Working in media my entire career, I’ve learned there are two types of stories, the one everyone is already talking about, and the other you have to drag the audience along. This year’s gubernatorial primary was the latter.

I couldn’t figure it out; I knew we were living through the John Lynch malaise, people forgetting New Hampshire had a governor except for the occasional natural disaster. Plus, the presidential race sucking the air out of the room once Obama and Romney realized they could campaign here and quickly scoot to Boston to raise some money. And maybe it was the candidates’ low name ID, though it still plagued me why voters stayed disengaged.

This is New Hampshire, home of 80 percent voter participation, the first in the nation primary, packed New England town halls, a 424-person Legislature, not to mention an open governor’s seat; how could people not care? This year’s primary turnout was weak to say the least, coming in right around the 21 percent of registered voters predicted by Secretary of State William Gardner.

Each week my show plays host to a political roundtable of New Hampshire’s most “in-the-know politicos” talking about the state’s biggest issues. A segment one week was almost entirely about Granite State politics until one of my panelists, a well-known GOP strategist, asked me during a break if we could wrap up the “governor talk” and “‘get into Obama’s phony war on women.’” I obliged and watched these New Hampshire-born-and-raised panelists light up with a flurry of passion I hadn’t seen in our entire conversation about Ovide, Jackie, Maggie or Kevin.

That’s when the “ah-ha” moment came; the presidential race had the sex appeal of negative campaigning, nationally televised screaming matches, irrational emotion and lack of policy specifics of which this governors’ race had none. Despite minor flaps and combating a massive lack of name ID, these campaigns were solely focused on playing nice and talking about the issues.

Ovide and Kevin defined themselves by focusing on the economy, bringing business and job creators to the state by lowering taxes. Maggie and Jackie built campaigns around putting money into public education and growing government. All were issue-focused, and with the exception of a few zombies most played nice.

The 2012 gubernatorial primary campaign will be remembered as a bunch of nice folks with different ideas running for the most powerful position in the state. It was the type of campaigning every polled voter claims to want, just not the type for which they’ll show up.

Paul Westcott is the morning host on WGIR AM 610 and 96.7 the Wave.