Time will tell…
It’s the last day of December 2010 and the November elections are now history –hopefully enough time has passed for the dust to settle – heal a few wounds – and provide an opportunity to look back at what happened. President Obama called it a shellacking – others have called it a tsunami – I think of it as a debacle. Certainly former Governor Sununu is to be congratulated for re-building the NH Republican party – his hard work certainly demonstrates what gravitas is & how to use it to move your agenda… Guess those pronouncements that NH being a Blue State was a bit premature!
But what are the lessons learned? A lot of pundits, self-proclaimed experts and morning quarterbacks have killed a lot of trees dissecting and telling us what happened – so I thought I would join the parade.
For starters, the NH GOP & Governor Sununu did an excellent job of marrying the problems & opinions people have of Washington DC with Concord NH. Of all the comments and explanations I have heard – the linking of Washington with Concord is the best I’ve been able to wrap my head around. While I’d like to claim credit for such insight – I first heard it from someone on a panel (of pundits, self-proclaimed experts & morning quarterbacks) at Saint Anslem College’s Institute of Politics. It is the best & most accurate truism to explain the loss of the NH House, Senate, and Executive Council, as well as the loss of one federal senate race and two federal members of congress. A lot of dems I know are still walking around in a daze – wondering what happened. Truth & facts aside – people just believed that NH government was broken and out of control… Yup – a debacle!
Of course the democrats did not help matters and appeared more interested in touting social issues instead of addressing people’s fear about lost jobs and an economy in free fall. Couple this with the opposition staying on message (plus a lot of money) – resulted in the democrats being out played on the Public Street.
Now all of this brings us up to the present - as the NH legislature prepares to convene next week (1/5/11) – what should we expect? The size of the Republican win is so large that the democrats (all 102) in the House could walk out and the republicans still have a quorum. Actually there are almost as many representatives who were endorsed by the Liberty Alliance as there are elected democrats. So, what should we expect? At first glance - such a large majority should bode well for state government and getting things done – right? Time will tell...
My thought is who are these newly elected representatives of the NH General Court? According to available info – most have never held elected office – many appear to have strong radical libertarian leanings – almost all claim to be “true” conservatives – so does that mean they are Free Staters intent on taking over NH, or are they just homegrown libertarians? Interestingly, if they are Free Staters, few have been transparent about belonging to this movement intent on using NH as a social science lab for their radical libertarian ideas – who knows only time will tell…
The question is will this republican coalition stay together, or will it fragment and divide between traditional “main street” republicans – strong individual rights libertarians – and conservative faith-based pols? One indicator of what to expect is the list of proposed legislation that has been filed. In looking over the list - there are bills to repeal gay marriage & civil unions, change education funding, allow tax caps, and bills that will affect a woman’s right to choose. They also have bills that support Arizona’s immigrant legislation – create a NH Militia separate from the National Guard – allow guns in the state house – and the list goes on….
Republican leadership has publically said it wants in the 1st year to focus on the budget – and postpone the social agenda for year two. Speculation is will they be able to keep their members in line. Their concern over the budget is sound – as we have always known it will be more challenging than the one recently past. Most experts have cited New Hampshire as having been better managed and fared better than most states throughout this international recession, so it will be interesting to see how the present regime addresses the problem.
Under the democrats – the plan was to spread out the budget pain equally while not totally dismantling programs and services that affected New Hampshire’s most needy. Now we will see how the republicans address this ongoing crisis. Much of their rhetoric has been for drastic cuts - personally, my concern will be to not shift costs back to the cities and towns. However, if the focus is to cut the present budget and since forty percent (40%)of the state’s budget is aid to municipalities, I am curious on how they’ll cut and not shift costs down to the local level. My fear is that “Local Control” will really mean “handle it yourselves.”
According to my friends in state government, the rumor going around is that agencies will now be more “business friendly” – but what does that mean? Will there be more opportunities for business to expand and create high paying jobs, or is it just a mask to disguise legislation that fosters de-regulation that supports pollution, exploitation and an overall blind eye? We know that anti-labor “Right to Work” legislation has been proposed for this session – so only time will tell….
Now the partisan side of me hopes the Republicans will over-reach and self-destruct, however as a believer in government there is a part of me that wishes them well. Sadly, this past election cycle represents the third in a row that has resulted in drastic political change and membership which means that those elected are more often part of each party’s extreme wings. I suspect if the pollsters are right that the general public want less division and politicians working together – the masses may be very disappointed in both Washington & Concord.
As someone who strongly believes in the center and finding common ground - let’s hope that the NO LABELS movement takes hold and has an impact. Unfortunately, my fear is what we will see are extremists more concerned with promoting a specific political ideology and not into serious dialogue and solid solutions that make matters better. Time will tell…
