Kerr: Things to remember when you're voting in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary

I expected to be all done talking about the New Hampshire primary by now, but with voting – finally – set to take place this Tuesday, we need to straighten out a few things before folks head to the polls.

Past winners of the Iowa presidential caucus include Rick Santorum, Tom Harkin, Mike Huckabee, Richard Gephardt, Pete Buttigieg, and yep, even Ted Cruz. Current Republican candidate Nikki Haley caught some flak recently for joking that New Hampshire voters tend to “correct” Iowa results, but she wasn’t far off.

Not one of those candidates mentioned above won their respective party’s nomination afterward; after her main rival in the GOP primary, Donald Trump, won last week’s caucus, Haley is hoping this tradition continues in 2024.

Trump employed his typical delusional embellishments recently when he claimed the US stock market will “crash” if he wins the nomination but loses the general election in November—again.

What he hopes you’ll forget is that the very first time the Dow Jones Industrial Average ever closed higher than 30,000 points was in November 2020, after Joe Biden first beat Trump to be elected president. And more than three years later, the index continues to hover over 37,000. Imagine the superlatives Trump would be showering upon himself if he had presided over such a run.

Trump last week faulted Biden for the “Afghanistan Surrender.” However, it was Trump who surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban during his presidency, in February 2020. His administration negotiated the agreement with the Taliban to withdraw all US troops from the country, and didn’t bother to include the Afghan government in these talks. Predictably, the government fell once the US was out of the picture, and now the Taliban is the party in power there.

This week, writer E Jean Carroll is taking Trump to court — again — for defamation, after he repeatedly called her a liar for saying he raped her back in the 1990s. Trump’s already been found civilly liable in court for this act and has been ordered to pay Carroll $5 million. But since he can’t keep his mouth shut, he’s going to have to pay more. This ongoing trial is to determine how much.

Meanwhile, a porn star named Stormy Daniels has claimed for years she had an affair with Trump when his wife Melania was home with their newborn baby. She also alleged that Trump paid $130k to shut her up about it, and in fact said recently she’s slated to testify at a separate, upcoming criminal trial about the payments.Now, Trump denies any of this ever happened, which is understandable since it’s such a sleazeball and despicable thing to do. But how odd is it that Trump, one of the most litigious public figures in the country, has never taken Stormy to court the way Carroll did to challenge his lies? Wouldn’t you think a devout guy like Trump would want to clear his reputation if such claims were untrue?

Trump has repeatedly mocked the age of Biden, the country’s first 80-year-old president. However, Trump is turning 78 in June, and if he were to actually win re-election in November he would turn 79 just a few months after being sworn into office.

For those who are mathematically challenged, this means less than two years into his term, Trump would be 80 years old – the same age as Biden now. And if you claim you aren’t seeing the effects of age on either guy, you’re just not paying attention.

The former president continues to promise revenge and “retribution” if he is returned to the White House. I want you to picture what an emboldened Donald Trump would be like during a second term. Such a victory would seem to him a validation of his rotten, boorish and emphatically unChristian behavior, and justification to pursue the dictatorial authority he so blatantly and obviously craves. If you thought his first term was tumultuous …. Hoo boy.

I’ve already cited the attributes of Haley in previous columns, but this week I popped over to the local American Legion hall in Rochester to catch her remarks. She’s undoubtedly one of the smartest, and toughest, political leaders I’ve ever seen – which is probably why Trump has never dared to face her on the debate stage. And she’s the only remaining GOP candidate who genuinely understands the necessity of US support in Ukraine. As a former UN ambassador, she recognizes the difference between “America First” and “America Only.”

If you need a crash course, just look up World War Two.

Finally, as the old Saturday Night Live skit used to go, “Hear me now and listen to me later;” a vote for Trump in January is a vote for Biden in November. Period.

If you’re okay with that, no problem. But if you’re a Republican or an independent and don’t like the way the general election turns out later this year, just remember you had a chance to provide a different option. When it comes right down to the wire, even folks who aren’t enamored of Biden will not want another dose of the national migraine which is Donald Trump.

D. Allan Kerr is an ex-dockworker, former newspaperman and U.S. Navy veteran living in Kittery, Maine.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kerr: Things to remember when you're voting in Tuesday's NH primary