Update: Phyllis Woods, NH’s National Committee Woman to the Republican National Committee, has gently corrected my use of vocabulary:
What you are describing is the Belknap County Delegation which consists of members of the House and Senate from Belknap County who also serve as Delegates to the County Delegation. I think it’s important to not confuse a "convention" which is generally a one-time convocation of participants, with a "Delegation" which is an ongoing body and in this case a duly elected body of a branch of our government. County Government in New Hampshire is comprised of the County Commissioners, perhaps a county administrator and staff, County Sheriff’s department, Register of Deeds, Register of Probate, etc. All of these departments have to be funded through local property taxes that are assessed depending on the population, by each city and township in the county. The allocation of those funds and oversight of the budget is the sole responsibility of the County Delegation.
Michael Kitch, stellar reporter from the Laconia Daily Sun, advises me from the comments:
Your definition should explain that the convention consists of the 18 members of the House of Representatives elected from the county.
I stand corrected, and thanks!!
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I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while, and hey! why not? Time to give a participant’s and observer’s point of view of what is going on at the county level. In my opinion, our county, NH’s Belknap County, seems to be a microcosm of what is going on with the Republican Party. We have Republicans saying one thing and then doing another, making sense and moving on to the near-absurd. Will I be able to sort out what is reality? Probably not, but heck, writing about it may make me feel better about it…
…and doesn’t that seem to be the mantra in today’s society? That I have to feel better about me? That it is supposed to be about me? Naw, it isn’t, but let’s go with it for a while.
This all started last year with the Belknap County Convention on two issues:
After much complaining by local citizens and local towns, the County Convention (definition below for our non-NH readers**) decided last year that a 8.8% rise in taxes to be collected from their ATM machine (er, us) was viable. It also decided that following the laws pertaining to open and transparent government (RSA 91A and its subclauses) either not needed to be followed or they had a different interpretation than many out side of that Convention.
Thus, they prominently ended up as "the news" locally in the radio, blogs, and newspapers for quite some amount of time.
Frankly, it was a Public Relations disaster, overall, for the Republicans. Instead of being for less government with lower taxation, they circled the wagons, lawyered up, and resisted all attempts to back down or back off.
So much for the good ‘ole Republican branding. I kept thinking at the time – platform? Are they trying to outdo the national level Republicans in ignoring their base, their history, and the platform? Some said the right words, but the follow up actions, shall we say, were weak to non-existent (and some would say "in opposition to").
This is setting the stage for this little "Recountings from the County" – observations from a conservative who has tried to do the right thing, put in hundreds of hours over the last couple of years on behalf of the Party, has been polite (with very few exceptions [mostly gaffes]) to almost everyone but has now lost his patience. Sure, I’d ask hard questions and question the status quo – but I tried to do it the right way. Well, it didn’t work.
So let’s try brutally honest…which will, IMHO, tick off a whole lot more people, but I don’t care anymore.
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**County Convention – each county in NH has its own organization (Commissioners and administrator) that run each county on a daily basis. The County Convention has the responsibility, however, at budget time to oversee and adjust the budget that the Commissioners give to them before voting on it on an overall basis. In Belknap County, the County Convention last year was a solid majority of Republicans. Given the election this past November, it is less so. And now, only two of the three Commissioners are Republican.
