I first learned of Barbara (who lives in my hamlet in central NH) about a year, year and a half ago (I am just so terrible at dates….) when she approached me on her private property problem – involuntary merging of land sites. In her case, the Town had decided that her two adjoining pieces of land should really only be one, as they thought that her second one was ‘unusable’ – and did so without due process and her say-so (turns out, a lot of people were in the same boat!). Without getting into the weeds, this put her in a pickle – and she fought back by waging a one lady war against the Town’s zoning laws, had a warrant article passed by the voters (which I seconded), and then succeeded in having legislation outlawing such mis-deeds by Local Government ever again!
Good Job! But that got her noticed and she was asked if she would host such a get together as a House Event (yeah, she’s still think "I am important to do this – how??"). And Jim Bender (candidate, US Senate) was to be the only speaker – and I just wanted to be there to see his expression when he saw me at yet another event (a la "you’re everywhere!") unexpectedly – It Worked!
Also, John Stephen (candidate, NH Governor) and Jim Forsythe (candidate, NH State Senate) were present. While I did not get the chance to do an interview with Jim, I did get to do one with Jim AND (as I alluded to here), one with John.
I asked Jim about his new TV ad (Uncle Sam scarfing down a Government Motors Chevy) and his staff’s "Welcome home, Paul Hodes!" (from the latter’s trip to Canada to plead for campaign money from American trial lawyers). You know, I think that stuff like this puts a smile on his visage….heh! Given the location, I asked John a question about the current adversarial environment and hardline approach under Democrat John "Do Nuttin’" Lynch’s administration towards water front landowners via the "environmental police". His answer was appropriate.
In both cases, my thoughts are – "why does Lynch’s Government not trust its citizens in toto when it is only a few that are the problem?" With Jim’s ad, it is also the case of "when is Govt too big?". In both cases, it can be summarized as:
Who is supposed to be in charge here, the citizens or the Government?
