The 2016 election offered followers of both parties a variety of candidates to sort through. But in any election year, the party that is not in power will present a field of candidates to primary voters, all vying to make it through the long culling process to reach the nomination.
As a resident of New Hampshire, I have felt responsible to make what seem like good choices for the overall direction of national policy. This involves at least two components: the policies presented by each candidate, and the overall electability of the candidate.
Electability is the harder one to judge. As a result, I have lowered its importance, because it will emerge as the primary process crosses the country. In the earliest contests, it's much more important to pick a candidate whose policies you like, to let the party leadership know what you want to see in their final platform, no matter who is the standard-bearer.
People who fancy themselves as more politically sophisticated will try to make more nuanced choices. On the Republican side in the earliest voting states, I'll bet none of those people would have chosen the candidate who ultimately took the White House under their banner. The 2016 election turned on promises and bravado.
Promises and bravado are not good indicators of competence in office, but elections are guided mostly by emotion. Early voters should vet the policies that are presented. Understand as you do so that they will evolve for various reasons throughout the election, and through the distortion of political pressures once a candidate becomes an office holder and tries to force things through the sausage machine of actual legislation.
New Hampshire is a place to vote Utopian. Ask for it! Demand it! Realize that you probably won't get it! But make the statement because you have the chance, and the attention of the nation is -- briefly -- upon you.
