Yesterday was the 2020 Annual NH GOP Annual Meeting and certainly GraniteGrok was representing: I was there “in uniform” but Jim Kofault, Norm Silber, and Judy Aron were present. One thing was for sure – there were going to be some lively debating going on and I wasn’t talking about the NH GOP Committeeman race either. Every meeting there is bound to be something fought over and those over the ByLaws / Platform Planks tend to be the most serious and looniest at the same time. And this year, being the end of NH GOP Chair Steve Stepanek and Vice-Chair Pam Tucker first year in office, I was curious to see how their Reports were going to be positioned and presented. There was ONE statistic that was revealed, I think, that took EVERYONE by surprise – but I’ll revisit that one later. Here are the Introductory Ceremonies capped up by Gov Chris Sununu’s remarks:
Frankly, the venue (Inter-Lakes High in Meredith, NH) is perfect for me; for almost every other political event that goes on, it’s at least an hour (and generally more) one way. This was a quick 20 minutes, door-to-door) so no getting up at some ungodly hour (yes, one of my guilty pleasures is that time before full consciousness when the bed is nice and comfy but the room is down to 60 degrees and it’s nice just to lay there and think “This is a GREAT start to the morning – now, who is going to come along and louse it up…) to get into a cold car and drive somewhere else in the dark. I dowish that the NH GOP would try for either Gilford or Laconia – just a tad closer for me.
Anyways, while the facility was clean and up to date, it barely was large enough to hold the crowds. I got there just before 9am and it was already crowded in the area leading into the auditorium. There was one long, narrow corridor where $300/tables had been set up by different groups or candidates – frankly a waste of their money as there was NO room behind the tables at which people could man those tables. In this, I’m glad we didn’t “buy a table” to do our normal sit down type interviews – fire marshall would have shut us down for taking up the whole width of the corridor. Not only that but the place was LOUD! Not only outside the auditorium but inside as well. Although I had asked several people if they’d be willing to do interviews, I gave up – there was NO way that either of us could hear each other – nor for you to be able to listen afterwards.
Actually, my ears began to hurt.
And it wasn’t all that much more quieter in the auditorium either. After all, you have a few hundred political activists, some of which haven’t seen each other in a while, talk and Talk, and TALK! even more. They have no need for Papa Smurf to urge them on – that’s what politicos do on all KINDS of issues. So, I switched to just schmoozing with all those that I could – and had a lot more fun for a change.
Anyways, between the two Mevo cameras, we pretty much got it all and I’ll be running all the videos (cut for time and not for content, especially the time to collect and count votes) in a bit later on.
