This past Saturday afternoon, GraniteGrok covered the New Boston Taxpayer’s Town Hall event, hosted by NH House Rep Pat Murphy and where NH Speaker of the House Bill O’Brien, Deputy Speaker Pam Tucker, Majority Leader DJ Bettencourt spoke on issues like the Budget, Voter Fraud, redistricting, traditional marriage, and education.
In this clip, Pat begins the meeting with some introductory remarks and the Pledge while Pam Tucker discusses the budget and voter fraud:
After the jump, NH House Majority Leader DJ Bettencourt gives his talk to the crowd at the Whipple Library (numbering about 100 folks):
Following Pam Tucker and DJ Bettencourt, Bill O’Brien spoke for about 30 minutes on the budget, jobs, creating a pro-business environment here in NH, reforming public pensions, the process of redistricting, and a new site, ConcordFactCheck.org:
Given that it is the day before the NH First in the Nation Primary, that the ‘Grok is NH based, and the number of my recent Ron Paul posts, most of you are probably thinking that I am going to vote for Ron Paul. No, I am not (much to the dismay of my friends that are Ron Paul supporters).
In fact, I still don’t know who I am vote for – given that I originally was backing Herman Cain, I have not yet decided on a candidate (it still surprises me and a lot of my friends – WHAT? You?). I will admit that it will be either Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich – but every time I think my thinking has settled down, it shakes again. Regardless of which it is, I am proud of the fact that in addition to the commentary, punditry, and all out bloggish snark we serve up here, we also do straight “citizen journalism” with the use of either recorded or live stream video. All I can hope for is that the hours and hours of time putting up entire events (vs the 30 second sound bite you get from most MSMers) helped you, our readers, to make your decisions based on what you thought of the candidates’ actual words vs the ‘filter’ inserted into the process by the MSM .
Here are some “after event” interviews right after Ron Paul finished his event. Sorry for the poor audio quality of my questions, but it was loud! Most of the interviews went like this: Ron supporter or undecided, domestic policy that attracts you to him, foreign policy item that attracts you. And yes, two of the folks there were undecided (and one from LA)!
First, Barbara (who lives in my home town, as you will see):
Question 6 (which was asked by a young girl): you are going to abolish 3 Departments including the Department of Education; how are you going to replace them? I believe the underlying “gotcha” question was “and how will I get a decent education if the Feds are not involved?” (an adult formulated question, I presume):
Question 7: How will lowering corporate taxes bring back jobs to the US where many corporations already don’t pay [income] taxes?
And the “Press Gaggle” ( aka “press availability” or it can be called “the time when reporters and MSM Press can ask silly questions to show their Editors they are actually doing something to earn their expense accounts / salaries”) – added after the jump!
LAST OF THE QUESTIONS!
Question 11: What is your policy on Israel?
Question 12: Will my sick child have to stand in line at a charity hospital under your administration?
This afternoon, the 2012 Presidential Primary campaign came to Church Landing in Meredith, NH where a 500-600 strong contigent of Ron Paul supporters from all over (4 gentlemen standing next to me had come from Holland). TMEW and I arrived about 40 minutes before the start of the event and even at that, we were relegated to the back of the room, so good thing I had brought the “tall” tripod. It is a good thing that the Fire Marshall didn’t come strolling by -he would have shut down the event for overcapacity and when I realized that folks were still trying to come in, I was glad that the “back of the room” also meant “in the corner next to the double exit doors”.
The intensity level: high (is there anything other than that at a Ron Paul event)? The event was a bit different from the normal stump speech in that there was no stump speech from Dr. Paul – only introductions by NH State Senator Jim Forsythe (my state senator and the Ron Paul State Director) and Ron Paul’s son, US Senator Dr. Rand Paul (R-KY). Right after that, Jim started off with asking questions of Dr. Paul followed by questions from the crowd.
This clip is the intro ceremonies and the video of Question 1 is after the jump:
Q1: How has medical practice changed since you started, and how has that change affected your view of Government?
OK, still have this and one more video to put up after this – of Rand Paul who arrived later at the event than originally scheduled. But anyways…. Gov. Sununu spoke after Rick Santorum. Now, over the last three or four years, when Gov. Sununu spoke (like the old financial company ad said) “people listened”. … Read more
And the last of the videos from Friday nite: Senator Rand Paul spoke in his father’s (Congressman Ron Paul) stead: Notice: the cacophony that was in former NH Gov. Sununu’s clip disappeared as he began to speak…
While we tried to provide live video streaming of the event (during which, some member of the MSM kicked our power cord out as we were trying to interview Rick Santorum, and the Intertubes had some comms problems), we always try to back that up with recording video. Thus, I’ll put them up over the … Read more
In addition to Newt, there were plenty more speakers at the event last night at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Nashua, NH held by the Hillborough County Republicans:
former LA Congressman and Governor Buddy Roemer
Mark Callahan
Fred Karger
Congressman Charlie Bass (R-NH, CD2, and no, he is not running for Prez, merely spoke quickly)
Here is the video clip of former LA Congressman and Governor Buddy Roemer:
Former US Senator Rick Santorum was also present at the Hillsborough Republican event. Although the Press surrounding Newt slowed the beginning of the event, they literally SWARMED him afterwards, making it all but impossible for Chair Chadwick to continue with the proceedings. Through the ministrations of Stacy “the Other McCain” and my long term friendship … Read more
We are here in Nashua at the Crowne Plaza hotel – a bit late, but streaming live! Grokster Mike is here and I am joined by Stacy “the Other” McCain and DaTechGuy. We are all set up (mostly!) and we will be getting this event recorded and we’ll try to get some interviews as well!
Well, I got here what I thought was very early as I had been told that the “Volunteers” part of the evening was to be around 7:30pm. So, I arrived about 6:20 – and all of the street parking was already taken. Three satellite trucks (Channel 9 from NH, NECN for New England, and MyFox out of Boston) had already set up camp and running cabling. While the campaign office was pretty empty when I first arrived, it is since (as at 7:30pm or so), it has pretty much filled up with almost as many volunteer as media (a camera is trained on me as I type as they are getting B-roll).
The volunteers, for the most part, are rather angry – not at Herman but what seems to be the media and the “dirty tricks” that seem to go along with every major campaign. One lady came down from Augusta, ME to be here to show support – her mood was as red as her jacket. Another, a teacher, was also here in support not happy with the current events.
“I am asking independent-minded voters to imagine what we could accomplish with this ticket,” Roemer wrote. “Americans are justifiably frustrated with their politicians and parties. Joe and I could change that. To me, it’s a dream team.” ” target=”_blank”>No, Governor Buddy, thinking that Joe Lieberman as Veep would add to your appeal, at least during … Read more
The usual practice in politics is that after a speech, politicians will generally make themselves available to the press (i.e., "press avails") for additional questions on either what was just said and discussed, or on an agenda being carried out by a member of that media and trying to put that politician into a bad … Read more
I PROMISE that this is the last video from Thursday’s Granite State Patriots Liberty PAC Prez debate! Both Jeff and Chris are political activists and have worked on / actively working on political campaigns. That said for full disclosure, I do consider them friends and imposed upon them after a long evening to yak for … Read more
This past Thursday, the Granite State Patriots Liberty PAC (that aids Liberty and Freedom groups and Constitutionally minded candidates here in NH) held a thoughtful and "conversational" style Presidential debate that the ‘Grok live streamed (and recorded). No sharp tongued moderators (Paul Wescott of WGIR did a great job) here – a Constitutionally based question … Read more
