You can be sure that if this was on the other foot, that it was a Republican that had won with “uncertain” residency credentials, NH Dem Party Chair would be threatening to bomb the Hague NH State Senate chambers. But once again, we see limpness of elected Republican spines in the face of confrontation (reformatted, emphasis mine):
There’s no chance Republican senators will challenge the credentials of newly elected Democrat Jon Morgan, according to Sen. Chuck Morse, R-Salem, who will serve as Republican minority leader when the Senate reconvenes for the new year. As far as Republicans are concerned, the matter was settled when Morgan’s opponent, Republican incumbent Bill Gannon of Sandown, withdrew his complaint to the Ballot Law Commission just before its Monday meeting, Morse said. Gannon’s challenge, based on constitutional residency requirements, conjured memories among some longtime political observers of a case involving Gov. Sununu — not the incumbent, but his father, Gov. John H. Sununu, who served from 1983 to 1989.
I really don’t care about the Papa Smurf historical anecdote except for one thing he has common with Trump: he fights. Chuck Morse comes out looking like a beta male in this.
The Exeter-area Senate District 23 race was called for Morgan after a Nov. 22 recount put him ahead of Gannon by a mere 105 votes out of 26,000.
That’s 0.4%. Well within the margin of demanding a recount. Well within the margin TO FIGHT FOR YOUSELF! And given the circumstances of residency on the part of Jon Morgan
Sidenote: am I the only Conservative that keeps getting madder and madder at the GOP every time the importance of residency comes up and they basically collapse in on themselves? A la: if they won’t fight for themselves, why should we fight for them? It gets to the point of why vote for them if they can’t even believe in themselves enough to put up a fight?
fight on the grounds you’ve been given. Instead, you get the guy in the image (above). Back to the piece:
Gannon initially challenged Morgan on the basis of a constitutional requirement that candidates must be residents of the state for seven years prior to the Senate election. On the eve of the Ballot Law Commission hearings, Morgan produced documents that satisfied Gannon and the complaint was withdrawn.
And then a little old Texan belle shows up with more ammunition and courage than the GOP could ever muster with their palpating hearts:
That would have been the end of the matter, if not for the fact that conservative citizen activist Susan Olsen of Warner had filed a separate complaint and did not withdraw. Acting on that complaint, the BLC punted the matter to the state Senate, ruling that only that body can rule on the residency qualifications of incoming senators.
What does it say about the GOP candidate when someone not even a registered Republican puts up more of a fight than the candidate themselves? Or even the top rated Republican in the NH Senate? And at the end of the piece, there’s this:
…All of which goes to show that close elections are nothing new, and there are always unintended consequences.
Unintended Consequences – yep, there’s a few that the GOP never seems to understand that their actions (or better stated, their inactions) speak far louder than their words. They don’t (or don’t care) about the image factor to each and every decision.
There’s that old saw about that it isn’t about the size of the dog in the fight, its about the size of the fight in the dog. Both Gannon and Morse gave up and slunk back to their holes in the ground. So what does that tell us again?
- The candidate didn’t believe in himself enough to fight for himself
- The candidate didn’t think it was important enough
- Chuck Morse, now the MINORITY Leader, didn’t think it was important enough to even attempt to put up a fight for the GOP. Sure, he probably would have lost given that under his Majority leadership, he lost the Senate and that the outcome most likely would have been at least 15-9 (Jeb Bradley so often moving the Democrat agenda forward, I wouldn’t have been surprised).
- The NH GOP was silent on this race – nada, nein, nothing; not a single word (and I get all their Pressers).
- Again, if they won’t fight for themselves, and for all their politicalese to the contrary, how are we supposed to believe they really are “fight for us”?
They complain they lost – and yet we see them cave in, give up, turn tail, and run. This is not the only time, the only circumstance, and the only issue we’ve seen this same behavior on the part of the NH GOP. I do have to hand it to Ray Buckly – for all the vitriol and sarcasm we throw his way, we do have to give him his due: he’s smart and he fights. Sure, he has a lot of advantages over the NH GOP but he EARNED them (and I can’t believe I’m typing this, but c’est vrai).
But it does come down to a teaching moment that the NH GOP SHOULD be learning from but will refuse:
And how does it look like when a little old Texan Belle, Susan Olsen (the “conservative citizen activist Susan Olsen” mentioned in the piece) show FAR more fight than the whole of the NH GOP?
And that, my friends, is why I wrote this post – the importance of being able to politically fight (although I wouldn’t necessarily want to walk into a dark alley with her on the other side, either). Perhaps she should be running for NH GOP Chair – she certainly punches back right up past the super-heavyweight division. Methinks the NH GOP could use that kind of spinal infusion and learn how to fight back against the Dems and for the GOP voters to a level the NH GOP hasn’t had in a long time. There are other candidates that I have in mind that share that kind of grit and determination but are outside the GOPe establishment. Let’s see if the GOPe is wise enough to figure it out.
Else, they’ll just be leaders of a dwindling part going forward. Just laying there on the canvas.
(H/T: Union Leader)
