Grant is the Editorial Editor for the UL and with his latest missive, he’s both right – and horribly wrong. First for the good part (reformatted, emphasis mine; his editorial after the jump):
Where’s the big tent? NH Republicans hurting themselves
As a Republican’s Republican for the sake of the Republican Party (he leans more GOPe than Liberty) to say that the NH GOP and elected officials are off the rails is quite the stretch (careful Grant or they may revoke your hall pass!). He’s correct in that the NH GOPe Republicans hurt themselves but often doesn’t bring what really ails them to the attention of the general public.
Sidenote: We, on the other hand, don’t care, about no hall pass. And yes, there are those that get really pissed that we don’t because we do bring things to the attention of the general population. And boy, did someone send me a copy of a missive that was really taking full automatic fire at those the speaker believes shouldn’t even be close to the field where the Big Tent is located. That is, wherever that is as it seems, at times, to be mounted on tires with a blown 406 as it is everywhere except where one would think it should be.
Back to his editorial:
New Hampshire’s “big tent” Republican Party appears to have inexplicably closed its flaps recently. A week ago, it chose to close its annual convention to news media. Days later, it did the same during a fundraiser featuring remarks by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Neither move made sense. The convention-closing may have been an attempt to hide controversy over a plank regarding gay marriage. If so, it failed spectacularly. Our Kevin Landrigan got the story anyway.
….Betsy DeVos is a high-profile, well-spoken conservative voice for improving education in this country by encouraging competition with the public education monopoly. Her remarks at the Atkinson Country Club deserved a wider audience than its monied attendees.
Absolutely correct.
Let’s see, it’s HOW many years since the Internet started to disrupt what used to be the normal pace of staid politics? And we covered Grant when he ran for Congress and he did his own brand of “disrupting.” (GraniteGrok even endorsed him for it). Yet, the NH GOP, even with Hynsie supposedly doing messaging for them from his high perch of blogger turned political operative, still doesn’t seem to get it. NOTHING is secret anymore, EVAH!
Doing either was a numbskull move. Doing it twice was sheer idiocy and made them look like the fools they wish to be. You can’t advocate for something for Government (from the NH GOP Platform):
Expand openness and transparency to employment, expenditures and all recipients of taxpayers’ funds
“…openness and transparency“; you can’t advocate for it for others if you aren’t willing to LIVE it yourselves. The old saw of “fine for thee but not for me” is not a winning message and those are two millstones you put around your own necks. It’s now a double standard that is definitely isn’t going to help come November. Remember, it’s all about Trust and the NH GOP just slammed the trash can lid on it.
And then Grant stuck his hand in between that downward falling lid and the trashcan. Deliberately. An unforced error following the two GOPe ones.
He reported that conventioneers found a cheap bully’s way to shut up former state chair Jennifer Horn. Horn wants to change the party platform from endorsing “traditional families” to supporting “nurturing” ones. She also wants to drop a party plank that recognizes “marriage as the legal and sacred union between one man and one woman.”
We think she is wrong there, but she deserved a hearing. Instead, the majority used a technical trick to deny her a convention seat. And that, of course, was the headline.
A TECHNICAL TRICK? Is Bosse serious? If I am remembering correctly, he was all over Obama for making things up as he went along – or not even bothering to put up a pretense in following the actual law/regulations/rules as he governed.
A TECHNICAL TRICK, Union Leader (for Bosse speaks for the paper)? How about those in the Party – Joe and Jane Sixpack (R) – who put the delegates into those leadership positions by properly electing them? Does this mean Grant wants them to “forget” the rules just for sake of a what still is a Democrat Agenda item (e.g., continue the erasure of the differences between the Parties)? Is Grant REALLY pushing for a form of pragmatism loved by scoundrels in both Parties; cutting corners and conveniently forgetting due process versus the Rule of Law?
This is really running off the rails because I can’t think of another reason why he or the Union Leader would say something like this.
I was at the Nackey Loeb School of Communications this weekend – the thought ran through my mind as to what she’d be writing and saying about now.
The last part?
If not, they will find plenty to fear come the fall.
Ayup – but not for this.
Where’s the big tent? NH Republicans hurting themselves
New Hampshire’s “big tent” Republican Party appears to have inexplicably closed its flaps recently.
A week ago, it chose to close its annual convention to news media. Days later, it did the same during a fundraiser featuring remarks by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
Neither move made sense. The convention-closing may have been an attempt to hide controversy over a plank regarding gay marriage. If so, it failed spectacularly.
Our Kevin Landrigan got the story anyway. He reported that conventioneers found a cheap bully’s way to shut up former state chair Jennifer Horn. Horn wants to change the party platform from endorsing “traditional families” to supporting “nurturing” ones.
She also wants to drop a party plank that recognizes “marriage as the legal and sacred union between one man and one woman.”
We think she is wrong there, but she deserved a hearing. Instead, the majority used a technical trick to deny her a convention seat. And that, of course, was the headline.
Betsy DeVos is a high-profile, well-spoken conservative voice for improving education in this country by encouraging competition with the public education monopoly. Her remarks at the Atkinson Country Club deserved a wider audience than its monied attendees.
Party chair Jeanne Forrester and titular party head Chris Sununu (who claims he is not in charge) ought to stop making it look like the GOP has something of which to be scared.
If not, they will find plenty to fear come the fall.
(H/T: Union Leader)
