New Hampshire Primary Tuesday - Obama Is NOT Running Unopposed

NOTE: This is not an endorsement of any candidate on the Democratic ballot, although I highly recommend truly Pro-life Dems in New Hampshire send as strong a message as possible to Obama.

Yes, you read that right. Obama's attempt to get the 2012 nomination for the Democratic candidate for president is NOT going unchallenged. In fact, there are 13 other candidates on the ballot besides The "Not So Great Dictator" .

Besides Barry the 0, the only other name most people might recognize is Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue. He is intentionally running as a Democrat to challenge Obama, especially on the subject of abortion. & he is using his campaign to run ads on TV that show exactly what an abortion does to an unborn child. I know that won't sit well with some people, but as someone who supports getting those pictures out & supports what other groups do in that area, I have no problems with it.

The Republican side is pretty crowded as well with a record total of 30 names on their ballot.

There are some interesting names & some real characters running for the nomination in both parties.. Among the interesting names are Bear Betzler (R) & Craig "Tax Freeze" Fries (D).

But this is perhaps my favorite as far as his name & character is Vermin Supreme. Here is a segmant from the from Lesser-Known Presidential Candidates Forum held @ St. Anselm College in New Hampshire on 19 Dec 2011 to let you see what he is like (& yes, that is a boot he is wearing):

Getting on the New Hampshire ballot is fairly easy. All you have to do is be registered as a member of the party that you want to run for the nomination of. Then you fill out a short declaration of candidacy form, file it with the NH Secretary of State's Office & pay a $1000 fee when you do. But what about the person who wants to run, but is broke? If you can prove indigence then there is an alternative.  After doing so, you file"with the secretary of state 10 primary petitions from each county of the state signed by registered voters of the party, who are domiciled in New Hampshire, together with one written assent to candidacy pursuant to RSA 655:25." (Since NH has 10 counties I assume that means 1 from each county.)
For anyone who IS interested, here is the entire debate. 1st up are the Republicans, then the Democrats have the stage. You will note that the major candidates were invited as well, but for whatever reason, decided to give this forum a pass.

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An interesting development in the Republican campaign, & I am not refering to the 2 televised debates, was reported on Sunday.  According to the a Suffolk University/7NEWS poll released on Sunday, Ron Paul surged to 20 percent while Romney dropped to 35 percent. (Complete results here) If this is a sign of how things are trending, then Romney may not have the runaway victory he is hoping to have to justify his self crowning as the nominee on Tuesday nite. I can't see anything that will cause him to be kicked out of 1st place, but anything can happen in politics. & this campaign has had plenty of evidence of that.