A loyal reader alerted me to this in the Concord Monitor this morning – Annmarie Timmins runs a column similar to Distao’s (Union Leader) – concerning the RINO of the Week / Year series that Rick runs (heh!). She had called me about the bumper stickers and more specifically, about the license plate. What she wrote (I have added pertinent links):
“Republican vs. “Republican“
Rep. David Kidder of New London is letting bygones be bygones.
Despite recently losing GraniteGrok.com’s coveted 2011 RINO (Republican In Name Only) of the Year award to Rep. Julie Brown of Rochester, the two were chatting happily at a legislative hearing last week.
Kidder, a Realtor serving his fourth term, was in the running along with 15 other representatives who don’t always vote along party lines.
“It was, well, disappointing,” Kidder said Thursday. But Kidder knew he had no chance once the conservatives in his party got a look at the bumper stickers on Brown’s car.
“Tea Parties are for Little Girls and Their Imaginary Friends,” says one. The other pictures a dog with the words, “I want free health care too.” GraniteGrok.com posted a snapshot of Brown’s bumper, legislative license plate included, on its website.
You bet I did!
Rochester Rep. Susan DeLemus, a Republican in name and vote apparently, circulated an email urging everyone to vote for Brown.
“This is a fun vote,” read the email. “Can’t they all be #1?”
DeLemus didn’t get back to us. Brown, who said the Tea Party bumper sticker was a gift from her grandson, wasn’t happy to learn her license plate was online for the world to see. With a little initiative, it’s not too hard to identify a lawmaker and their home address by their legislative plate.
Skip Murphy, GraniteGrok’s co-founder, isn’t penning Brown an apology.
“Welcome to the internet age, where you can find anybody and anything about anybody,” he said. “You have to work hard not to be on the internet.”
Even if it was a gift from her grandson, if she really didn’t agree with the sentiment, she might have displayed it somewhere else than on her car.
If one bothers to go to the official NH House Roster page, one only has to use the pulldown menu to find “Brown, Julie” and click and it brings you to this page:
Again, if you look at her seat number, 4099, her plate becomes obvious. I emailed a text screen scrape of the above to Annmarie to show just how easy it was to make the links and get the info. After all, Julius Brown made the decision to make herself a “public figure” and put her info available on the NH Government site.
On getting the award, Brown, serving her 24th year in the House, offered this: “I was the only Republican elected in Strafford County in 2008.”
Indeed, she was. And Annmarie Timmins could be writing for GraniteGrok with these bon mots that finish her snippet:
Um, that’s probably exactly what the “real” Republicans would say.
Heh!
