New Hamphire Primary and Election Laws

Let us assume a concrete case so that we can be specific. You will have to shift it around for other circumstances but the principles will not vary. We will assume partisan local offices and we will assume that your party is not in power. The only difference the latter assumption makes is that in such case it takes a primary election and a final election to gain power; in the other case, when the Machine proper wears your party label, the primary election is the only real struggle and the final election may be a pushover. First, you and your friends take over the reform organization of your party. This is about as hard to do as beating up on a butterfly; you just join up and start running things by the techniques described elsewhere in this book. You get new members for the existing clubs and form new dubs where needed. For all practical purposes you behave as if the anemic older organization never existed; you form a new political organization and start getting ready for your first primary fight That is your practical, factual behavior; your symbolic behavior is something quite different ...»