New at Reason

June 5, 2007

Reporting from New Hampshire, Dave Weigel looks at the rise of the state's Democratic Party.

Comments

|6.5.07 @ 2:11PM|#

...and the smug punk who dissed him is feeling the business end of an oak baseball bat.

WTF? Cripes David, when was the last time you saw an oak baseball bat? Never, that's when. While maple is becoming more popular, nearly all bats are made out of white ash. Ye fricking cheese eater.

|6.5.07 @ 2:16PM|#

Cripes David, when was the last time you saw an oak baseball bat?

Must be because they are patented.

|6.5.07 @ 2:18PM|#

"But they're mistaking a desperate electorate for a lovestruck electorate."

And you know that how, Dave? Your libertarian intuition? The Republican Party, in case you haven't noticed, is the southern party in the U.S., and those Hampshire folk, they ain't southern. They're anti-war social liberals. They don't like war and they don't like preachin'. They don't like George, they don't like Newt, they don't like Trent, and they don't like Fred.

Cesar|6.5.07 @ 2:19PM|#

The days of the New England Republican are numbered, just like the days of the white, southern democrat from the deep south were a decade ago.

|6.5.07 @ 2:44PM|#

David,

I've dissed you enough such that I have to give you props when you come out with a thoughtful and interesting article. Well done.

MUCH MORE AMERICAN THAN GUY MO|6.5.07 @ 2:50PM|#

GET IT RIGHT YOU LIBERAL SHILL = DEMOCRAT PARTY

|6.5.07 @ 2:59PM|#

Just goes to show that if you tell the same lies over and over again (e.g. Dems are good) people will eventually by into it.

Or to make an analogy, the magazine Reason, is all about reason and DW is a Libertarian.

The magazine Reason, is all about reason and DW is a Libertarian.

The magazine Reason, is all about reason and DW is a Libertarian.

The magazine Reason, is all about reason and DW is a Libertarian.

The magazine Reason, is all about reason and DW is a Libertarian.

The magazine Reason, is all about reason and DW is a Libertarian.

|6.5.07 @ 3:00PM|#

Did you know that the magazine Reason, is all about reason and DW is a Libertarian? How cool is that?

|6.5.07 @ 3:01PM|#

Good article Dave.

on the typical "nanny" issues the party's reading from the same hymn book as those other New England liberals

As I've commented before, the NH Dems are just taking pages from the Maine Dems playbook.

The state is absorbing more socially liberal voters from Massachusetts

Metro Boston lost about 135,000 in population from 1994 to 2004. A lot of people moved north to NH (and Maine too).

D.A. Ridgely|6.5.07 @ 3:02PM|#

Also new, though not at Reason, a bit of fun in mostly bad taste in anticipation of "Republican Idol, Round Two".

|6.5.07 @ 3:03PM|#

"Metro Boston lost about 135,000 in population from 1994 to 2004. A lot of people moved north to NH (and Maine too)."

Whay don't ME and NH take steps to control their borders against these political aliens?

|6.5.07 @ 3:18PM|#

Whay don't ME and NH take steps to control their borders against these political aliens?

We obviously need to build a fence from Seabrook to the Connecticut River to keep them furiners out.

|6.5.07 @ 3:19PM|#

Did you know that there is this magazine called Reason? Reason, is all about reason and DW is a Libertarian? How cool is that?

|6.5.07 @ 3:21PM|#

Teh Dook Our YOBS

|6.5.07 @ 3:23PM|#

For a comment thread in a magazine called Reason...

|6.5.07 @ 3:24PM|#

"The state is absorbing more socially liberal voters from Massachusetts..."

This is a myth. The southeastern counties that have absorbed the lion's share of the Massachusetts transplants went for Bush in 2004, while the rest of the state went for Kerry. The Massachusetts transplants are often Republicans seeking political refuge, not Massachusetts liberals.

As far as the future of the state's partisan alignment, it may well be that the GOP will take by the legislature by running libertarian Republicans, just as some Southern states have legislatures controlled by anti-abortion Democrats who used to support the Iraq War. But those states still vote for Republicans for Congress and the White House, because on a national level, the Democrats don't appeal to them. I suspect the opposite is true for New Hampshire.

|6.5.07 @ 3:24PM|#

First, your reference to the smoking ban is last years news. This year (with the new Dem majority that came in Nov 06) they passed it, and NH will soon also ban smoking. The seatbelt law, however, was defeated again (narrowly).

NH is a unique republican state because it is essentially libertarian. As a NH resident, I predict the Dems will not see this and eventually lose power. If they think they were voted in to pass stupid nanny state laws like smoking bans and mandatory seatbelts, they are idiots. They are using their majority to do it, sure, but that is not where their majority came from.

It came from Iraq. It came from a tarnished Republican party that will not admit that Iraq was a complete and utter failure and anyone with sense should have seen it coming. If John Sununu realizes this and starts to distant himself from Iraq ala Chuck Hegel, he will keep his seat no problem. If he puts party loyalty above obvious sense, he will lose.

NH Republicans have never had a significant religious conservative element (it was there, of course, but way too small to make a big differnce), unlike the Republican party in other states. That fact HELPED keep NH the only Republican state in the northeast, because the vast majority of northeasteners do not like messing in "private" areas.

Unless the NH Dems realize that nanny state laws are going to hurt them once big issues like Iraq are off the table, they will return to minority status in this state.

And yes, I know the NH legislature can do nothing to help fix the Iraq mess. But when you are partners with such idiocy, you dont look very smart yourself. Thats what happened here last November.

|6.5.07 @ 3:26PM|#

Ah, dammit! I thought I'd already posted as "joe."

|6.5.07 @ 3:36PM|#

But when you are partners with such idiocy, you dont look very smart yourself.

The NH GOP sent out snail mail spam pre-'06 election equating Democrats with Terrorists and saying the GOP was the only party that will keep you safe.

They aligned themselves so forcefully with the Washington neocons that it was absolutely no surprise they got tossed out.

|6.5.07 @ 3:44PM|#

Their aping of the national party's dirty tricks didn't help them any, either. The phone jamming scandal that allowed Craig Benson to eke out a victory in 2002, for example.

New Hampshire prides itself on having very, very clean politics. In fact, the skulduggery of the Democratic urban machines during the 19th and 20th centuries was one of the biggest reasons it became such a Republican states.

It's ironic that the three core planks of the GOP's "permanent majority" strategy - using the Iraq War to create wedge issues, bashing gays, and back-room party shennanigans - are what ended up handing one of the reddest states in the country to the Democrats.

Chucklehead|6.5.07 @ 3:45PM|#

I'm convinced Weigel is a shill for Big Embedded Video.

|6.5.07 @ 4:17PM|#

"Craig Benson to eke out a victory in 2002, for example"


eke out?!!!!

2002 results:
Benson 59%
Dem 38%
Libertarian 3%

wow.....anyway, finally do like DW's take on something...i'll put NH in wait and see before I declare it gone...I mean Benson was partically a libertarian and won big...

|6.5.07 @ 4:29PM|#

...continuing...

and even with the "scandals" surrounding Benson still only lost to Lynch 51-49%

|6.5.07 @ 4:38PM|#

Nice catch, au standard. I confused the gubenatorial race with the Senate race, which Sununu won by a hair after...well, details here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_New_Hampshire_Senate_election_phone_jamming_scandal

|6.5.07 @ 5:22PM|#

While maple is becoming more popular, nearly all bats are made out of white ash.

Not for these kind of activities, there's other materials which are better.

As for the article: Now where the hell am I going to move to? I was just saving up for the transfer, dammit!!

|6.5.07 @ 7:39PM|#

News flash! Democratic politicians tend to be big-government nanny statists. Stop the presses!

The '06 election was all about Iraq. Anyone with any common sense (i.e., anyone except Republican candidates across the country) could see that. The Democrats campaigned on that issue like they held libertarian beliefs about wars of choice, but when push came to shove about ending it by cutting off funding, they wanted to "support the troops" (translation: support the interests of federal government employees over that of the taxpayers funding this mess).

GILMORE|6.5.07 @ 10:13PM|#

DWM | June 5, 2007, 2:59pm | #
Just goes to show that if you tell the same lies over and over again (e.g. Dems are good) people will eventually by into it.

Which just goes to show that calling something counter-factual works best when you provide some kind of coherent argument about why something (specific) is wrong, and cite (specific) evidence why.

|6.5.07 @ 10:40PM|#

Not to worry, the dumb ass Dems are pushing far too hard toward Nannydom to stay in control for any real length of time and the blowback will swing it back. The danger, of course, is it swinging too far as it did this time.

The quotes themselves tell the story and so do the election results. UNH took the day for Shea-Porter and Dartmouth pushed the other yokel (and alumnus) over the top. Everyplace else was much more evenly split with only a few points toward the blue. I'm beginning to think there isn't a dumbass pol who even knows what a mandate is. Here is a hint Carol, it ain't 52 and 53%! Now get the hell out of my fryer and gun cabinet, oh, and take those Rube-ublicans that are in my bedroom searching for homosexual terrorists with you.

|6.6.07 @ 1:01AM|#

I've always been confused about the "government in our bedrooms" line. Yes, the government is in my wallet, my kitchen, my garage...hell, just about every room in my house and facet of my life EXCEPT who I screw or how I screw them. I cannot think of one time that my sex life was in any way affected by a government policy.

I think this line is a complete bogey-man and anyone who claims it is being dishonest to some degree. The far left has been far more successful in ACTUALLY restricting freedoms than the far right, and hence are far more dangerous.

|6.6.07 @ 8:41AM|#

"....and it's where Republicans will figure that winning back libertarian voters is the key to their coming, miraculous resurrection. "

Republicans will probobly go down the more Jesus route where they tout who's got more Jesus in their heart.."I love Jesus so much".."No I love Jesus even more".."No, I went for coffee with Jesus and did some skydiving with Jesus" etc..

Reginleif|6.6.07 @ 11:31AM|#

Chad: "I cannot think of one time that my sex life was in any way affected by a government policy."

You're male.

|6.6.07 @ 5:05PM|#

You're male.



ok...i'll bite.... besides the abortion issue (a debatable libertarian issue)what else are you referring to?

|6.6.07 @ 5:13PM|#

David: What does my gender have to do with it. If it affects my partner, it affects me, and I would be both legally and morally responsible for any child.

That being said:

1: Abortion is widely available.

2: Even if it wasn't, or was illegal completely, it wouldn't affect me, because I do not have sex that has any significant potential to result in an unwanted pregnancy (double protection, always). Nor am I likely to sleep with women who would have abortions anyway.

In the meantime, Democrats very successfully control many aspects of what I eat, my working conditions (including pay), my and my childrens' education, my retirement, etc. Some of these are controlled in ways that I find VERY detrimental to my personal welfare.

That is far worse than some hypothetical threat to the ability of my sexual partner to undergo a procedure that neither of us would want and are virtually certain to never need anyway.

DNM|6.6.07 @ 10:35PM|#

Hurry up, Free State Project! Save the last libertarian preserve!

> As for the article: Now where the hell am I going to
> move to? I was just saving up for the transfer,
> dammit!!
>
Tell me about it. This article broke my heart. Now, I'll have to pick a place to set up shop based on other criteria, like pleasant weather.

Robert|6.7.07 @ 1:46AM|#

That's more or less it. The "left" has ceded to the "right" the purview of prohibiting things only minorities, usually small ones, want to do, while keeping for themselves the purview of interfering with what majorities or large minorities want to do.

James Maynard|6.8.07 @ 12:21PM|#

This article seems to answer it's own question... It calls NH a libertarian state (which we are) and wonders why the Rs lost. Answer: Because we are a libertarian state.
The state R party decided to ally itself last year with the Washington NeoCons and the Iraq War. Bad mistake. If the Ds try to raise our taxes, we'll throw them out next election.
Civil Unions? Most people here in NH are glad it went though because we simply don't CARE who anybody else wants to marry. Marry who you want - why is it any of my darn business???
Anyway, The Ds may be portraying NH as going from red to blue, but the truth is we have been purple all along.