All it takes is a look at a series of electoral maps from 2000 to 2008 to see how far Carroll County has moved in the right direction. I am truly honored and humbled to be in such a strong group of Democrats tonight.
By way of an introduction, I think the most important thing to know about me is that I am no one and nothing. Or to put it another way, I don't come from money. Nor am I connected by other means to power. I don't have a family name that opens doors.
But I am an American living during the grand experiment that is our democracy. I've got the first amendment. And I have an internet connection.
And really, that's what it comes down to. At this moment in history, between thanks to the US Consitution on the one hand, and the emerging digital revolution on the other, all the money in the world cannot stop the power of your voice.
I discovered this for myself only a short time ago.
I grew up in an apolitical household. Although it seemed pretty clear to me at an early age that Republicans were typically on the wrong side of issues (there's nothing like being a teenager under President Reagan, after all) and I did get around to voting in presidential elections, I mostly wasn't paying attention.
Then 9/11 happened. After witnessing the destruction that left two members of the graduating class of my high school murdered, along with dozens of others from the suburban commuter neighborhoods in New York where I grew up, I started paying attention.
At the time I thought George W. Bush was something of a clown. What I didn't know was how dangerous Dick Cheney and the rest were. Colin Powell seemed the most trustworthy of the bunch, so I watched him with interest on TV when he waved the little white vial around at the United Nations meeting.
And so, having surveyed as much as I could from what turned out to be an insufficiently skeptical media, and believing that the country I love would never enter into a war unless absolutely necessary, I lent my support to the invasion of Iraq.
When it became clear, early in the summer of 2003, that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction, and had no ties to al Qaeda, I felt as if someone had kicked me in the stomach. To date, perhaps over a hundred thousand lives ended before their time. Many more wounded. And many more than that displaced. For what?
Every Single Thing I have done since to try to build a community of progressive Democrats online is rooted in the regret over that support.
It started with a small blog dedicated to pointing out Charlie Bass' record of enabling Bush on the war and on so many other wrongs. Through great good fortune, two others had the same idea. Today, Blue Hampshire, which the three of us created, has become a virtual hub for progressive Granite State Democrats. It provides a voice for anyone with an internet connection. It gives our public servants a forum with which to communicate directly to engaged Democrats. And it doesn't shy away from challenging the narratives that traditional media outlets like the Union Leader want to spread.
But it is clear that we are far from alone. All around the country, digital voices like ours built a growing chorus that helped usher in the sweeping changes begun in 2006 and continued through 2008.
And in no other place in the Union was this breath of fresh air more evident than in New Hampshire, where the foothold John Lynch gained in 2004 turned into a blue tidal wave in 2006, with our state house, state senate, and executive council going to Democrats, and the toppling of Charlie Bass and Jeb Bradley in the US Congress by Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes, each of whom has made us so proud these past four years with their unabashedly progressive records of achievement.
Finally, two years later, we held our victories and gained the presidency by the widest popular vote margin since Lyndon B. Johnson. In New Hampshire, we enjoyed a nearly ten-point margin of victory. And here in Carroll County, you voted for a Democratic president for the first time since 1912. Thank you former half-term governor Palin!
And, of course, we increased our numbers in the US Senate by replacing John Sununu the Younger with Jeanne Shaheen, who, in her quiet way, has become a forceful and successful advocate for Democratic values in an institution that many - me included - find almost cripplingly dysfunctional.
That brings us to the critical challenge of the next five weeks.
After the catastrophic failure that was the Bush Administration crawled to the finish line and left us on the verge of economic collapse, and after the American people decisively rejected John McCain, the Republican party was left largely leaderless, especially among the Washington elites who normally call the shots and direct the talking points.
That left GOP "strategy," such as it is, up to FOX News and Hate Radio and the billionaires who sowed the astroturf seeds of the Tea Party.
As a result, the collective tactic (because it really is not a strategy) that has emerged has been to put on a two-year long shrillfest, featuring birth certificate conspiracies, nullificationists, Fourteenthers, race baiting, religion baiting, gun baiting, gay baiting, immigrant baiting, Mosque baiting, various other phony conspiracies, and most of all, an ubiquitously repeated lying campaign that somehow President Obama was responsible for the economic catastrophe that Bush's eight years - and in a more general sense, the dominant fiscal paradigm since Ronald Reagan - caused.
If the right can spread enough fear and smear to motivate their base, and the economy remains stalled enough to dampen our side's efforts, Republicans hope to take over something. But the GOP has shown little interest in actual governance these past two years, their recently warmed over "Pledge" notwithstanding.
So I think you can reasonably expect them, if they do gain the majority somewhere, to issue subpoena after subpoena to the White House on bogus non-issues, or to set up a government shutdown drama until Palin/Gingrich 2012 or whatever their ticket is is in full swing.
Here in New Hampshire the manifestation of this march to the fringe from a Republican party that not too long ago hadn't lost its mind is a sight to behold, and is exemplified by the slate of federal candidates that has emerged.
What lesson did Granite State Republicans learn in 2008 from the resounding defeat of hard right-winger John E. Sununu? In 2010 they nominated Kelly Ayotte, who is either a carbon copy of him or to the right of him, depending on the issue.
And as out of touch as John E. Sununu was, could you ever imagine him desperately seeking the endorsement of Sarah Palin, as Ayotte did? Two paths diverged in the wood, and Kelly chose the crazy one. That alone should frighten you about the seriousness of Kelly Ayotte to be an independent voice for New Hampshire.
In the second district, a place where progressives have a larger share of the demographic, the choice of Republican nominee was telling. Six term Washington Insider Charlie Bass tried very hard to reinvent himself into Mr. Fringe, declaring his love for the Tea Party and their agenda. Now, make no mistake - the man who voted to insert the government into Terri Schiavo's business is capable of being as fringe as they come - it all depends on what his DC party bosses tell him to do at any given moment.
But nobody bought what Bass 2.0 was selling. Thoroughly unlikeable by even his own base, Bass barely managed to scrape by a radical right-winger who herself had a similar radical right-winger splitting the ticket.
In other words, to be an acceptable nominee in today's New Hampshire Republican party, even in the more left-leaning second district, you have to be completely unacceptable to the mainstream Granite Stater.
Here in the first district, Republican voters chose a Walking Scandal. Frank Guinta appears to be incapable of the truth. He can't seem to tell the truth about his whether or not he took out student loans. Or whether he wants or doesn't want stimulus money. Or whether as mayor he signed a climate protection agreement. Most disturbingly, he has been unable to provide proof of $355,000 he magically loaned his campaign, though all it would take is a simple copy of a bank statement. Even former Republican congressman Jeb Bradley said Guinta should drop out if he didn't provide an adequate explanation, but the right leaning press in this district only seemed interested in covering that back when everyone thought Sean Mahoney was going to be the nominee.
In a way though, those many unresolved questions obscure the real implications of having Frank Guinta represent New Hampshire in Congress. Guinta is on record saying that he doesn't want his children to know what Social Security is. Think about that for a minute. He is also eager to repeal the new health care law, which in turn would re-institute pre-existing conditions and re-open the Medicare Part D donut hole that Carol Shea-Porter played a key hand in closing.
I repeat: to be an acceptable nominee in today's New Hampshire Republican party, you have to be completely unacceptable to the mainstream Granite Stater.
I will spend less time talking about John Stephen, because I think what John Stephen is offering New Hampshire can be summed up in one, frightening, vision: a return to the Granite State of a second Craig Benson administration.
At the state level, Republican party boss John Sununu the Elder recently referred to us Democrats as "vermin."
This is a party whose activists sent out no less than seven mailers attacking one of their own in a primary, including one depicting him as a flasher next to an elementary school, for the crime of voting to give some patriotic, tax-paying Granite Staters the same right to marriage that the rest of us have.
The fringe is knocking at the gates, aided and abetted by untold and unnamed dollars flowing from the Citizens United decision.
But here's the thing: if, after two years of throwing tantrums, the GOP does not take over the House or Senate in Washington, if they do not control Concord at home, their party is going to break apart into pieces.
Other than keeping the rich rich, they have no long term political or policy strategy for running the country.
The goal is to get a foot in the door now, and figure it out later. If they fail at that, they will have shown the country at large that all that Party of No-ism displayed since January 2009 was as obstructive and unhelpful to the country's future as we on the left know it has been.
New Hampshire's two house seats, one open senate seat, and our state legislature majorities figure large in this outcome.
Now is the time for you to put it all on the table. Now is the time to wake up the 2008 Obama voters and tell them what's at stake. Don't wait for Organizing for America to do it for you, or expect that the New Hampshire press will be either fair or informative in their coverage.
I know a thing or two about those once-in-a-while presidential cycle voters, because I used to be one of them. This state and this country are filled with common sense, good and decent Americans who do not spend their lives obsessed with politics. If we manage to get just a fraction of them to the polls in this non-presidential year, we will win.
No matter how much money Rupert Murdoch or the Koch brothers pump into media misinformation campaigns, now matter how much division and fear Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck unleash on radio and TeeVee, polls show that the American people are firmly on our side. Like Carol Shea-Porter, they are critical of our strategy in Afghanistan. Like Paul Hodes, they want a health care law that goes even further than the one passed in coverage and deficit reduction. Like Annie Kuster, they have repeatedly said they want the Bush tax giveaways for the wealthiest Americans ended. And like John Lynch, they value politicians that put a premium on creating jobs and a stable economy rather than pushing a radical agenda for the benefit of a few oligarchs.
We have so much to be proud of in New Hampshire. But if I were to sum it up in one phrase, it would be the theme of Carol Shea-Porter's public service - looking out for "the rest of us."
But now it is time for the "rest of us" to lend a hand.
Somewhere in New Hampshire after November, there will be a dedicated, loving couple whom you will never know but who want to spend their lives together.
What we do between now and November will determine whether in New Hampshire that couple will have the same right to marriage that you and I do, or whether the pain of discrimination that marked their lives before will continue.
Somewhere in New Hampshire after November, a young uninsured small business owner whom you will never know, and in otherwise perfect health, will come down with a treatable but serious form of cancer.
What we do between now and November will determine whether he has access to affordable health care, or whether we allow his wallet to dictate his life or death.
Somewhere in New Hampshire after November, a woman in her early fifties whom you will never know, but who has paid her taxes all her life, who has done everything right despite significant challenges, will lose her job, and because of the severity of the recession, likely never see equivalent employment again.
What we do between now and November will determine the reliability of the state infrastructure around her, and the viability of her local safety net.
What we do between now and November will determine whether unemployment benefits for her remain in place, or are sacrificed for another round of tax cuts for the rich.
What we do between now and November will determine whether her Social Security retirement age will go up or not.
Friends, I of all people have never been one to shirk from criticizing our own progress within the party, and in no way am I discouraging you from that, ultimately, civic duty. When Vice President Biden told the base in Manchester this week to "stop whining," my first thought was, "right back at ya, Joe." If I could have a nickel for all the disappointments I've felt over the past two years, I'd have a lot of nickels.
But the decisions we make in the next five weeks, the phonebanking, the canvassing, the letters to the editor, the fundraising, the signs, the online communication and organization, and the voting we choose to do or not to do will determine whether Americans suffer real harm or not.
As Grover Cleveland said: "A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves."
And as Howard Dean said: "You have the power."
Those two statements tell us everything we need to do to win in November. What remains now is for us to go out there and do it.
Alone we are no one and nothing.
Together we are the people who will determine the character of our country.
