* I'll be on a break-out session panel with Laura and a representative from ActBlue at the NHDP Convention this Saturday: New Media & Social Change: Growing the Digital Grassroots. Hope to see some Blue Hamsters there. And the good Dr. Dean will be speaking!
* Lebanon Mayor Karen Liot Hill has had a fascinating life so far. I'm so looking forward to her future in NH politics. A refreshing change from the Bass/Gregg/Sununu daddy dynasties.
* Read Bill Duncan's post on the new GI Bill - it's a good way to stay informed on this critical piece of legislation.
* Sununu puts on his best "What? Me Worry?" face to Roll Call. Meanwhile Jeanne Shaheen is actually, you know, campaigning. Here she is offering solutions for the gas crisis.
* Does anyone else find the opening lines of Jeb Bradley's fantasyland new TeeVee ad as funny as I do?
In 2006 voters wanted change. The change we got was hardly what we expected."
Leave us out of your royal "we," Jeb. We all know you weren't expecting to get defeated from the lackluster way you governed and campaigned.
* Who knew that the false and repeatedly debunked myth of the liberal Mass migrations would serve as an excuse for not one party (GOP) but two (Libertarian). Here's Ron Paul himself explaining why the Free State Project has been less than successful in NH:
In 2003, thousands of libertarians vowed to move to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. Paul was no more sanguine on that effort, saying that population spillover from Massachusetts had overwhelmed it.
"They outnumbered us, the liberals leaving Massachusetts," he says. "They wanted to pay less taxes, but then again, they wanted more government and they outnumbered the ones who wanted less government."
* Being a fan of Socrates, I'm always on the lookout for smooth talking sophists, but I have to admit this guy explains much better than I can why Wiki, blogs, etc., are the unstoppable way of the future.
(Ray is absolutely correct. This sort of violent fantasy that our worst people enjoy has no place in our political culture. - promoted by elwood)
McCain, Sununu, Gregg, Republican Leaders Should Tell GOP Chair Cullen To Step Down for Promoting Violence as "Family" Humor
CONCORD - Senators John Sununu and Judd Gregg, and other Republican leaders should ask GOP Chair Fergus Cullen to step down for promoting a violent joke about presidential assassination as "family-appropriate" humor, Raymond Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said today.
"There is nothing funny - or family friendly - about the assassination of a President. No matter the political affiliation of the President, promoting that type of violence is outrageous and unpatriotic," Buckley said. "John McCain, John Sununu, Judd Gregg and the leaders of New Hampshire's Republican Party must take a stand and tell Fergus Cullen it's time to go."
In last week's NH Republican Party newsletter, NHGOP Chair Fergus Cullen included the following:
HUMOR (Send your family-appropriate political jokes to fergus@nhgop.org):
Almost seven years ago I sat, as did millions of other Americans, and watched as our government underwent a peaceful transition of power. At first, I felt a swell of pride and patriotism as I watched George W. Bush take his oath of office. However, all that pride quickly vanished as I later watched the Clintons board Air Force One for the last time. I saw 21 Marines, in full dress uniform with rifles, fire a 21-gun salute to the outgoing President and first lady. It was then that I realized how far America's military had deteriorated under the Clinton administration. Every last one of them missed.
We frequently hear complaints that the 400-member House is too big and ungainly. (It's the third largest legislative body in the English speaking world, if memory serves.) Only the wealthy, the retired, or those whose work has very flexible hours can run. All true.
And yet... Lauren Dorgan of the Concord Monitor got the numbers last week:
New Hampshire House races are the cheapest in the country, according to a rundown by the National Institute of Money in State Politics. A New Hampshire House candidate raised an average of $705 in the 2005-06 cycle, making us the only state in the nation with a three-figure price tag.
Nationally, the average for a state House race was $63,474.
New Hampshire Senate candidates raise $54,331, Dorgan reports. So it isn't a matter of media or campaigning being cheap here.
Yes, our $100 / year pay scale and our 400-member size skew the profile of our representatives. But effectively requiring candidates to raise more than an average family makes in a year would skew things too - arguably in a more harmful direction.
I miss the nineties. There was a certain swagger to the "Republican Revolution" that was touching. My favorite part of this 1994 discussion about whether or not to commit to military action in Haiti comes at the 11:26 mark (transcript mine, as are any errors):
Sen. Gregg: Do we have an obligation to go back into Haiti and establish democracy? Well, there is no national interest for us to do that, and it's very hard for me as a representative of people from New Hampshire to say to a husband or a wife or a father or mother that their son or daughter get who might be seriously wounded or possibly even killed in this sort of action went into Haiti for the purposes of restoring Jean Paul Aristide. Who I'm not a big fan of, and I don't think many people are in my state, who know of his history, has a very anti-American background.
And certainly, for the sake of going into a country which is one of sixty countries in this world which have been rated as undemocratic. What are we going to do, this is number sixty, are we going to go through the whole list?
[...crosstalk...]
Charlie Rose: Kuwait was undemocratic as well and we went in there to restore an undemocratic government.
Sen. Gregg: Absolutely. We had a national interest in Kuwait called oil.
Well, there we have it. I admit, it feels better to have it out in the open.
The visual of Gregg sitting next to Jesse Jackson is equally priceless:
For anyone who isn't still outside on this picture perfect Mother's Day, this week's episode of Political Chowder. Topics include the perennial education funding tussle, and the politics of race.
Three out of very four of New Hampshire's National Guardsmen and Reservists have toured Iraq and Afghanistan.
Jim Webb, former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, thinks our veterans ought at least to get tuition at their state college for such brave service to our country:
[Webb] has been working on it for 15 months, together with the many co-sponsors, including Sen. John Warner, Republican of Virginia, the Senate's leading expert on military affairs.
Sen. Webb's bill would clean up the messy rules and give all service members a full month of educational support for each month served on active duty.
Most importantly for New Hampshire, the Webb bill would treat active-duty Guard and Reservists the same as regular service members. A New Hampshire National Guard or Reserve member who served on active duty in Iraq or Afghanistan for a year would get the full amount he or she needed to attend UNH for a year. We would not only be meeting our moral obligation to our troops, but also improving our ability to attract high-quality recruits in a time of war.
Every Senator in New England, including real Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, and virtual Republican Joe Lieberman, has signed on to this bill as a co-sponsor. Except John Sununu and Judd Gregg.
Likely, our faux independent Senators are waiting for the do-nothing McCain version of the bill so that they can pretend to support our troops with their faux maverick nominee.
I'd like to write some clever rhetorical put-down here, but this episode, so typical of our how our Senators operate, just makes me really, really angry and frustrated.
(Oh, the tangled web we McWeave. - promoted by Dean Barker)
John McCains handpicked choice to chair the Republican National Convention, Doug Goodyear, had to resign after a Newsweek story pointed out that his firm, DCI, had been a registered agent for the Burmese dictatorship. DCI is of course the republican media and pr firm that took Jim Tobin under its wing when he was outed for his involvement in the Phone Jamming and had to leave his post as Northeast Regional Chair of Bush/Cheney 04.
McCain had previously hired Terry Nelson as a senior adviser. Nelson was Jim Tobin's boss at the Republican National Committee when Tobin took part in the phone jamming. Nelson was named in Tom Delay's indictment as person at the Republican National Committee handled the illegal funds. Nelson also was responsible for the racist ads against Harold Ford in Tennessee. Nelson is a business associate of Lacivita, who produced the Swift Boats ads in 2004. And to take us full circle, LaCivita testified in a deposition in the phone jamming that he is a paid consultant for DCI.
Here are the results from this week's poll*, "What will you do with your tax rebate?":
* Pay bills - 10 votes (30.3%)
* Pay down credit cards - 5 votes (15.15%)
* I'm not getting a rebate. - 5 votes (15.15%)
* I'm saving/investing it. - 4 votes (12.12%)
* Other - 4 votes (12.12%)
* Pay property taxes - 3 votes (9.09%)
* Pay for gas - 1 votes (3.03%)
* Go on vacation - 1 votes (3.03%)
* Pay the mortgage - 0 votes (0%)
* Pay for food - 0 votes (0%)
* Have a shopping spree - 0 votes (0%)
Very interesting that 19 out of the 33 responses were essentially for paying bills and other necessities (I chose property taxes myself), while another 5 are saving or investing it.
So much for the "stimulus."
This week I learned that the most important primary is the Media Primary (or maybe the Drudge & Russert Primary). After NC/IN, it's as if the whole world shifted, and suddenly Senator Clinton's delegate challenge, which has been so steep for so long, has emerged as the deciding reason she will no longer be able to capture the nomination. So the question is, "When will Senator Clinton exit the race?"
And for those of you who don't buy into the new media narrative, there are some options on the poll for you as well.
And let's make this an Open Thread.
*I've bumped up the poll diary by one day to spread out the various weekend diary series.
All the vendors were pleased with their sales for the day, telling me that business was unusually good. One suggested that it was because of fear that a Democrat might take the White House - he said gun owners are concerned that the Second Amendment may be under attack. All the more important, I say, that we send folks to Congress who respect the Constitution and are willing to fight for the rights of the individual.
It's taken me some time to get past the comic gold of Horn's candidacy and to try to figure out what is going on in this vapid campaign that seems to live in the ether. This quote, representative of her rhetoric on any number of issues, helped tip me over the edge to hypothesis. Here goes:
Jennifer Horn is running an AM Talk Radio Fantasy Campaign, where all Democrats are dirty hippies from 1968 in cahoots with the Commies, where George Bush doesn't exist but where the Democrats are responsible for his economic trainwreck, where only terrorists would complain about being spied on without court order, where Mexicans come to take your job, and where victory over The Enemy is won through vigorous flag waving.
The seed of the fantasy campaign is this: that a candidate trumpeting modern national Republican values (not old fashioned Yankee GOP ones, mind you) is somehow a "change" campaign.
* Sorry for the generic link - the Horn campaign hasn't figured out how to make permalinks to their individual blog posts yet.
John McCain (R-Ariz.) made a toast to the people of New Hampshire at Time's annual gala honoring "the most influential people in the world."
"I'm informed that it is the custom to toast someone who has influenced our lives. In that case, please raise your glass to the discernment and probity of the people of New Hampshire," McCain told the audience.
I agree. Take a long look at our discernment and probity, as represented by the votes we cast on Primary Day:
For every two votes cast for John McCain in this state last January, nearly five Granite Staters showed the discernment and probity to vote for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama instead.
"I can't think of a Republican candidate who could have more of a positive impact for Republicans nationwide," said Sen. John Sununu, a freshman who faces a rematch with former New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen.
...Sununu said independents and some Democrats are attracted to McCain because he speaks his mind, opposes tax hikes and has provided "strong and consistent" leadership on the challenges of Iraq. McCain "transcends party brands," he said.
Well, more indies voted for Obama and Clinton each than voted for McCain in the primary, but who's counting? And who cares, really, with this party transcender?
* Jeanne Shaheen rolled out a major website upgrade today. Check it out.
* NH Pollster Dick Bennett (of ARG, one of the worst predictors this cycle) trashes blogger Poblano's demographics-based polling predictions, calling it "stepwise regression run amok". Turns out Poblano was closer than anyone else for NC/IN. Fascinating stuff.
* Speaking of polls, Gallup has Bush at his lowest approval yet - 28%. And only 6 in 10 Republicans make up those dregs. Want to defeat a Republican this cycle? Remind folks of his or her ties to the worst president in the history of the republic, Dubya.
* More good news - Democrats are absolutely destroying Republicans in voter turnout and registrations this cycle. Ray has it here. And then there's this!
* David Bonior, as John Edwards' campaign manager, was a fairly familiar face in these parts for the primary. Today he endorses Barack Obama.
* The House hearing on the phone jamming scandal and the subsequent DoJ slow-walk is finally on, beginning next Wednesday.
* The AFL-CIO will be out in force in Manchester on the 17th to let Granite Stater's know that McMaverick isn't one when it comes to health care and the economy.
* Finally: this is perhaps the single most devastating indictment I've read about the twin failures of our executive branch and the fourth estate.
John Stephen is rolling up his sleeves, and preparing to campaign. In Di Staso's column in the UL today, we learn that Stephen will be hosting Grover Norquist and signing his pledge tomorrow. This is all for show, since Stephen signed the Norquist pledge on November 14, 2007, according to Norquist's site.
Jeb Bradley signed the Norquist pledge on February 6, 2008, Jennifer Horn signed it on March 31, 2008, and Bob Clegg signed it years ago - he was on a 2005 list. Both of our US Senators have signed the pledge.
Grover Norquist is the legendary anti-tax lobbyist, who oddly enough was raised in Weston, Mass (affluent suburb) and went to Harvard. Like many wealthy folks, he does not want to pay his fair share of taxes. Norquist is perhaps best known for his statement that he wanted to shrink government "down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub." Or Lake Ponchartrain.
Norquist is of course a lobbyist, running an outfit that was rather dirtily tied to Jack Abramoff and his casino shenanigans.
Warren Rudman has referred to Norquist's foundation as "a front for lobbying activities."
Earlier this week, NH Rep. Gene Chandler had a ltte in the Conway Daily Sun, and in Foster's criticizing Governor Shaheen for letting out of state interests endorse her. He referring to the Sierra Club. It's interesting that the Sierra Club is an "out-of-state-interest" but Grover Norquist is not.
Stephen is going on tour next week to formally announce his candidacy. From Di Staso:
Today, he'll announce that his campaign co-chair is former state Senate Finance Committee Chair Chuck Morse and co-chairs are businessman John Stabile, attorney Chuck Douglas, former GOP chair Wayne Semprini, former Executive Councilor Ruth Griffin, Sen. Jack Barnes, former safety commissioner Dick Flynn and Reps. Peter Batula and Carolyn Brown.
A certain redhead who shall be nameless pointed out, rightfully, that PolitickerNH had this story YESTERDAY. mea culpa
The UL reports this morning that a compromise has been reached on the language in the school funding amendment. The new language is endorsed by party leaders Dan Eaton (D) and Neal Kurk (R). The new language is:
[Option D:]
The state shall provide every child the opportunity for a public school education, which opportunity fulfills the state's duty with respect to public education provided for in Part I, Article 83. It shall be the duty of the legislature to define the content of an education adequate to prepare the student to become a productive and contributing citizen and to determine the total statewide cost of providing that education to all public school students. The legislature shall have the authority and responsibility to raise the funds that total the statewide cost of this education and to distribute these funds in a manner that alleviates local disparities in educational opportunity and fiscal capacity, provided that every school district shall receive a meaningful share of these funds.
