The night started off with a bang, as my phone buzzed with a text from a friend, with the cryptic “FTW”, which I confirmed quickly to mean he’d been elected as NH State Representative. Not bad for what started as a write-in campaign during the Republican Primary, and grew quickly with his being attacked in the press for being a freestater.
Would Election Eve be full of this sort of awesome news? I hoped so. Would Romney lead a strong Republican coat tail to help the NHGOP retain control of the House and Senate and maybe gain the Governor’s office too? Or would Obama’s organizers sweep in and help the NH Dems into victories, perhaps only some, perhaps by a great deal.
The tide was clear, though, when a sitting Republican Rep lost in a seat I figured was very safe. The bad news of loss after loss of “good” reasonably proliberty Republican Reps was bad enough, but then even not so good R Reps were losing… the “blue tide” was back.
In 2004, a blue tide slowly began crept into NH’s State House, taking over the Governor’s office and enough House Democrats to skew the House to the moderate middle for even control of the leadership. In 2006, the blue tide rose higher, and washed nearly every R who expected a easy win off the map, leaving the Democrats in firm control of both House and Senate with the popular incumbent Governor Lynch on top. 2008 remained much the same, though some pro-liberty Republicans returned, despite national Blue wins with Obama (a good sign that the tide was perhaps receding here). The fiscal woes, taxes and fees, social changes (some for the better, IMHO, like same sex marriage passing) and the many many Nanny State bills passed into law, finally caused the electorate to rethink sending so many Democrats to Concord, the New Hampshire capital, and instead send a huge Red wave of Republicans. Me among them, and thus I spent the last two years in Concord, fighting for freedom.
The 2011-2012 legislature was strongly split in many ways, (more…)
Liberty activists handing out quarter-page fliers advocating for libertarian candidates Ian Freeman and Darryl Perry were targeted in a sneaky manner by election officials. When voters would enter the building the poll workers would tell them it was illegal for them to have the flyer and then snatch it from them and throw it away. Hearing this from an exiting voter, I investigated and found the claim to be true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AntJZRA8Jhk
Despite the “Department of Justice” sending an agent down to ostensibly correct the Ward 4 staff, the behavior continued later, as we also documented. The clueless ward moderator claimed she was too busy to properly educate her volunteer “greeters” (enforcers) on the law, which she herself did not know.
As a result, countless voters had their rights oppressed by officious bureaucrats who made the law up on the spot. We documented and called them on it and the behavior continued. Apparently they were pulling out all the stops to prevent the libertarians from getting as many votes as possible.
The DOJ is aware of this situation but don’t expect any actual consequences to come to these government workers. Odds are they’ll be back at it next time, too.
While hours of footage from the 2012 election is being sorted and uploaded to Fr33manTVraw, I have assembled two videos of Vermin Supreme raising consciousness for his campaign. The first is a scene from just outside of the Mitt Romney and Kid Rock performance on the eve of the election at the Verizon Wireless Arena.
An illustrated video of Vermin’s appearance on Free Talk Live the saturday before the election has been created using footage from Free Concord and friends. (more…)
The chips have fallen where they may and the Grand Old Party is looking less grand especially in New Hampshire. Governor Romney’s loss is not much of a surprise for many given the startling similarities between him and President Obama. Even during the primary many polls showed him losing to Obama in the general election and yet the Republican Party put a great deal of effort into squelching the one candidate who could beat Obama, Dr. Ron Paul.
Supporters of Ron Paul did not forget and when the time came to back Romney in the general election, the votes were just not there.
Both of New Hampshire’s seats to the U.S. House of Representatives were held by Republicans and both were lost to Democratic ousters. One in particular has some interesting numbers to note:
C. Shea-Porter Dem 49.8% 172,356
F. Guinta (i) GOP 45.8% 158,482
B. Kelly Lib 4.3% 14,968
Brenden Kelly captured enough of the vote to deny Frank Guinta another term in office. Had the GOP been able to court more support from libertarians and independents the results may have turned out differently.
Soda Tax seeker Catherine Mulholland won a seat in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. With quotes like,“To be addicted to sugar is just as bad as being addicted to alcohol or tobacco,” New Hampshire residents will have another legislator looking to impose nanny-state sin-taxes. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg instituted a ban on super-sized beverages but Mulholland has a different approach, “That’s a great idea, but tax it. Don’t restrict the size.”
Tim O’Flaherty captured more than just the vote this election season. He also captured the attention of bloggers at Comedy Central with an interesting post about running in a race against his roommate Dan Garthwaite. The post became much more intimate with a funny response from Tim indicating that there was more at stake than a seat when jokes about the bedroom were made.
New Hampshire voters came out against the income tax with a majority voting in favor of a Constitutional Amendment though the total fell short of the two-thirds majority needed. The topic shaped the debate with Governor-elect Maggie Hassan vowing to veto a personal income tax and general sales tax as Governor.
With the election over the campaign signs are disappearing like so many political operatives and shadowy money. Now perhaps New Hampshire residents can get back to real, tangible, and productive work and the airwaves will have less negativity spewing forth.
We’ll track results as they come… how many pro-liberty politicians will be elected?
First results: Michael Sylvia of Belmont, freestater, elected as State Rep!
Losing with almost 1500 votes and 10% of the vote total: FreeKeene’s own Ian Freeman. Despite a strong outspoken polarizing activist in Keene, running as a Libertarian, and against 2 Democrats, Ian got more votes than many Libertarians elsewhere in the nation tonight.
Other good liberty leading votes reelected: Guy Comtois, Kyle Tasker, Joe Pitre, Stella Tremblay, and the only Rep (in different years) elected as Democrat, Libertarian, and Republican, Rep. Steve Vallaincourt, all back to Concord.
Carol and Dan McGuire reelected!
AntiFreeStater Lee Quandt loses. Too bad, so sad.
Poster Child (according to the Dems, the sign if the FSP will succeed) Rep. Mark Warden reelected!
Laura Jones wins re-election by 134 votes!
Dual Freestater win in Ward 11 in Manchester, Former Rep. Joel Winters relected as Dem, and Emily Sandblade as Republican!
Still waiting on a few results, but it’s getting late. Looks like the ‘Freestater’ number will remain about a dozen by my rough count, despite a massive leftward shift in the overall House. I’ll review and post a longer summary later.
So much for openness and transparency. As I mentioned in a previous article, the state prosecutor has sought a “protective order” making it so Cheshire “superior” court employees can testify at hearings without revealing their last names. This order has been granted.
