The early reports have Jeb Bush as the top spender in the New Hampshire primary, at $1,200 per vote. I imagine that figure will shoot up as more bills surface, both for his campaign and his Right to Rise USA super PAC.

We’re a relatively small state. Places like Wyoming or Wyoming are geographically much bigger, with fewer residents. It’s a trade-off. Imagine what he’d rack up running in a big state like New York or California.

Well, I suppose $1,200 a pop isn’t out of line for what might be spent on a guest at a party in some of Jeb’s circles. As for a destination wedding in A-list society? We can only imagine. Maybe it would cover the flowers.

Even the most frugal of the Republican pack – Trump, at $40 a vote, and Cruz, at $18 – leave me shaking my head.

And this race is just starting. Remember, keep an eye on the money. The big donors consider it an investment, one they’ll get back.

As for the rest of us?

~*~

By the way, with Jeb and Marco Rubio, both from Florida, still in the running (more or less), anyone else wondering how’ll they fare in the primary in their own state? Would their support split (again) to allow Donald Trump and/or Ted Cruz to race to the top? Or for retired Buckeyes to swing it to Kasich?

What do the Floridians know about their guys that we don’t?

We’re all ears. And eyes.

The ballots for New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary listed more candidates than you’ve seen in the news. They always do. We’re bound to have fringe candidates who put up the registration money, garner some signatures, and wind up getting their names printed on the ballot.

For the record, they don’t do enough to prompt news coverage, so it’s not a matter of mass-media bias. You can’t report things that don’t happen. A rally? A town hall meeting? The opening of a campaign office? Nada, nada, nada.

On my way to vote, I reflected on a mailing we received from one wannabe who failed to meet the deadline in submitting his application and certified check and was dutifully rejected, so he was now appealing for write-in votes – along with a plea for $18 donations for his booklet.

Hey, this is as basic as it gets. Somebody who can’t manage a simple deadline thinks he can function in the Oval Office?

Next!

Still, you can’t keep up with them all. Maybe you knew of six or seven on the Republican side – maybe even nine or 10, if you add a few bounced from the televised debates. But 30? And then on the Democratic slate, if you expected just two plus the recently withdrawn Martin O’Malley, you were bound to do a double-take. I counted 28.

More jarring as I went down the list was my connection of first name Vermin with surname Supreme of Rockport, Massachusetts.

What?

After voting (for a more recognizable name), I checked in with my principal political advisor. Is Vermin Supreme for real? (It might have been a typo, after all – Vernon, maybe?) Who is that?

You don’t know? He always runs. He wears a boot for a hat.

Had to check that out. After all, I want to know how he stands.

Left or right, for starters?

Across the state, the voting stations are open for the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. For some campaigns, this is the do-or-die event. It separates most of the wheat from the chaff – or the other way around.

It will be a busy day for campaign operations. The effective ones will rely on their lists of likely supporters and see that these voters get to the polls. Knock on your door, give you a phone call, send a driver, if need be. As for the others?

The big hotels in Manchester are surrounded by camps of vans with huge satellite dishes – the television crews from across the country and around the world. They’ll cover the candidates’ big rallies as the results arrive in the evening, and then the winners and losers joined by their doting spouses on the podium. A few words, a wave, and they’re gone, off to the next game or at least the locker room, as it were.

Tomorrow will be a big letdown, especially for the campaign teams. For some it’s off to new assignments, and some newly formed, intense friendships will veer apart. For others it’s just curtains, without a bow. Packing up won’t be as orderly as you’d expect, as local offices close. The rush to the next campaign is already on.

It will be like the day after a wild party, with or without the hangovers. And then? The one thing I know is our phone will be awfully quiet.

Today brings the final push in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary season, drawing this unique trial in the American democratic experience to a climax. Even though I’ve already written of the state’s uncanny ability as a test market for White House hopefuls and of the event’s roots in the town meeting tradition each March – plus the widespread involvement of the public in political party work and decision-making – I’m still reminded of our editor-in-chief’s counsel all those years ago, You’ve never experienced anything quite like this.

The television camera crews try to relate some of the story, but I fear their very presence distorts it. It’s hard for a candidate to get close to the voters when there’s a convoy of nearly 100 video camera operators plus reporters in pursuit. I remember looking up in my nearly empty newsroom one Saturday afternoon and seeing their faces pressed against the hallway windows while a candidate was being interviewed by one of our own in a corner office, completely out of their sight.

This is my seventh round through the cycle – and my first thoroughly extricated from the newsroom. My first primary was a snowy one, and what I remember most vividly is the seemingly endless row of BUSH signs stuck in the white mounds down the middle of Elm Street through Manchester. For what it’s worth, we’ve had Bush signs for the majority of my presidential primaries here.

One change I’m seeing is a shift away from face-to-face campaigning, the kind that presents a fairly level playing field. Apart from a few big donors’ homes – and a very select guest list – the GOP has largely eschewed the living room presentations this season. The Republican candidates essentially have relied on broadcast advertising and phone calls (often of the robot variety) to bombard potential voters with canned messages rather than live, candid interactions. Let me add, the phone calls have been relentless since before Thanksgiving. Those that identify themselves on caller ID tend to be from out of state – California, Las Vegas, Louisiana, Washington state, Utah, and so on – or from Cell Phone NH. Some evenings, in the midst of our Advent devotional reading, we’d have to pause for three calls to go to voicemail, if they dared. (They didn’t.) And that was before the campaigning really heated up.

As I’ve previously mentioned, the primary encounters have taught me to take a close look at a candidate’s campaign organization. How well does it operate? Is it all paid staff or instead include a significant number of interns and welcome volunteers for canvassing and phone banking?

It has felt a little strange not having campaign volunteers camping out in our house this time. We’re in the midst of some major renovations – starting with the bathroom – but we have memories, mostly positive, of our guests from previous primaries.

Today, of course, is a candidate’s last day to sway undecided voters or to at least cast doubt over the rivals in an attempt to weaken their support. Things are likely to rise to an emotional pitch, perhaps even including tears.

And to think, we’re still nine months out from the national election, November 8.

It will be interesting to see how the races continue from here.

The over-sized mailers that have been jamming our postal deliveries during New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary have taken on a life of their own. As I’ve been describing, they’re large, on full-color glossy cardboard stock, and universally paid for by super PACs. And on the Republican side, they’ve usually been attack ads on the rivals, rather than credible support for the candidate in question, without any mention of who might benefit.

If it weren’t for their amusement factor, they’d be embarrassing. Well, sometimes they’re both. And, as a longstanding adage in the advertising business has held, a successful campaign can destroy a bad product. Just look.

In the past few days we’ve had not just one but two from Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise USA super PAC that are truly remarkable even if they demonstrate why he’s evaporating from the picture.

The first, a thick 6-by-9-inch card, features Marco Rubio atop a weather vane. I’m going nuts looking for definition of the publishing technology behind it – not quite a holograph, not quite 3-D, but my wife remembers it from her favorite Cracker Jacks prize – still, it shows the smiling candidate swiveling direction between east and west. I wind up feeling sympathetic for him. The message, “Just another Washington politician we can’t trust,” reminds me of all those years the Bush family was ensconced there – too many of them in the White House.

So this one is a keeper. We might even wish Rubio would sign it.

The second, though, is a printer’s delight.

What arrived as a 6-by-11-inch fat envelope opens up in sections. First comes a montage of portraits of a Muslim cleric next to Hillary Clinton next to Vladimir Putin, all under the banner, THE RISKS ARE TOO GREAT. Nothing subtle there. Except that Hillary might be strong enough to withstand either.

Come on, don’t be so hysterical. Stop playing with fear. Or yanking us around so stupidly. Have some respect.

As you continuing opening this piece, each turn presents a new charge. No matter how much I love paper and printing, this entry manifests what I soon view with gallows humor. You’ve got to be kidding. Four flips later, we wind up with Rubio, Kasich, Bush, Christie, and Trump in a line – all with red Xs except, well, you can guess. The man in the center. Oh yes, and all but Bush are in black-and-white photos, while Jeb, at center, is in full color. As if he thinks his A+ rating from the NRA is going to win votes from parents of schoolchildren. Ah, shoot. And you tell us you’re tough?

By this time, I keep looking at this specimen with true bewilderment. This mailing, a cross measuring 17-by-28 inches fully open, is an elaborate production, requiring a tool-die cutter and wasting about half of the sheet of glossy stock paper. Can’t keep thinking of how much it’s costing. As much as I admire the artistry of the production, I also realize that the previous times I’ve encountered such marketing excesses have been for products I could never afford. In fact, they were rarely directed at consumers, much less me, but rather the retailers or distributors who might carry the line or at decision-makers who might impact the eventual image. Usually, for that matter, as high fashion.

That alone is telling. So these are not really aimed at average-Joe Americans like me. They’re aimed at Bush’s super-rich, super-PAC investors.

We have no idea where these are being printed, either. There’s no USA printers’ union bug, which should be no surprise, so are we to assume they’re being cranked out in Mexico or China or Libya? Highly likely.

But that’s not where this particular mailer ends.

Inside the envelope is a 4-by-4-inch box with a rubber band at the core, where it’s designed to pop out on opening. This box is supposed to be a die, as in a single dice, with each of the other candidates as a wild but unacceptable choice. “Don’t roll the dice” is supposed to be the message.

Except when we opened the package, that didn’t happen. The spring didn’t deploy properly.

All this, from the candidate who spent $2,800 for each vote he received in Iowa. We suspect the figure will be much higher here in New Hampshire come Tuesday.

~*~

While we’re at it, since Jeb has so much money to burn – or is that Bern? – we’re wondering what he’s bought in the Super Bowl ad lineup tomorrow. Any predictions?

Or any wonder why he’s tanking?

I, for one, wouldn’t trust him with spending. Not a dime.