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.

The influence of surveys on political voting has long troubled me, and from what I’m seeing, it’s getting only worse.

On the candidates’ side of the equation, an escalating reliance on their privately acquired marketing research (and that’s what this really is, marketing, as in advertising) leads to tailoring their message to likely voters’ expectations. Prejudices, anyone? The campaign applies the responses to focus on establishing a positive brand and image quite apart from character and qualifications, even before sussing out the negative labels to stick to competitors in the race. This plays right into opportunistic office seekers and their key backers, and soon the public really has no way of trusting the campaign’s stated positions. How much is merely a mirage or out-and-out smoke and mirrors?

The media, meanwhile, have increasingly focused precious time and space on the horse race numbers rather than examining the policy implications and records of the rivals. The latest polls, not the campaigning itself, take over the coverage. It’s too much like sports without athletic skills in action.

And then, on the voters’ side of the equation, we have the question of whether the survey projections actually alter the very pulse they purport to be measuring. For one thing, supporting a loser takes courage. Give ideologues credit for sticking with candidates who reasonably have no chance of winning. But for many voters, the polls can play into self-doubt. What do other people see in the leading candidate that I don’t? Popularity, in other words, builds on itself.

Of course, there’s always the danger of overconfidence. Why bother to vote if so-and-so’s going to win anyway? Even if its your favorite. Me, I usually lean toward the upset, if possible.

Meanwhile, the ongoing presidential primary drive has the pollsters’ influence running rampant.

As we saw in Iowa, Republicans hoping to stop Donald Trump looked for a candidate running closest behind him and then did all they could to add some momentum to the chase. Is Ted Cruz the guy they really want? Well, what he did have was some numbers.

Among the Democrats, the projected percentages have many Bernie Sanders’ fans deliberating whether to vote their heart now, despite the possibility of wounding Hillary Clinton’s chances in November – or of casting their primary vote for her as the party’s best chance of retaining the White House come autumn.

Being practical in the polling booth does start to wear thin. It’s enough to wonder how you’d really vote if you didn’t have those surveys in your face.

We’re getting a flood of mailings decrying tax increases attributed to some of the governors seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

The blanket charge against them fails to determine just who’s paying what, much less where the money’s going. Maybe it’s on all the rich? Maybe these are actually user fees? No telling.

Some of us are far more inclined to pay a tax for some service where we see a direct benefit – education, parks, highways, snowplowing, health care – than for those that profit special interests, the ones who hire high-powered lobbyists with an eye on the public purse. A subsidy of some kind. Maybe a tax break or outright credit.

Until we hear otherwise, let’s simply assume that those who are claiming to have cut taxes have also cut public services in some way. Remember that possibility if you’re standing in a long line to renew your license or are waiting for the fire department to arrive or wonder why nobody’s picking up the phone at town hall.

The blanket charge gets an emotional reaction, of course – we’d all like to escape paying our bills. But that’s not how the world works. Just ask any businessman. Or even those candidates making the accusations against their rivals.

Some of the profiles in circulation are concluding that Donald Trump is skilled not as a negotiator, despite his claims, but in his ability to read an individual or entire audience he’s addressing – and then tune his presentation to their psyche and cater to their dreams.

That has me seeing Trump as a chameleon. Just look at how easily he changes colors to match the environment.

In many of his big deals, he may have gotten his way – but the financial consequences have often been disastrous. Plaza Hotel, anyone?

Joe McQuaid, publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader, caught that in the headline to his front-page editorial yesterday: “Con man Trump.”

He then sees another twist: “Nothing he says or does will bother his most committed followers. But if they thought about it, they might realize that Trump is insulting them just as he insults everyone else.” As for the anti-politician role? “Trump is as slick and oily a pol as any we have seen. But when he doesn’t get his way, as with [last night’s] TV debate, he reveals the real Trump.

“He is a schoolyard, rich-kid bully who thinks he can push around networks, newspapers, and opponents while conning voters at the same time. We have seen that con before …”

So, we put the two impressions and what do we get? A con-meleon?

One place where the Bush family might claim a legacy in American politics is in its reliance on casting an opponent in a negative light rather than advancing what one member called “the vision thing.” Not just a rival’s record, either, but spouses and children have been targeted as well. Just ask John McCain about the gossip spread in South Carolina back in 2000.

So here we are, 16 years later with another Bush in the running and our mailbox keeps getting attacks on his GOP opponents, most of them funded by his Right to Rise USA super PAC. Well, in one flyer, it was just three of them – Donald Trump somehow keeps going unnoticed. In the flyer, a photo shows Gov. Chris Christie from behind, to emphasize his obesity – while conversing closely with President Obama, a touch intended to inflame the hate-Obama core of the Republican base. It’s rather heavy-handed, actually.

The brochure does try to say something positive about its candidate: JEB, Tough, Tested, Ready. As we watch him in action, though, we have reason to doubt anyone in the field sees him that way.

As I view the waves of negativity, I keep thinking of individuals who are fountains of gossip – mostly dirty stuff, or at least juicy. Not what you’d want to hear about yourself. But then, when you mention this person to a mutual acquaintance, the response is something along the lines of “You should hear what they say about you.”

And that’s how I’m feeling about Jeb. Just what is he saying about US, behind our backs? Or worse yet, what would he do?

The negative approach just doesn’t build trust, does it?

As Donald Trump deflects blows to his populist demagoguery, we can feel the panic setting in on the Republican Party.

For the true believer in the “conservative” cause, it’s the recognition that the Donald’s anything but consistent in his ideological framework.

For the pragmatic problem-solver, it’s the recognition that the Donald’s business dealings have been idiosyncratic, piecemeal, erratic, flamboyant, egotistical – anything but a steady, reliable hand on the helm.

For the party leaders, it’s the recognition they can’t trust him, especially when it comes to their side of the operation. Just where does he stand, anyway? And what about all those out-and-out lies?

It’s the rogue elephant running through the circus, indeed.

Discussion of a brokered convention is percolating in the background. Keep any single candidate from winning on the first round of voting, and the delegates are free to wheel and deal. That’s the key, of course, thwarting a first-round victory.

The crux of this approach, in the minds of some strategists, is to start over – prevent any of the current candidates from clinching the nomination and then rally around a fresh face. But who?

The name of Paul Ryan, the new Speaker of the House, has surfaced. It’s a fascinating twist, especially if he can find a way to hold his own members of Congress in sway.

It’s a long shot, of course. And it would come at the end of what’s shaping up as a long, ugly primary campaign.

The red lawn sign – three of them, actually, in a pile of snow in front of a suburban store for lease – caught our attention:

JEB!

It’s that exclamation point, actually. Ever since one turned a pioneering Rodgers and Hammerstein musical into a 1943 Broadway hit, advertisers have looked to that imperative period to jazz up an otherwise flat word or concept. In the case of Oklahoma, the bright touch suggested the backyard of Texas or Arkansas might actually have something romantic or charming. And so it was Oklahoma! in a time of World War II, with a story and music to match. Back when the genre was often labeled American musical comedy, in fact. And think, one of the main characters was Jud – sounds like Jeb? – in a rivalry with Curly. Could that be the Donald?

Back to those lawn signs, though, where I keep seeing something else happening. The strong stroke on those exclamation points keep bending, and what I read is this:

JEB?
JEB?
JEB?

Any answer seems to get lost in the sound of traffic.

By the way, does anyone else see Ted Cruz and think of Patrick Buchanan? Even before he opens his mouth?