It is looking, more and more, that while Gov. Sununu’s legacy is going to include his successes such as being Governor, White House Chief of Staff, and the job that he has done as NH GOP Chair, added to the negative of having to resign from being WH CoS will be this slow motion explosion of hand picking a successor for NH GOP Chair. Frankly, it is looking like what happened to Obama (nominating person after person who turned out to be tax cheaters) may well be happening to Sununu in a different fashion – a failure to do proper vetting. Why do I say this?
I’ve had a number of pieces of information come my way – mostly from other conservatives rather peeved over the railroading process that is now happening and challenging the "conservative cred" of Juliana Bergeron. One such story shows a problem with several of the "Sununu Values" from his letter – it follows:
The time is the Spring of ’09 when a number of Swanzey residents were at a Cheshire County GOP meeting (Juliana Bergeron, Chair; Bill Hutwelker, Vice-Chair). Seeing a sufficient number of folks, they decided to form a Town GOP Committee. They elected a Chair, Vice Chair, and a treasurer and met through the rest of 2009.
Well, problems started soon after at the Town GOP level. The Swanzey Chair said she was having a problem with Bill Hutwelker (who supports gay marriage supporter and is a social liberal). He wanted to run for state rep again – and was asking the Town Chair’s support. Unfortunately, there was a sticking point – his liberal stance. Thus, a battle ensued in which, the Town Chair being a true Conservative, support was denied due to that social attitude. His insistence was such that at the end, she no longer wanted to talk or work with him.
A few months passed with no meetings held because of the remaining enmity. However, Hutwelker decided, as County Vice-chair, that he was going to start his own Town meetings, and called such a meeting. The Town Chair called him out on it with the NH GOP Platform in hand with the Town Vice-Chair in attendance, and a whole lot of new folks that previously had never attended in the past.
It became clear from the start that this was an attempted coup over a difference of political outlook; he was not willing to support the Platform and the Town Chair made the argument that he was not in favor of the Platform. In fact the claim was that he was trying to skew the group away from the fact that the Platform is the actual set of beliefs of the NH GOP.
I tend to agree – it is the written contract of, and the basis of, what makes up the philosophical base of the GOP. Why belong to the Party when you do not believe in its tenets? And this is where it begins to affect this current NH GOP Chair race – as Sununu said, the Chair must support the Platform.
What about when a candidate for the Chair refuses to support the Platform wholeheartedly?
At that point, Juliana Bergeron stepped in where Hutwelker had left off and SHE started to rant about and against the Platform. Her claim was that that very few people were in agreement with it, that she didn’t not want to hear about it all, and that they had to forget about the social issues entirely [as Papa Sununu said, we should] and ONLY focus on the fiscal. It was obvious that not only did the Platform have no status, she wanted it to have no role whatsoever.
She, at this time, admitted to have voted against traditional marriage as outlined in the Platform. "A lot of us are not for that" indicating that 49% also voted against traditional marriage in the Platform.
At that point in time, the coup plan was triggered…
…and the Town chair was forced out and the Town Vice-Chair had to step up. A meeting was scheduled again. Realizing what was going on, that the plan by Juliana Bergeron and Bill Hutwelker was to isolate the Town Chair (being the only conservative) and force a new vote for Town Chair and Vice-chair.
At that point, Andy Leach and Wayne MacDonald were called and informed that that the Cheshire County GOP was in the process of taking over the Swanzey Town GOP via crony proxies.
And indeed, because of the issue, over the platform, Hutwelker put up Eric Stanley and with his folks, and the second Town Chair was booted out 16 to 10 to Eric (a fair election) and she was voted Vice-Chair.
…Article VIII was a bone of contention. The first Town Chair had put up a site and had written an article for the Keene Sentinel about who is a Republican and who is not in terms of the Platform. That became a bone of contention and once again the Town Chair, Eric Stanley, resigned.
So, we have a person who, ostensibly, being called a Conservative yet not supporting a Conservative. We seemingly have a candidate, put up and being pushed by Gov. Sununu, that does not support the Platform – how can one be a reliable spokesperson for the shared Platform that defines Republicanism here in NH when it has been shown that she does not?
This shows that no matter who the candidate might be, better vetting must be done. If Governor Sununu has put up the selection criteria, it shows a failure to have vetted property by that criteria.
