When you walk through the garden
You gotta watch your back
Well I beg your pardon
Walk the straight and narrow track
--"Down in the Hole"
The Candidate's night at the Exeter Inn did not begin auspiciously. Terence O'Rourke began with the kind of stuff you can only imagine some female campaign consultant told him he needed to do, so there was what felt like several hours of talk about his three children, his wonderful wife, who taught him all he knew about being a county prosecutor, a rendition of his life story, which at thirty something, cannot be all that long--except for the part about his time in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When he touched on his military service the difference between him and Maura Sullivan was resounding. This is a man who is understated about his experiences in war, which real warriors always are. He was not trying to claim to be a hero. He was just saying her learned some things from his time in combat, and there was a mixture of sorrow and anger which made him look and sound much older.
It was only in the last few minutes, when he began to address the issues people started sit up and listen. He said this whole endless war thing had to be brought to a close. And he said there is no reason we have to live with the legacy of a Supreme Court and meekly accept the reality of Roberts/ Thomas/Alito/Gorsuch for the next thirty years. Congress can pack the court without a Constitutional amendment.
But it was during the question and answer session he really shone: He said we had to take the profit motive out of health care in this country, had to move beyond single payor to a true National Health System, which would not mean the end to private medical care but simply give everyone access to some medical care.
He has seen the "drug war" from the point of view of a prosecutor so he can be forgiven for seeing the "opioid problem" in terms of law enforcement, interdicting the flow of drugs from Afghanistan, the source of the lion's share of opium in the world.
He is clearly smart enough to be educated on this, to be brought to believe the opioid problem is not one but many problems and is, at heart a public health problem.
This is a guy who might even be persuaded to watch "The Wire." You can tell, it would appeal to him.
And he thinks attack rifles and military weapons have no business being sold to private citizens, and he is a hunter. He can read the Second Amendment and understand it. He can talk to the demented Second Amendment knuckle draggers and say he's not trying to castrate them from their guns, but there is no goddamn way they are owed military assault rifles by the Second Amendment, even if they do believe the blue helmets in the black helicopters are coming to get them.
I could see him standing up to Republican thugs like Jim Jordan of Ohio, who was a collegiate wrestling champion, and struts around in Congress sans the usual jacket and tie in a tight fitting dress shirt as if he was trying to get as close to a wrestling singlet as he can, to do battle with lily livered liberals.
He exchanged intelligently with the professor of economics in the front row who pointed out that the new tax bill is a theft from the poor to the rich. O'Rourke added that as most people earn more money, their tax rates rise, but for Walmart it is now fixed at 21% no matter how much money they make.
He also added that any threat to Medicare and Social Security could be easily fixed by simply removing the cap which means Bill Gates only pays for Social Security up to $120,000 of his income.
One of his best remarks came about the Charlottesville incident, where Trump said some of the alt right folks, some of them Nazis were "fine people."
"I had thought," he said, "Despite all our differences, as Americans we all agreed that Nazis are never fine people."
He's as liberal as Bernie, but younger.
O'Rourke needs work: He speaks in a rushed, staccato way, and his best lines are lost in his lack of enunciation.
But he might just be the real article. He might be what we need. We need some fire and fury. We need a war consigliere.
After the talk, a Chris Pappas supporter told me: "We need a work horse in Congress--this guy O'Rourke is a show horse."
And I had to ask: What for? What can any Democrat do in Congress now, for his home district, or for the nation?
I asked him to name just 4 Democratic Congressmen. He couldn't.
That's the problem. We got no leaders. We need leaders. Red blooded, testosterone infused leaders. That doesn't mean they can't be women, but they have to be bold, confrontational and fierce when aroused.
Chris Pappas, bless him, is a house cat.
Maura Sullivan is ambitious, has attracted lots of money, but she's an empty suit, sorry to say. She just hasn't thought about the issues. She's about as into policy as those glam gals on Scandal. For her, Congress is all about the glamour.
This O'Rourke character, he's more like Josiah Bartlet. He's actually intrigued by the problems, searching for solutions.
He's the kind of guy you want to get in a place like the Community Oven, where it's not noisy and you can hear everyone talk and you want to spend a few hours listening to him, pelting him with questions, making him refine his thinking and you just have the inkling, he might someday grow up to be President, starting right here in New Hampshire.
Pappas is right on all the issues, but he lives in a world of Mr. Rogers neighborhood.
He has said he doesn't want to get in food fights in Congress.
Sullivan is a show horse.
But O'Rourke strikes me as someone who knows when the only choice is to fight, who knows when there's no point in trying to appease.
And if he gets into a fight, he's going to win it.
The real imponderable is why a bright young guy like this would want to spend his time shuttling between Washington National airport and Manchester, would want to get a job where, from day one, all you are doing is dialing for dollars and trying to get the IRS off the back of some elderly widow in New Durham and trying to keep the Shipyard open.
House of Representatives is no kind of job.
But if he got that ,and then took Maggie Hassan's seat in the Senate, well then I might could just show him around some nice neighborhoods he could move his wife and kids into down in the Maryland suburbs of DC, because he could have a good career down there.
You gotta watch your back
Well I beg your pardon
Walk the straight and narrow track
--"Down in the Hole"
The Candidate's night at the Exeter Inn did not begin auspiciously. Terence O'Rourke began with the kind of stuff you can only imagine some female campaign consultant told him he needed to do, so there was what felt like several hours of talk about his three children, his wonderful wife, who taught him all he knew about being a county prosecutor, a rendition of his life story, which at thirty something, cannot be all that long--except for the part about his time in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When he touched on his military service the difference between him and Maura Sullivan was resounding. This is a man who is understated about his experiences in war, which real warriors always are. He was not trying to claim to be a hero. He was just saying her learned some things from his time in combat, and there was a mixture of sorrow and anger which made him look and sound much older.
It was only in the last few minutes, when he began to address the issues people started sit up and listen. He said this whole endless war thing had to be brought to a close. And he said there is no reason we have to live with the legacy of a Supreme Court and meekly accept the reality of Roberts/ Thomas/Alito/Gorsuch for the next thirty years. Congress can pack the court without a Constitutional amendment.
But it was during the question and answer session he really shone: He said we had to take the profit motive out of health care in this country, had to move beyond single payor to a true National Health System, which would not mean the end to private medical care but simply give everyone access to some medical care.
He has seen the "drug war" from the point of view of a prosecutor so he can be forgiven for seeing the "opioid problem" in terms of law enforcement, interdicting the flow of drugs from Afghanistan, the source of the lion's share of opium in the world.
He is clearly smart enough to be educated on this, to be brought to believe the opioid problem is not one but many problems and is, at heart a public health problem.
This is a guy who might even be persuaded to watch "The Wire." You can tell, it would appeal to him.
And he thinks attack rifles and military weapons have no business being sold to private citizens, and he is a hunter. He can read the Second Amendment and understand it. He can talk to the demented Second Amendment knuckle draggers and say he's not trying to castrate them from their guns, but there is no goddamn way they are owed military assault rifles by the Second Amendment, even if they do believe the blue helmets in the black helicopters are coming to get them.
I could see him standing up to Republican thugs like Jim Jordan of Ohio, who was a collegiate wrestling champion, and struts around in Congress sans the usual jacket and tie in a tight fitting dress shirt as if he was trying to get as close to a wrestling singlet as he can, to do battle with lily livered liberals.
He exchanged intelligently with the professor of economics in the front row who pointed out that the new tax bill is a theft from the poor to the rich. O'Rourke added that as most people earn more money, their tax rates rise, but for Walmart it is now fixed at 21% no matter how much money they make.
He also added that any threat to Medicare and Social Security could be easily fixed by simply removing the cap which means Bill Gates only pays for Social Security up to $120,000 of his income.
One of his best remarks came about the Charlottesville incident, where Trump said some of the alt right folks, some of them Nazis were "fine people."
"I had thought," he said, "Despite all our differences, as Americans we all agreed that Nazis are never fine people."
He's as liberal as Bernie, but younger.
O'Rourke needs work: He speaks in a rushed, staccato way, and his best lines are lost in his lack of enunciation.
But he might just be the real article. He might be what we need. We need some fire and fury. We need a war consigliere.
After the talk, a Chris Pappas supporter told me: "We need a work horse in Congress--this guy O'Rourke is a show horse."
And I had to ask: What for? What can any Democrat do in Congress now, for his home district, or for the nation?
I asked him to name just 4 Democratic Congressmen. He couldn't.
That's the problem. We got no leaders. We need leaders. Red blooded, testosterone infused leaders. That doesn't mean they can't be women, but they have to be bold, confrontational and fierce when aroused.
Chris Pappas, bless him, is a house cat.
Maura Sullivan is ambitious, has attracted lots of money, but she's an empty suit, sorry to say. She just hasn't thought about the issues. She's about as into policy as those glam gals on Scandal. For her, Congress is all about the glamour.
This O'Rourke character, he's more like Josiah Bartlet. He's actually intrigued by the problems, searching for solutions.
He's the kind of guy you want to get in a place like the Community Oven, where it's not noisy and you can hear everyone talk and you want to spend a few hours listening to him, pelting him with questions, making him refine his thinking and you just have the inkling, he might someday grow up to be President, starting right here in New Hampshire.
Pappas is right on all the issues, but he lives in a world of Mr. Rogers neighborhood.
He has said he doesn't want to get in food fights in Congress.
Sullivan is a show horse.
But O'Rourke strikes me as someone who knows when the only choice is to fight, who knows when there's no point in trying to appease.
And if he gets into a fight, he's going to win it.
The real imponderable is why a bright young guy like this would want to spend his time shuttling between Washington National airport and Manchester, would want to get a job where, from day one, all you are doing is dialing for dollars and trying to get the IRS off the back of some elderly widow in New Durham and trying to keep the Shipyard open.
House of Representatives is no kind of job.
But if he got that ,and then took Maggie Hassan's seat in the Senate, well then I might could just show him around some nice neighborhoods he could move his wife and kids into down in the Maryland suburbs of DC, because he could have a good career down there.
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