GraniteGrok

My youngest, when he was living with us, used to come in late at night / early in the morning.  Like most parents, I have become a light sleeper as most "night / not ordinary"sounds will wake me up.  That said, I depend on my dual furry, tail-waggin' face-kissin' 4-footed alarm devices to watch over the house.  And normally, when they detect something wandering around outside, they certainly let us know.  But sometimes, they don't, and now the Eldest has learned a trick or two to come in without them barking.

Not really good - which is why I deliberately have left the stairs coming up to the second level "creaking" if the dogs don't bark.  Then, hopefully, I'll reach for my 2nd Amendment Right and exercise it if necessary.

Yes, as the Sherlock Holmes tale states, one can learn a lot by when the dogs don't bark.  Or when the politician doesn't speak, either.  That happened Wednesday night at the Belknap County Republican meeting. as Kelly Ayotte spoke.

Thus, a couple of words of wisdom from the witless to this candidate:

If you are going to go after this person:

...and then coming to a meeting to speak and to listen someone who might have been thinking of supporting you, ask you a question like this to get a measure of where you stand:

...and then you refuse to answer the question asked by someone not happy with past "bait and switches" (e.g., candidates saying conservative things and then voting against conservative values), the questioner has a right to want to know what he's getting:

....so, Kelly, what "answer" you?   Liberals are often the ones that say that "labels don't matter" - my answer to that is "they do indeed matter".  Yes, there are always exceptions to the overall rule, but don't speak of conservative issues, don't tell me of conservative stances, and then refuse to identify yourself as a conservative. 

Hodes, Shea-Porter, and Shaheen all "listen" to the people in NH too - you telling those two gentlemen that you will "listen to the people of NH" is semantically null. It is INSUFFICIENT to just listen - it is INSUFFICIENT to dance around a plainly asked question TWICE. You castigated Hodes for not appearing and rightfully so. However, in my book, coming to speak and then listening to questions but not answering them plainly is worse - time to up the game. I ALWAYS assume that I'm the most conservative person in the room so I expect answers less conservative than I would offer but that is OK.

Right now, the dogs aren't barking on that important question - and NH conservatives are sleeping with one eye open already.