Ghost of Meldrim Makes Appearance in NHDP Strategy

by: Dean Barker

Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 06:03:13 AM EDT

"When beginning any discussion, letter to the editor, or interview with a reporter, House members need to first frame the debate using the following terms:

'In these tough economic times, House Democrats have worked hard to create jobs and fix our economy without a broad-based tax.'"

Brunelle says that "voters care about representatives that are going to do everything they can to better our current economic conditions without implementing a broad-based tax. Thus far, the House Democratic Caucus has done just that. Also, if nothing else is printed in a newspaper other than our lead point, we win."

Someday.

Adding: an interesting general question for state or national matters.  If one's party controls the executive branch, does the party's strategy reflect the executive's policy? If policy began to shift on, say, Afghanistan, among the US House in sizable numbers away from POTUS, what does the DNC do?

Gambling: House and Senate (and Souter and Meldrim)

by: Dean Barker

Fri May 29, 2009 at 05:55:50 AM EDT

"At a time when we need some private capital to provide economic stimulation, this is the answer," the Manchester Democrat [D'Allesandro] told his colleagues just after midnight yesterday after they voted 4-3 to support his plan to permit as many as 13,000 slot machines at the state's three horse and dog tracks - in Salem, Seabrook and Belmont - and in two yet-to-be-determined North Country locations.

House:

"The House position has been, over many years, consistently in opposition to gambling," said Rep. Marjorie Smith, a Durham Democrat and House Finance Committee leader. She will chair the House-Senate conference committee charged with negotiating a final version of the budget later this month.

Moreover, Smith said, she sees specific problems with D'Allesandro's plan: "The figures are not realistic. The language which is in the bill provides no oversight."

Souter & Meldrim:

When Rudman resigned from office a few years later, New Hampshire's Governor Meldrin Thompson appointed Souter to the top job. As attorney general for New Hampshire, Souter fought a gambling legalization movement in the state as well as protests against a nuclear power plant.

and more Souter and Meldrim:

Notoriously conservative, Thomson's at-times flailing ideological aggressiveness serves as a narrative foil to Souter's measured thoughtfulness, and nicely foreshadows Souter's relationship with his Supreme Court colleague, Justice Antonin Scalia.  From the outset, Thomson and Souter squared off on state gambling, which Thomson supported and Souter did not, and on how to approach the activation of the Seabrook power plant, for which Thomson pushed hard in the face of Souter's concern that the state lacked an adequate evacuation plan in case of a meltdown.