We would like to thank James Guzofski for stepping up to serve his community to run in the Northwood/Nottingham special election for State Representative. We’d also like to thank all the NH State Representatives, town committees, and volunteers who graciously and generously gave their time to help James Guzofski in his campaign.
We are disappointed to be hearing disparaging rhetoric from fellow Republicans. This is dangerous and problematic but not surprising because those behaving badly have been doing so from the start. This behavior is a cancer in our party, and it needs to be eradicated before it becomes fatal.
Most folks don’t know that James Guzofski wasn’t the original candidate. Nottingham and Northwood Town committees had found another qualified gentleman to run for this position; however, a Golden Dome representative had called our candidate and talked him out of running for the position a week and a half before candidate sign-ups. Golden Dome Leadership had its own candidate that they planned to run, but to their surprise, that candidate backed out last minute. This prompted a phone call to the town committees with a confession by Joe and a plea to us to find another candidate. We then approached twice-elected Northwood Selectman and Northwood Chaplain James Guzofski, he happily agreed.
Meanwhile, Golden Dome Leadership had found yet another candidate they had chosen to run for this seat, and they worked in the days leading up to the primary to elect her. Even after the primary, both town committees were left out of all strategic planning even though we requested to be included, and some of those who were involved with the planning had requested local town chairs to be included.
Town committees struggle to find candidates for all town and state-elected positions. We do not need those who are courageous enough to step up to be a candidate to be disparaged, it only makes finding future candidates harder.
We don’t lose elections because voters choose bad candidates in primaries; we lose elections because some in our own party refuse to listen to the voters. Voters don’t come out to vote when they feel they are not being heard, and they don’t come out to vote when they feel their vote doesn’t matter. We constantly hear in our town committees from frustrated voters who don’t feel heard, and they feel their own party is working against them at times. We as Republicans, must do better if we want to get voters out and win.
Cheryl Dean
Northwood GOP Chair
Maureen Campaiola
Nottingham GOP Chair
