I got to know Spec Bowers during the Greg Moore … oops, sorry; of course, I mean the Bill O’Brien … speakership. For a “Yale man,” he was a good guy. A rare breath of intellectual fresh air in the very short-lived GOP supermajority elected in 2010 by the TeaParty wave.
But I don’t know what the hell he is talking about when he claims in GOP Campaign Strategy – The Governor’s Race that:
It seems that NH Democrats are worried about Kelly Ayotte, and not interested in policies that are important to NH citizens …
Actually, my dear Spec, it is just the other way around. “Democrats” … you should be calling them Woke-Communists … are obviously talking about things that matter to voters, while Republicans, or what passes for Republican in New Hampshire, are NOT. Do you, my dear Spec, have a better explanation for how the Woke-Communist GAINED seats in the New Hampshire House in 2022, in what should have been a Red Wave election?
Take public education, for example. The Woke-Communists’ mantra is that they are going to adequately fund public education, invest in public education, blah, blah, blah. The NHGOP response: EFAs! EFAs! EFAs all the way, everyday! EFAs are like EVs. There is no unmet demand among consumers of public education for EFAs. The NHGOP should be talking about IMPROVING public education as a counter to “investing” in public education. More specifically, by cutting the bureaucracy … especially the DEI bureaucracy …. and putting that money into classrooms. An excellent example is Massachusetts which spends roughly the same per pupil, but pays its teachers much more than New Hampshire does.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for the NHGOP to do so … they apparently are more interested in getting pats-on-the-head from AFP and Josiah Bartlett than actually winning elections. Stated slightly differently, my dear Spec, only about one-sixth of New Hampshire voters are “conservatives” and making EFAs the be-all and end-all of NHGOP education policy essentially writes off the other five-sixths.
The Woke-Communists are also going to save us from Climate Change. What’s the NHGOP response? Do they even understand, never mind have the ability to articulate, that “green energy” makes electricity more expensive? Are they proposing any policies to actually bring down the cost of electricity? All I am hearing is that the Choo-Choo train to Boston must be stopped … that this is the proverbial hill to die on.
My dear Spec, we could walk through the Woke-Communists’ other issues … abortion, “affordable housing,” “access to healthcare,” etc., etc., etc. … and see the same dynamic. The Woke-Communists are resonating with the voters … who increasingly are progressive-extremists attracted to New Hampshire because the Granite State has become a magnet for progressive-extremists … while the NHGOP is not: “smaller government,” “cut burdensome regulations,” blah, blah, snooze.
For example, here is a campaign mailer from the Woke-Communists in Manchester. All of the candidates pictured won. So, if any Party is guilty of not talking issues in a way that resonates with that ever-shrinking pool of persuadable voters, it is the NHGOP:
