Reason Magazine’s Nick Gillespie recently sat down with FSP president Matt Philips to discuss the Free State Project’s libertarian migration-in-progress to New Hampshire. Gillespie has seen the evidence for himself – he’s visited the Shire on more than one occasion. It’s obvious that concentrating libertarian activists together in the same geographic area leads to success.
Now thousands more are slated to come for the FSP, while others are choosing to join the decentralized Shire Society and move independently of the Free State Project. Regardless of whether you join a movement or not, if you are a libertarian or voluntarist, take Nick’s advice: “Move to New Hampshire, you won’t regret it.”
In 2014’s New Hampshire gubernatorial primary, then-incumbent Maggie Hassan refused to debate me in the Monadnock Debates, put on at Franklin Pierce University. Since I was the only democratic candidate for governor to respond, they graciously gave me ten minutes to speak before the republican debate. I figured this year would be different. I thought for sure that having a full field of non-incumbent candidates would mean there’d be an actual, full debate.
Surprise! Looks like the “big three” candidates Mark Connolly, Steve Marchand, and Colin Van Ostern refused to respond to the invitation to this year’s Monadnock Debates. The only two candidates who did respond are author Derek Dextraze and me, Ian Freeman. As a result, the debate organizers decided to not hold the democratic debate this year, like in 2014.
I spoke with Derek about the development today and he said, “I find it interesting that the two candidates that really aren’t politicians said yes to debate. While the other three candidates that WMUR says are the only three candidates on the Democratic side for governor said no or didn’t respond.”
Derek points out another interesting phenomenon from this year’s campaign coverage, which is that some media organizations have been completely ignoring both the Dextraze and Freeman campaigns. WMUR-TV has reported on only three of the democratic candidates in their campaign coverage so far. Similarly, Manchester’s WGIR-AM has held “debates” but only invited the “big three”.
When Derek inquired with WMUR he says they told him, “because I haven’t sent them my itinerary they did not think that I was running.” Sounds like a lame excuse to me. It’s common for NH media organizations to reach out to all ballot qualified candidates. It’s either pure laziness of these media organizations or a deliberate decision to exclude smaller campaigns, despite the face that both Derek Dextraze and Ian Freeman will be on the primary ballot on September 13th, just like the “big three”. (more…)
I spent most of an hour with Rich Girard on his morning show, “Girard at Large” at WLMW-FM in Manchester, bright-and-early at 6:20am on Friday. It was my first time on his show and we had a good discussion about secession, the state and religion, drug prohibition, the death penalty, and abortion. Thanks to Rich and his crew for the opportunity! Here are the show segments:
I’m pleased to announce that I am running for NH State Rep, Cheshire county district 7, Keene ward 4. Some of you may be wondering why I am running as a Democrat as opposed to a party more aligned with my ideology. This is because of the difficulty getting 3rd party candidates on the ballot. No, I’m not trying to hijack the Democratic Party. Perhaps one year I’ll find the extra time to collect 150 signatures and run on a liberty party ticket, or maybe, if elected, I’ll have the much needed opportunity to tweak NH’s ballot access laws which currently favors the monopoly held by the D’s and the R’s.
The next step: defeat incumbent Gladys Johnson in the State Primary held Sep 13th.
Big thanks to Darryl Perry for producing the following 5min candidate’s profile video and for making the same opportunity available to all interested candidates in the region.
I organized an NHexit event in Portsmouth this Friday called “NH Independence Celebration“. People from Keene, Manchester, Nashua, and Portsmouth attended. Dave Ridley of New Hampshire’s #2 YouTube channel shot video from a safe distance across the street. Shire Dude live-streamed video while making commentary and chatting with curious passers by. One person waved a blue flag with a peace sign. Another waved a yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag and a sign that read, “I LOVE AMERICA, NOT D.C.” Some conducted a 3-question poll about secession from a random sampling of Portsmouth’s downtown. Music by The Beatles played from a small portable speaker. In total the event was 1 hour.
Poll respondents were asked to read 3 short statements and rate their level of agreement or disagreement with each one. 17 people participated. The results are as follows (click image to enlarge):
Reason Magazine’s Nick Gillespie recently sat down with FSP president Matt Philips to discuss the Free State Project’s libertarian migration-in-progress to New Hampshire. Gillespie has seen the evidence for himself – he’s visited the Shire on more than one occasion. It’s obvious that concentrating libertarian activists together in the same geographic area leads to success. 
