It is summer, but things haven't slowed down much in the news business.

The presidential campaign feels like it is still the primary. The candidates aren't here quite as often, but they are still coming around a lot, and their ad wars, which have migrated in part to the Web, are as hot as ever.

We don't cover everything the Obama and Romney camps do in New Hampshire, largely because a lot of it is very repetitive and not very newsworthy. It often seems like watching a tennis match in which the candidates' spokesmen bat an issue back and forth, and very little new information comes of it.

We do try to cover New Hampshire angles to the campaign. It helps when the never-shy John H. Sununu is involved, as he is with the Romney campaign. A friend said the other day that had YouTube been around when Sununu was governor, it would have been a very interesting time. Indeed.

It is also interesting to see U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte repeatedly mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate. I think she would have a lot of appeal and would certainly be more qualified than many previous veep picks.

NH Trivia: Who was the last Republican veep nominee from New Hampshire: Hint, it was in the 20th century. (Don't peek. Answer later.)

Sports has been in the state spotlight more than usual this summer, too. Some of the finest young male golfers in the country were here last week for the USGA Junior Amateur, the first USGA event ever held here.

More than a few of these youngsters will be on the pro circuit in the near future.

No doubt they will have to contend with grandson Ike soon thereafter.

The lady of the house has now outfitted Ike with his first set of real clubs. I won't say they were pricey, but I wish they made his driver in my size.

Sports was also in the news, sort of, for the recent racial slur allegedly voiced by a Leominster, Mass., policeman at a Fisher Cats game in Manchester.

This may be one of the oddest stories we have ever had to report. The slur, and given the context in which it was used, it apparently was one, was “Monday.''

Yep, the day of the week. Today, in fact.

But according to something online called the Urban Dictionary, “Monday'' is a code word for the “N-word'' and it is used because black people at which it is aimed are not supposed to know what it means.

Gee, I guess that cat is out of the bag. Black baseball star Carl Crawford of the Red Sox certainly knows what it means. He was the one to whom this coded slur was directed, and it was clear from his reaction that he didn't think someone was singing a Mommas and Papas tune in his honor.

Monday, Monday, I guess you just can't trust that day.

But trust me on the trivia answer. It was Col. Frank Knox, owner of this newspaper and 1936 running mate to Alf Landon. They didn't do so hot against FDR.

Write to Joe McQuaid at publisher@unionleader.com.