In which Primo spends the afternoon campaigning at another county fair and discovers that The Party is involved in more chicanery, which shocks him but does not shock me at all because I think most politicians and their minions are scum

I decided not to go with Primo to the Lafayette County fair on Saturday because 1. I have a life and 2. I have a life. Sure, that life consists of making potato salad and macaroni and cheese and reading and going to the farmers market, but it's my life and my Saturday.

He drives 90 miles to the fair. Pays to get in. Buys food while he is there.

The campaign is paying for none of this because the campaign does not have any money.

He returns with some deep fried s'mores, which I do not mind, and with gossip.

Primo: You remember that candidate you met at the other county fair? Goldie Hawn?

Me: Of course. She's super nice. She has the soap business.

Primo: So the party had convinced her to run.

Me: Right. She hadn't even thought about it, but they approached her and gave her the same crap they gave you: that they really really needed a candidate in that race and she was soooooo perfect and would she pretty please run and they would totally support her.

Primo: Exactly.

Me: And now they are not supporting her.

Primo: No! It's worse! It's not that they are not supporting her - which they are not - but they told her and some other candidates last week that the party was holding a mandatory meeting for candidates on Monday and they had to go. The meeting was supposed to be at 11. So she drives two hours to this meeting and these other candidates drive a long way, too. They get there at 11 - and the main people they are supposed to meet haven't even shown up!

Me: That's pretty rude.

Primo: That's not the worst part. So the people they are supposed to talk to don't show up until 11:25. And then they tell Goldie and two other candidates that there is a special lunch with some campaign consultants but they aren't invited!

Me: Wait! There was a lunch and they told Goldie, "But no special lunch for you!"

Primo: Yes!

[I am not surprised at all because none of these party apparatchniks have impressed me. They are all in it for themselves, which is fine because that is how human nature works. Once you understand someone's motivation, you can work with it. What scares me are the true believers like Primo, who says he wants to Make the World a Better Place. That, I do not trust. Who's to say his definition of Better Place = my definition? Don't presume to work on my behalf and to enlighten me. Tell me exactly what you want and qui bono so I can either vote for you or not.]

Primo: They were not allowed to go to the lunch with the consultants.

Me: That is so bad.

Primo: And then this other guy - another guy they had asked to run and had helped in the primary - he won his primary and now they have told him he has five days to raise $8,000.

Me: What?

Primo: Yes! The day after the primary, they told him that if he wanted to be taken seriously, he had to raise the money. He had no warning.

Me: Just like the county party chair had told you. That if you couldn't raise $2,000 in one day, you were not a serious candidate.

[I took great joy in seeing that party chair listed as a major loser in the most recent election - none of the candidates whose campaigns he had managed - he has since become a campaign consultant - won. Ha.]

Primo: Yep.

Me: So it really becomes a shakedown of your friends and family or your own savings.

Primo: Yes.

Me: Loooove your party.