2002 because they didn't stand for anything, which brought cheers from the crowd), and aren't as good at raising money from their base, which is strongly related to getting out a message. He was enthusiastic about the field of candidates, and encouraged everyone there to support whoever wins the primary, even if it wasn't their particular candidate of choice.
Once the keynote was over, we packed out; the remaining business was for delegates only. Guests with large signs would have been unable to participate, and likely bored -- but were welcome to stay.
The adventures getting there and back again:
My passenger (another volunteer) was 6'5". He was not going to fit in my Miata. So I decided to take my wife's car, a Honda Civic hatchback. This was a very good idea, as the ground (and the car) was covered in ice. The streets had been plowed, but were still slushy. After taking much longer than expected to scrape off the Civic, I picked up my passenger and we were off. The roads were dicey at best on the way up; most were still slushy, and wet/cold enough that driving fast was Not A Good Idea. On 128/95 N, we saw the first (and worst-looking) of three accidents: a car across the two middle lanes, at about a 45 degree angle from straight. Its hood and windshield were caved in (though the windshield was still in one piece, it was only barely so). It looked like either it had flipped, crushed the front section of the car, and come to rest right-side up, or something else had flipped on top of it. There were assorted emergency vehicles already there, and it didn't look like there was anyone in the car. The passenger compartment appeared mostly intact, so I hope the people who had been inside were OK.
After picking up 93 N, driving was fairly smooth, if a bit slow. However, the road went completely to hell once we crossed the New Hampshire line -- it looked like the road had been salted, but not yet plowed. I was in a lane that had seen no traffic, and suddenly I had no traction. Fortunately, the highway was straight, and just laying off the gas got me slowed down enough to be able to get enough traction to change lanes into one in better condition. Shortly after this, we saw accident #2: a van that had freshly spun off the road into the median. The people were still in it, and looked OK; the van appeared to be intact, and had clearly not flipped on its way in. I figured that they would probably be able to drive back out, once the adrenaline faded and they calmed down, so I kept going.
Shortly before reaching Manchester, the relatively clear lane I was in suddenly ceased to be clear, and I lost traction again -- and again succeeded in slowing down enough to regain traction and shift lanes without anything unpleasant happening.
The roads on the way back were much improved; they'd been plowed repeatedly, and had warmed, so they were merely wet, instead of frozen. Even so, we saw a car that had spun out, apparently into a guard rail, shortly after leaving Manchester. Another car was already stopped, presumably to help; I kept going and made it home in one piece.
I suspect that both times that I lost traction, I would have had a much harder time recovering if I'd been in the Miata -- and I probably would have lost traction a couple more times as well. Wide tires and rear-wheel drive make for poor snow driving.
Long day.
The convention brought speakers from eight campaigns; none of the actual candidates showed up. The Howard Dean and John Kerry campaigns by far had the most people attending; the groups looked about equal in size, though in my biased view, the Dean group was a bit larger, and louder. The collected speakers stayed very positive; there were no overt attacks by one candidate on another. There were a couple references to voting against the war resolution, but that was the most "attack" anyone got.
After the various candidates spoke, I got a surprise: Ed Rendell was the keynote speaker. He's currently the governor of Pennsylvania, was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee for a year, and was the mayor of Philadelphia who turned Philly around from a disaster on the order of Detroit. His first term as mayor was chronicled by Buzz Bissinger in A Prayer for the City, which is a worthy read if you're at all into local government or interested in trying to understand the dynamics of urban blight. Governor Rendell's speech covered some of the key problems with the Democratic Party: the Democrats aren't as good at getting out their message (going so far as to say that the Democrats lost big in 2002 because they didn't stand for anything, which brought cheers from the crowd), and aren't as good at raising money from their base, which is strongly related to getting out a message. He was enthusiastic about the field of candidates, and encouraged everyone there to support whoever wins the primary, even if it wasn't their particular candidate of choice.
Once the keynote was over, we packed out; the remaining business was for delegates only. Guests with large signs would have been unable to participate, and likely bored -- but were welcome to stay.
The adventures getting there and back again:
My passenger (another volunteer) was 6'5". He was not going to fit in my Miata. So I decided to take my wife's car, a Honda Civic hatchback. This was a very good idea, as the ground (and the car) was covered in ice. The streets had been plowed, but were still slushy. After taking much longer than expected to scrape off the Civic, I picked up my passenger and we were off. The roads were dicey at best on the way up; most were still slushy, and wet/cold enough that driving fast was Not A Good Idea. On 128/95 N, we saw the first (and worst-looking) of three accidents: a car across the two middle lanes, at about a 45 degree angle from straight. Its hood and windshield were caved in (though the windshield was still in one piece, it was only barely so). It looked like either it had flipped, crushed the front section of the car, and come to rest right-side up, or something else had flipped on top of it. There were assorted emergency vehicles already there, and it didn't look like there was anyone in the car. The passenger compartment appeared mostly intact, so I hope the people who had been inside were OK.
After picking up 93 N, driving was fairly smooth, if a bit slow. However, the road went completely to hell once we crossed the New Hampshire line -- it looked like the road had been salted, but not yet plowed. I was in a lane that had seen no traffic, and suddenly I had no traction. Fortunately, the highway was straight, and just laying off the gas got me slowed down enough to be able to get enough traction to change lanes into one in better condition. Shortly after this, we saw accident #2: a van that had freshly spun off the road into the median. The people were still in it, and looked OK; the van appeared to be intact, and had clearly not flipped on its way in. I figured that they would probably be able to drive back out, once the adrenaline faded and they calmed down, so I kept going.
Shortly before reaching Manchester, the relatively clear lane I was in suddenly ceased to be clear, and I lost traction again -- and again succeeded in slowing down enough to regain traction and shift lanes without anything unpleasant happening.
The roads on the way back were much improved; they'd been plowed repeatedly, and had warmed, so they were merely wet, instead of frozen. Even so, we saw a car that had spun out, apparently into a guard rail, shortly after leaving Manchester. Another car was already stopped, presumably to help; I kept going and made it home in one piece.
I suspect that both times that I lost traction, I would have had a much harder time recovering if I'd been in the Miata -- and I probably would have lost traction a couple more times as well. Wide tires and rear-wheel drive make for poor snow driving.
Long day.
