After 6 months of campaigning, the primary election results for the Democratic nomination to face the Republican Trump fan for the open seat in the New Hampshire First for the United States House of Representatives are in:
What is remarkable is that nearly 64,000 citizens out of a population of 1,300,000 took the time to vote.
What is disturbing is that 70,000 is a pretty small number and those who did vote chose the "safe" candidate, a man who has worked in state government for years, made lots of friends, avoids conflict and prides himself on "reaching across the aisle."
His argument was that he has won in Republican districts and the New Hampshire first is deeply purple, having gone back and forth between Dems and GOP almost every cycle.
On my street, there are 11 families. Only two of these households bothered to walk down the street to vote. Most of my neighbor were blissfully unaware there even was an election and only one household had folks who could name a single one of the 11 candidates for the open seat. Only two ever went to a "forum" which was the way the Democratic party presented its candidates.
The head of the Democrats refused to allow a real "debate" where candidates could exchange freely, saying with so many on the stage that would be too unwieldy.
The good news is the Stepford wife candidate, the pretty blonde Marine Corps vet who dark money had imported to run for the seat lost. You could not turn on the TV without seeing her for 2 weeks prior to the election. One would have thought she was the only one running, but she lost to a guy with deep roots and a long history in New Hampshire.
Particularly interesting was the showing of Naomi Andrews, who entered the race late, who sounded as if she was running for student government president, but who had worked for the former Congresswoman and presumably was known and liked by some regular party employees. Somehow, she pulled in 10 times the vote of the really substantive, grown up candidates; she out polled a man who took fire in Iraq and won a bronze star. So much for "Thank you for your service."
Really, the rest of the news is pretty discouraging. It is discouraging because citizens did not care enough, even in New Hampshire, which is a state which claims it deserves to hold the first Presidential primary in the nation because its citizens are so engaged, so politically aware, so involved.
Bull.
The same citizens who go to the ball game and blubber about the national anthem, who rail against football players for "disrespecting the flag" by taking a knee, can't be bothered to go to a forum and listen to candidates for their national government. These same super patriot citizens who have American flag decals all over their cars and flags outside their houses cannot name even 3 real issues or where any of the candidates stand on them.
They could not be bothered to walk next door when a candidate came to their neighbor's house to discuss the issues.
For these patriots, making any effort at all, even mental effort, taking even three hours to think about political and social issues was too much to ask.
As if real patriotism requires no effort at all.
One of my neighbors who did go to multiple meetings to hear the candidates repeatedly came to a different conclusion about who to vote for: She voted for a woman because she thinks Congress needs more women and she liked Mindi Messmer's drive to protect the environment. I cannot fault her for that. This neighbor is a patriot in the real sense of the word--she took the time to think to discuss to agonize over her choices.
For my money, there was nobody even close to Terence O'Rourke, whose intellect, whose grasp of the issues, whose boldness with respect to solutions--he would fix the rule from the dead in our Supreme Court by packing it--made him the obvious standout choice.
But he was spitting into the wind. He got all of 657 votes. That's the number of thinking citizens out of 1.3 million souls living in this state.
Since almost the beginning of our Republic, party machines have been able to turn out voters to vote for the candidates of their choice, and Terence O'Rourke was clearly not that; he was a challenge to entrenched party pols.
During the 1930's the world chose between fascism and democracy and large parts of it chose fascism. Democracy was too indecisive, too weak for many countries. Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, all chose fascism. Mussolini made the trains run on time and Hitler put people to work building the autobahn to connect up the nation with roads.
The strongman has his appeal.
Democracy, as we can see by the results this past Tuesday, remains dysfunctional 90% of the time and is lucky to be still alive.
PS: For all the talk about the Blue Wave coming in November, it's interesting to note that 21,000 Republicans got out to vote for their Trump booster, Eddie Edwards on 9/11/18, virtually the same number as Democrats who voted for Pappas.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | Percentage | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Pappas | D | 26,875 votes | 42% votes | |||
| Maura Sullivan | D | 19,313 votes | 30% votes | |||
| Mindi Messmer | D | 6,142 votes | 10% votes | |||
| Naomi Andrews | D | 4,508 votes | 7% votes | |||
| Lincoln Soldati | D | 1,982 votes | 3% votes | |||
| Deaglan McEachern | D | 1,709 votes | 3% votes | |||
| Levi Sanders | D | 1,141 votes | 2% votes | |||
| Mark Mackenzie | D | 746 votes | 1% votes | |||
| Terence O'Rourke | D | 656 votes | 1% votes | |||
| Paul Cardinal | D | 317 votes | 0% votes | |||
| William Martin | D | 230 votes | 0% votes | |||
| Total | 63,619 | |||||
What is remarkable is that nearly 64,000 citizens out of a population of 1,300,000 took the time to vote.
What is disturbing is that 70,000 is a pretty small number and those who did vote chose the "safe" candidate, a man who has worked in state government for years, made lots of friends, avoids conflict and prides himself on "reaching across the aisle."
His argument was that he has won in Republican districts and the New Hampshire first is deeply purple, having gone back and forth between Dems and GOP almost every cycle.
On my street, there are 11 families. Only two of these households bothered to walk down the street to vote. Most of my neighbor were blissfully unaware there even was an election and only one household had folks who could name a single one of the 11 candidates for the open seat. Only two ever went to a "forum" which was the way the Democratic party presented its candidates.
The head of the Democrats refused to allow a real "debate" where candidates could exchange freely, saying with so many on the stage that would be too unwieldy.
The good news is the Stepford wife candidate, the pretty blonde Marine Corps vet who dark money had imported to run for the seat lost. You could not turn on the TV without seeing her for 2 weeks prior to the election. One would have thought she was the only one running, but she lost to a guy with deep roots and a long history in New Hampshire.
Particularly interesting was the showing of Naomi Andrews, who entered the race late, who sounded as if she was running for student government president, but who had worked for the former Congresswoman and presumably was known and liked by some regular party employees. Somehow, she pulled in 10 times the vote of the really substantive, grown up candidates; she out polled a man who took fire in Iraq and won a bronze star. So much for "Thank you for your service."
Really, the rest of the news is pretty discouraging. It is discouraging because citizens did not care enough, even in New Hampshire, which is a state which claims it deserves to hold the first Presidential primary in the nation because its citizens are so engaged, so politically aware, so involved.
Bull.
The same citizens who go to the ball game and blubber about the national anthem, who rail against football players for "disrespecting the flag" by taking a knee, can't be bothered to go to a forum and listen to candidates for their national government. These same super patriot citizens who have American flag decals all over their cars and flags outside their houses cannot name even 3 real issues or where any of the candidates stand on them.
They could not be bothered to walk next door when a candidate came to their neighbor's house to discuss the issues.
For these patriots, making any effort at all, even mental effort, taking even three hours to think about political and social issues was too much to ask.
As if real patriotism requires no effort at all.
One of my neighbors who did go to multiple meetings to hear the candidates repeatedly came to a different conclusion about who to vote for: She voted for a woman because she thinks Congress needs more women and she liked Mindi Messmer's drive to protect the environment. I cannot fault her for that. This neighbor is a patriot in the real sense of the word--she took the time to think to discuss to agonize over her choices.
For my money, there was nobody even close to Terence O'Rourke, whose intellect, whose grasp of the issues, whose boldness with respect to solutions--he would fix the rule from the dead in our Supreme Court by packing it--made him the obvious standout choice.
But he was spitting into the wind. He got all of 657 votes. That's the number of thinking citizens out of 1.3 million souls living in this state.
Since almost the beginning of our Republic, party machines have been able to turn out voters to vote for the candidates of their choice, and Terence O'Rourke was clearly not that; he was a challenge to entrenched party pols.
During the 1930's the world chose between fascism and democracy and large parts of it chose fascism. Democracy was too indecisive, too weak for many countries. Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, all chose fascism. Mussolini made the trains run on time and Hitler put people to work building the autobahn to connect up the nation with roads.
The strongman has his appeal.
Democracy, as we can see by the results this past Tuesday, remains dysfunctional 90% of the time and is lucky to be still alive.
PS: For all the talk about the Blue Wave coming in November, it's interesting to note that 21,000 Republicans got out to vote for their Trump booster, Eddie Edwards on 9/11/18, virtually the same number as Democrats who voted for Pappas.
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