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In light of Fergus Cullen's ridiculous statements referring to former three term governor Jeanne Shaheen as a "radical community organizer", I was shocked, shocked to learn by reading the Valley News yesterday that John E. Sununu has people on his staff acting as liaisons to local communities:
A friendly and effective behind-the-scenes player in Upper Valley Republican politics is moving on to a new field. After five years as Sununu's "community liaison" at his Claremont district office, Lebanon resident Melissa Ogle has taken a fundraising/development job at St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vt. Ogle said in an e-mail it will enable her to "pursue my career goal of working in a Catholic academic setting."
I was even more shocked to learn that Sununu's staff has met on at least one occasion with community organizers:
Laura Thibault of Thornton and Beth Richards of Concord are members of MomsRising.org, a national online mother's advocacy group. They came to express their support for the Fair Pay Restoration Act, which has already passed the House and is sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn.
"Our main goal was to urge Senator Sununu to consider the issues," said Thibault, who was accompanied by her 4-month-old son, Rhys."
Of course I don't know her personally, but I know her. And please note I am not talking about her gender per se, but in the interest of being honest and describing my own experience, I can't avoid that.
I watched all of her speech and I'm glad I did. I know this woman. I am almost her exact contemporary (she is one year older than me).
I went to school with women just like her -- the whole deal, the Republicanism, the beauty pageant (one woman I'm thinking of actually went to the Barbizon School of Modeling), the almost militant pro-life stance steeped in Catholicism (Palin was baptized a Catholic, but her parents converted to the local church).
She has a chip on her shoulder, perhaps no bigger than mine, but essentially, she sets herself against the world and is constantly reminded that she's right. She believes, with some justification, that she is surrounded by liberals on campus. As a non-baby boomer (a GenX-er), the media, with its almost exclusively baby boomer view of the world, have been her enemy since she started reading the paper.
She finds you quickly, this type, because you're willing to talk (in other words, argue) politics with her when her friends (and yours) run away (and, in my case at least, I wasn't exactly fighting off other girls), so you basically come to a truce of sorts. But it's an uneasy truce, because you don't agree on ANYTHING. She tends to declare victory if you cede a single aspect of a single issue. "Sure, I wish there were fewer abortions, but I think more birth control--" "See! You agree with me!" The issue is not a matter of respect, as it's being portrayed -- I respect her as much as I respect any young politician. But I don't agree with her on anything.
Is she smart? Of course she's smart, but that's not news. It's college, everybody's smart (though your friends think she's an idiot, and they think you're an idiot or worse for putting up with her).
At 44, with her resume, is she ready to be vice president? Well, how has she conducted herself in office? I don't like what I've read. As a chief executive, is she an innovator, or one of Newt's 1994 revolutionaries, contemptuous of the very machinery of government and ready to turn on those who brought her there? (Newt told Jon Stewart he pushed for her, so it's his fault I thought of that, and one thing I noticed last night was how frequently Ted Stevens was thrown under the bus.) Wasn't that Bush's problem? Outsource everything, respect the military but nothing else? Throw aside your own legacy?
She didn't even touch the issues in her speech. She didn't have to -- everybody recognized her.
I know I'm generalizing, but this is politics. There are only so many paths people can take. Sarah Heath found her path, and look where it led her. Politically, she's a wedge, a throwback to 1990s politics, a Clarence Thomas if you will. We can make all sorts of cynical assumptions about the choice, and we're right, on that level.
But socially, she is different. This is a major change for the GOP -- and it is a step forward, of sorts. If she becomes vice president, and then president, well, the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.
And what does one learn about their earliest political opponents? Never underestimate them, but try not to take them too seriously.
Unless, of course, they actually become vice president.
This past Tuesday, Will Cowie of Stark, who was running for state rep in Coos Dist, 2 died on a job site where he was electrocuted. He was 44. Will was a proud veteran, both in the Air Force right after high school, and later in the National Guard. He was active in the American Legion, and in nearly every aspect of his community. He was absolutely devoted to his wife, Margaret. Will was a smart, funny, feminist man. He would have been a great addition to the NH House.
My favorite Will story goes back to the NH Commission on Same Sex Marriage. The Commission had a number of hearings around the state in the summer of 2005. The first one was in Littleton, where I believe the thought was that it would be poorly attended, but those in attendance would be outraged, bigoted, redneck hicks.
Over 100 people were in attendance that night, and only six of them testified against marriage equality. Early in the evening, a tall man with a military haircut came in, wearing a suit, and carrying a Bible. Most folks assumed he was there to speak against same gender marriage. Instead, he said he saw no reason that we shouldn't all have the same rights and privileges, and that he didn't see anything in the book he was holding that said any different. That was Will.
I just watched Raymond Buckley announce the votes of New Hampshire's delegates at the Democratic National Convention. He was amazing!
I have known my friend Raymond and worked with him since he was 15 in 1975. We first met during the Jimmy Carter campaign when Raymond was a High school Student and the best volunteer in the Concord Office that I helped staff for Jimmy Carter. Raymond would go door to door everyday in every type of weather he never complained and always come back to do more. I went to the Convention that year as a Jimmy Carter delegate and I remember Raymond talking about watching the convention on television. Even then he knew more about the history of both the Democratic Party and the New Hampshire Democratic Party then anyone else.
I have seen Raymond work for Democrats over the last 33 years. He never gave up, he never lost faith, and his determination has only grown with each year. I was so proud tonight to see him standing at the Democratic National Convention announcing to the world that in New Hampshire "Unity was more than a town" and announce the entire delegation had come together to support Obama.
As I write this I still have tears in my eyes from watching the young man I met 33 years ago display to the entire nation that New Hampshire will lead the way to a better country by electing Obama the next President.
Thank You Raymond for being the person that you are...you will always be one of my heroes.
There are strikingly disimilar approaches toward their party conventions on the part of US Senate candidates Jeanne Shaheen and John Sununu.
Jeanne Shaheen not only is attending the convention in Denver, she is being showcased as a speaker. From the Globe:
Democratic challengers for US Senate seats in Maine and New Hampshire will speak next Wednesday on the third night of the national convention, organizers announced tonight.
Jeanne Shaheen, the former Granite State governor who is trying to oust Republican John Sununu, is on the speaker list, as is Tom Allen, who is trying to unseat Susan Collins. They will precede the vice presidential nominee.
Check out Michael McCord's excellent column on Carol Shea- Porter at Seacoastonline. It's a great look at 2006 into the present - and woven in are parts of an interview with Carol.
I've talked to a lot of candidates and politicians in my life (this being NH and all) but most of the time there's a gulf between us. They're nice, they're enthusiastic - but they don't know what people's lives are really like. Carol does. There is no gulf. She really is representing the bottom 99% of us - she is one of us.
(Don't forget that pretty yellow button on the left side of the page.)
I am very proud to announce that Medal of Honor recipient, Paul 'Bud' Bucha will help Granite State veterans launch New Hampshire Veterans for Obama on Thursday, August 21, 2008. Bud will be joining New Hampshire's veterans to discuss aspects of Senator Obama'a plan to maintain the sacred trust that America has with her veterans.
Much to my surprise, when Bud was in Vietnam, he was assigned to the same unit I went to Iraq with. So I am looking forward to meeting a fellow Rakkasan. This odd connection compelled me to look into Bud's story. I easily found the citation that awards him the MOH. Of more interest, and benefit, to me was an interview that he did in 2006.
Carol launched Veterans and Military Families for Carol Shea-Porter, urged on by 250 vets and their families at the iconic Sweeney American Legion Post in Manchester on a glorious Sunday afternoon. Congressman Chet Edwards, the Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and a key Congressional advocate for veterans, helped out too and got a big response from the crowd. He represents the most Republican district in the country currently held by a Democrat and gets VFW, American Legion and DAV awards for all he does for vets. He came from his Waco, TX district to campaign for Carol because he sees her as a critical ally on veterans' issues - and because Carol wanted to show him how important it is to start providing New Hampshire veterans the health case they need close to home.
Of course, politicians often campaign for each other to support the party and gather chits, but it's clear that Shea-Porter and the powerful Edwards, who's been in Congress for 18 years and controls the VA budget, are actually close working allies. He's never campaigned for another Member of Congress like this before. Carol told the story of how she arrived in Congress concerned that New Hampshire was the only state without a full service VA hospital and wondering why our Congressional delegation had never worked on it. Seeing Edwards as part of the solution, she introduced herself to him and said, "You're going to be my new best friend."
That's what seems to have happened. They tell stories about battles waged. Carol took him on a tour of the VA Medical Center in Manchester and organized a meeting there with 30 vets, including VFW, American Legion and AmVets representatives, wounded vets from Vietnam and Iraq, veterans advocates and others to tell him how important expanded medical services are. More on that in another post.
But the highlight of the day was the barbecue at the Sweeney Post. More on this, and pics, after the jump.
Disclaimer: I am talking about the national political press, NOT the New Hampshire press.
I've had a diary like this in my back pocket for about a month. It's necessary to retrace my thinking on it a little bit.
I was thinking about Barack's Germany trip, and I read how Andrea Mitchell, presumably among others, was complaining about lack of access to the candidate. Some of that is the logical shift from candidate to presumptive nominee, but the implication was, the press was being managed more. The staginess had kicked up a notch. So I had this thought that the campaign, which had in some ways campaigned beyond the primary toward the general, was now campaigning beyond the general to the administration. That struck me as a dangerous strategy.
At about the same time, I read a piece by the estimable Eric Alterman, the premise of which was this: some of the best minds in America are trying to solve the problem of declining newspaper readership, because newspapers are the primary information source in our democracy, and hence one of the primary engines of our democracy. But, among the greatest enemies of the industry are the new crop of owners. One newly minted executive at a LARGE paper had to have it explained to him that a dateline of Lebanon, say, meant the paper had a reporter in Lebanon.
So flash forward a few months, and Barack wins, but the press hates him. I don't want that. Suppose all the press bashing the grassroots activists do filters up. And years go by, and the Democratic Party reaches a state where the GOP stands now: one of our leaders can literally deny something in a major news organ -- say, the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal -- and the base doesn't care. Then the republic has a problem. Everything is "just partisanship," there is no objective source of truth.
I was trying to reconcile all this, and trying to compose some coherent sentences on it without sounding like a ninny, and then I had a completely different thought:
To hell with the press.
The rightful role of the press is a watchdog. The press SHOULD hate and fear the government - even if the government is us, which I certainly hope is the case in a few months. So, if the Democratic Party is better, let us prove it, because the default setting of a reporter should be to mistrust us, to be suspicious of anyone who would presume to lead us.
Anyway, that was last month. Now the convention is closer, and I'm looking forward to the big show and pretty much back to being a ninny. What do you think?
David Brooks in his August 5, 2008, column "Where's the Landslide?" claims he has the answer to why Obama may not be pulling away from McCain in this year of discontent with the GOP and the last eight years of Bush rule.
Brooks claims that Obama is a "sojourner," an outsider who is hard to place, which causes voters to be wary and uncertain of him.
"Sojourner" comes from the opening quotation in Obama's book "Dreams from My Father" in which he quotes Chronicles: "For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers."
There is a sense that because of his unique background and temperament, Obama lives apart. He put one foot in the institutions he rose through on his journey but never fully engaged. As a result, voters have trouble placing him in his context, understanding the roots and values in which he is ineluctably embedded.
Brooks goes on to theorize that when we judge candidates, we judge the individuals and also the milieus that produced them. We judge them for the connections that exist beyond choice, according to Brooks.
My criterion (yours may differ): The band's identity (or individual's identity) is political. That doesn't mean every song, but it also excludes bands that may do one or two political songs. I reserve the right, as should you, to add honorable mentions of songs as the thread grows.
Of course, the usual rap against political music is that when politics comes to the fore, the music suffers. I say: bollocks.
Senate Republicans Hold Up Progress to Help Big Oil
Concord, NH: Both yesterday and today, Senator John E. Sununu again voted against measures to provide job-creating economic stimulus through incentives for renewable energy like wind and solar power.
When votes came up once again to extend tax incentives for clean energy ,which are currently in danger of expiring at the end of 2008, Senator Sununu instead chose to side with Republican Senate Leadership which is holding up legislation to force a vote on more oil drilling.
"We need action on energy now. Why is Senator Sununu holding up a win-win solution that everyone agrees on?" said Jerry Curran, NH Sierra Club Chapter Chair. "Extending these incentives will save jobs in the clean energy industry, help us end our dependence on fossil fuels, and help lower energy costs. Senator Sununu shouldn't be blocking solutions that will benefit Americans in favor of gimmicks that only help the oil industry."
Failing to extend these incentives only dims a bright clean energy future, it would snuff out one of the few bright spots in these grim economic times. Projects are already in danger of being canceled and over 100,000 hardworking Americans in the wind and solar industries alone could be thrown out of work if Congress doesn't act soon.
Making a serious commitment to clean, renewable energy could fuel tens of billions of dollars in economic growth and create over 820,000 new manufacturing jobs across the country. Achieving these goals will be impossible unless Congress extends the current incentives without delay in order to avoid turning today's green energy boom into tomorrow's clean energy bust, as has happened each and every time Congress has let these tax incentives expire in years past.
"Unfortunately it is increasingly clear that it is Senator Sununu who is out of touch with the people of New Hampshire and much more in tune with corporate polluters like Big Oil. Senator Sununu can debate about drilling, but why slow down progress in the meantime?"
Hi everyone. I've taken a part time job with Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter's campaign - I'm working on netroots outreach around the nation. After careful consideration, I decided that it would be inappropriate for me to continue on as a front page blogger for the duration of the campaign. I am grateful to Dean, Laura, the Mikes, and elwood for giving me the opportunity, and the support to be on the front page.
As Ahnold was wont to say, "I'll be back!" - on the front page.
I saw most of Obama's speech live on MSNBC. it was amazing to see him speak at the Siegesaule, with people stretching out to the Brandenburg Gate to hear him.
I lived in West Berlin a few years before the wall came down. When I was there, two walls and barbed wire (and God knows what else) were between those two points. Friedrichstrasse, one of the crossover points, was like a no man's land. Now, you'll be happy to know there's a Starbuck's there, among other things.
But enough of my nostalgia--the speech rocked. The people were with him. They were even waving American flags. They never do that. And we know they weren't US Foreign Service wokers
TPM has the speech's transcript.
Obama was basically healing the "you're with us or against us" mentality of the last eight years. He urged the Berliners and by extension Europeans in general, to work with the US to help end world poverty, terrorism, and all the other plagues of the present. He said it will take work and sacrifice. He said--hide your eyes if you're squeamish--America hasn't been perfect. Imagine!
Not perfect ! I'm sure McBush will jump all over that one after his lunch at a German restaurant in Ohio. Who schedules this guy's campaign, anyway?
I have very close ties to Germany and am very partial to Europe in general. Shhh, I even lived in France for a while.
We have to deliver NH blue up and down the ticket. That's all there is to it.
(What? Big Oil not using its profits to increase production? I'm shocked! Sadly, though, this needs to be pointed out again and again in the face of the GOP deceptive "DRILL!" meme. - promoted by Dean Barker)
Back on June 26, in a conference call with reporters, John Sununu spoke about the need, in his opinion, to increase domestic oil production. Sununu has been a proponent of the View To a Drill school of thought - just open up all of the United States to oil drilling, and life will be fine.
However, the reality is, American energy companies aren't that interested in finding more oil or investing in alternative sources of energy.
As the article linked below shows, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips are more interested in spending their huge, record breaking profits on stock buybacks and dividends. According to the (ironically named) James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice, the five biggest international oil companies plowed 55% of the cash they made last year into buybacks and dividends, compared to 1% in 1993. In the first quarter of 2008, Exxon spent 8.8 billion dollars on stock buybacks, while Conoco spent 2.5 billion on stock buybacks.
Earlier this month, People For the American Way began running ads calling attention to John Sununu's extreme right-wing record on federal judges and the Supreme Court.
Our ad tells the story of Lilly Ledbetter, a Goodyear employee who was paid less than the men in her factory for sixteen years. She sued, and a jury awarded her back pay and punitive damages. When the case, Ledbetter v. Goodyear, reached the Supreme Court, Justice Alito, whom Sununu supported, wrote the opinion that denied Ledbetter equal pay. Because she had not filed her claim within 180 days of the first discriminatory paycheck sixteen years ago, Ledbetter got nothing.
The New Hampshire Republican Party rushed to Sununu's defense, decrying "People For the American Way's Dishonest Attack on Sununu" and claiming that "New Hampshire voters will see right through these false attacks because they know the record shows that Senator Sununu is an independent voice for New Hampshire."
On the issue of judges, this statement is simply laughable. When it came time to vote on President Bush's most hard-line conservative judicial nominees, Sununu never batted an eye as he rolled out yea vote after yea vote. In addition to Alito and Roberts, who have moved the Supreme Court dangerously far to the right, Sununu supported 100% of the right-wing lower court judges nominated by Bush. William Pryor, who equated same-sex relationships with "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia," Leslie Southwick, who voted to uphold a ruling reinstating a white state employee who had been fired for calling an African-American co-worker a "good ole nigger," and Priscilla Owen, who even Alberto Gonzales considered a relentless right-wing judicial activist, were all deemed fit for the federal judiciary under Sununu's "independent" analysis.
The controversy surrounding these nominees could not possibly have escaped Sununu's notice. In voting the way he did, he proved himself as a loyal ally of President Bush, not as an "independent voice for New Hampshire."
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