Talking New Hampshire Down Home Blues

 

We've got the best Congress money can buy.

--variously attributed

Girl by the whirpool

Looking for a new fool

Don't follow leaders

Watch the parking meters

Get jailed, jump bail

Join the army, if you fail.

--Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues

George Carlin famously advised Americans to not vote. Our elected leaders cannot be one whit better than we are, and as a nation, Americans suck--and that's why those who represent them suck. 

That was Carlin's argument. 

Having heard all that, Mad Dog attended a "forum" for Democratic candidates for the open seat in New Hampshire's first Congressional district which extends from Hampton along the seacoast up the eastern side of the state to Lake Winnipesaukee.

The truth is, we know precious little about anybody we vote for. Mad Dog knew that from growing up with the children of Congressmen and government officials in Washington, D.C. When you meet the people who people our government, it's always a disappointment.  That is not true for having dinner with journalists, university professors, doctors, scientists, who may not be winning personalities, but they tend to be more interesting and engaging and impressive off stage than they are on stage. The opposite is true for politicians and actors. 

Carleigh Beriont

The forum was supposed to be an opportunity to get to know better the candidates for the Democratic nomination to run in the general election. There were five candidates at the forum, three men and three women, and any one of them would be better than whoever the Republicans might choose, because, you know, they are none of them MAGA.

But first the Democrats need to find someone who can do both of two things: 

1. Win the seat

2. Go to Washington and vote to change things, i.e., be brave.

The surprise of the night was Sarah Chadzynski, who very few of the Hampton voters in that room had ever heard of, but she turns out to be very smart and she has worked for a non governmental organization lobbying Congress to support Ukraine, so she has spent a lot of time in Washington and she has spoken with every single member of Congress, which even most Congressman cannot claim. The problem is, she can't win the seat. No name recognition and nobody can even spell her name. So, while she may have won the Hampton Derby as a dark horse, she's not Mad Dog's choice. 

Oh, And did I tell you?...I was a Marine!

Then there is Maura Sullivan, who has the backing of mysterious big money and a resume of having been a woman in the Marine Corps, which she reminds you about every third sentence. Semper Fidelis. We got it. This is her second primary for an open Congressional seat in New Hampshire--she ran in 2017, announcing her run about 2 months after first moving to New Hampshire. Clearly, she does not lack ambition or drive. Her last time out she came in 2nd to Chris Pappas, who went on to win the seat. She presided over the forum as if all the other candidates on stage were her guests, who she thanked for coming. There is something so relentlessly superficial and artificial about her, Mad Dog drove himself crazy trying to put his finger on just exactly why she comes off the way she does. She is probably a decent human being down there somewhere, but she plays a role she thinks is winning and that is a turn off for Mad Dog, although she had her supporters in the crowd.

No Show Stefanny

The one candidate not there, the one candidate who is almost never there is Stefany Sheehan, daughter of the current U.S. Senator from New Hampshire who purportedly is leading in the polls.  Having attended a variety of events where Stefany did not show, Mad Dog thought she was simply too busy as the front runner to bother with events of less than a thousand people, but Mad Dog has recently heard another explanation: Stefany's neighbors in Portsmouth say they believe she is pathologically shy, and that's the generous interpretation. They say hello to her, walking their dogs, passing her in the street but she barely acknowledges them.

Did I mention, my mother was Senator?

Now pathological shyness is no disgrace, but running for a Congressional seat may not be the best choice of vocation for someone thus afflicted. Mad Dog would love to be a rock star, but he has no sense of rhythm and is tone deaf, so he opted for another occupation. Stefany probably ought to opt for another option, no matter what her mother tells her to do.

Mad Dog's favorite is Carleigh Beriont, who checks off most of Mad Dog's boxes, but not all the boxes.

Of all the candidates running, Carleigh has by far the most glamorous academic record, which may actually be something she has to hide when asking for blue collar, resentful white male votes, which will likely go to the Republican anyway. College at a Seven Sister's school (Mt. Holyoke) PhD at Harvard, field work in Polynesia, and now an adjunct faculty lecturer at Harvard, which is great for Harvard because they can pay her pennies, but allows her to devote herself to her two children, and to serve on a variety of town government boards.

Ennis, Ireland

But don't hold all those glittering academic merit badges against her: She is actually, simply put, very smart. You can see her shifting gears, depending on who his is talking to--she smiles more and says less, and with fewer syllables, when she is talking to some folks, but when she is confronted with someone who has written his thesis on the topic he's asking her about, she shifts gears and replies with the precision, vocabulary and cadences required to meet him on his own level and let him know she's no push over.

In other words, while she comfortable with the PTA moms and the landscaper, she is just as fluent in academic speak and there is nobody in Washington who will be able to intimidate her. The real question is whether she will be inclined to intimidate anyone during hearings. 

Which brings us to what used to be called, "qualifications,"  a quaint concept which was dying before Donald Trump became President having no government experience but is clearly, truly and most seriously dead now. Nevertheless, Carleigh has got the nuts and bolts experience of serving on the Select Board, which is the town equivalent of collective mayor, and the Budget Committee, which manages a multimillion dollar budget in a town sucked dry by an avaricious state government in Concord, which looks at the wealth generated by Hampton Beach, the seacoasts major resort town, and grabs all the dollars it can, while leaving the town to figure out how to pay for it. It's Hampton makes, Concord takes. 

Given that tally sheet, you might expect her to be a tough, maybe arrogant Brahmin type, but she is deliberatively not that. If Maura has created a lean, green, killing machine macho-Marine woman persona, then Carleigh has cultivated a local mother with spittle in her hair, trying to keep a dozen balls in the air while keeping the town financially and administratively afloat. She is PTA mom on steroids. 

In fact, it's her amiability which other candidates quietly allude to: One of her competitors from the forum, in the mingling and conversation aftermath, where candidates one on one with voters, said Carleigh is a wonderful person but "she will be eaten alive down there in Washington."

"Too nice," is the message.

And surely, New Hampshire has already sent too nice to Washington with Chris Pappas. Many of us worried sending Pappas to Washington to face off against Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert was like sending a house cat into the lion's den.

And there is something more than snide back biting to that criticism. 

On two occasions, Carleigh was simply too politic (or maybe you'd prefer "polite")  and not enough the warrior, in Mad Dog's view.

One thing you have to say for Carleigh in spades is she shows up, and when the Deliberative Session considering the annual Warrant Article awarding taxpayer money to the town's Catholic church school took place, Carleigh showed up, the only Select Board member to do so. The School Board was all present. Anne Marie Galanis from the Budget Committee was there, but not the Select Board, nor any other governmental elected folks.  

This Warrant article has been voted through for 43 years, every year, until 2025, when somebody pointed out that it is floridly unconstitutional, in that government "shall make no law respecting religion" (First Amendment) and "no person shall ever be required to pay for the schools of any religion or sect" (Article 6, New Hampshire constitution) both apply and have been flagrantly violated under the aegis of "just let them try to enforce that!" prerogative of local town government.

One of the arguments for continuing to violate the First Amendment as been that sending kids to the Catholic school is cheaper for the town, where it costs $68,000 a year per student to go to a public school, or some such enormous sum. Carleigh rose to clarify that that number is misleading--it really does not cost that much to educate a kid in the public town schools, and the number includes the cost of providing for special needs children who are very expensive, but the cost for a child in Hampton public schools is actually far less. 

This struck Mad Dog as maddeningly off the point. It had already been said that there are empty seats in all Hampton schools now, seats which have already been paid for, so keeping kids out of those seats and sending them to the Catholic school saves no money at all--that money has already been spent. 

Carleigh could have said, "Look, I'm Catholic born and raised. My neighbors love the Catholic school and send their kids there and I considered it myself, but I don't expect town taxpayers who are not Catholic to pay for a Catholic school education any more than I'd expect them to pay to send my kids to Phillips Exeter down the road."

But she did not. She argued, indirectly, against the article but without confronting the real beating heart argument about separation of church and state.

She was not a warrior. She was a mediator.

In fact, if you look at the video, Carleigh's diffidence is subtly revealed: One of the speakers told a joke about how difficult it can be for a public official, for anyone in government, to hew to the principle of separation of church and state--it was that old story about Anne Richards, governor of Texas, who was told she had to tear down the Christmas nativity scene with baby Jesus, the three kings etc., on state grounds outside her office. Governor Richards exclaimed, "Damn! I really hate to do that! This is the only time, once a year in Austin, when we can ever collect in one place, at one time, three Wise Men!"

If you look at that video, there is Carleigh in the audience laughing, but she quickly collects herself and places her hand over her mouth and bows her head. The principal of the Catholic school stomped to the podium to say this very important topic was no laughing matter.  Carleigh was, instinctively, careful not to offend.

And that is the box Mad Dog cannot check for Carleigh. She is too careful not to offend. We need Democrats who want to offend, who will join the battle, not evade it.

And then there was the great ICE debate. The Select Board heard arguments that it should support a citizens' resolution to direct the chief of Hampton police to enter into no agreement or contract with ICE. This was during the Minneapolis occupation by ICE and Trump's Border Patrol and a week before ICE shot dead Renee Good and Alex Pretti. 

Ordinarily, the Select Board just sits in their chairs and listens and says nothing either to those citizens who show up to speak or among themselves, but on this occasion, before voting to endorse or reject the resolution, Amy Hansen who was endorsed by the Hampton  Democrats but usually votes with the Republican, spoke up. She said she wanted to make it clear her vote was motivated by the desire to keep the Board out of partisan politics--as she was going to vote to reject the anti-ICE resolution, along with Rusty Bridle, the Republican Board chairman. 

Carleigh, smiling, said, gently, "Well, but Amy, due process is hardly a partisan issue."

That was it. She did not say, "Inviting ICE, an agency which might be generously described as a lawless, rogue agency into Hampton where we could expect them to be no more likely to respect due process than they have been in Minneapolis hardly should be thought of as a political issue. It's an issue of public safety and respect for the rule of law."

But she did not .

As it played out, Carleigh had another shot at ICE and, to her great credit, she took it.

Several weeks later at the town Deliberative Session, the resolution was again introduced, this time as a Warrant Article and by then both Good and Pretti were dead and one citizen asked, "How many Hampton mothers will have to be shot before the town of Hampton is willing to reject the presence of ICE here?" 

A Republican state Representative offered an amendment to the Warrant Article, thus technically allowing for the Board to vote again. By this time even Amy Hansen and Rusty Bridle could see the animus of the crowd, the volatility of the situation and Carleigh, reading the Board called for a re-vote, and the Board voted unanimously to pass the anti-ICE measure.

So Carleigh played her cards right, got the result and brought along the Board with her.

But, Mad Dog would argue, while that may well have been slick management and crafty statesmanship, it was not leadership, or at least the leadership New Hampshire Democrats long for.

If the world were just: It would be Carleigh

Had Maura Sullivan been there, she might have said, "I have led Marines into battle and grieved at their deaths and I want to see no more deaths among either ICE troops or the good people of Minneapolis!"

But, what Mad Dog would have liked to have heard just one public official say is: "Hampton stands with Minneapolis. We are not a sanctuary town, but we are an American town and we believe no agent of the government should wear a mask, that no agent of government should prowl the streets, arresting citizens or non citizens without due process and against the wishes of the citizenry. We believe ICE has proved to be unrestrained by law and in fact has injected lawlessness into places where law once prevailed." 

And all like that.

Having said all that, Carleigh Beriont is clearly the pick of the litter and should be the nominee, and she should be the next Congresswoman from the New Hampshire First, but she won't be because she does not have enough big money backers.

And if she does go to Washington, of course, she will find her first and most pressing job, from the moment she moves into her office is to start dialing for dollars all over again.

But for now, she has been put in the position of trying to win an election on simple merit, and in New Hampshire, that is a tall order.

And so we'll dance to that discordant music, and Carleigh will have to chase after small donors like some Mary Kay promoter, hoping to generate enough grassroots money to win a pink Cadillac.

Obadiah Youngblood

Mad Dog would be the first to volunteer to drive up to Wolfboro, Alton Bay, Rochester and all points remote from Hampton to speak to whoever might be willing to listen, to sing Carleigh's praises, but he'll not be asked--because there is no mechanism for that sort of mass communication in New Hampshire, or likely anywhere in America. Now it's all TV or Face Book or something online, where the eyes are.

We will never elect another Lincoln. When Lincoln spoke at Cooper Union, his hour long speech was carried in newspapers which were sent nationwide--and people read it. Now Lincoln would have to condense it all into snappy phrases on Whatsapp!

So here's how the money chase stands currently:

                                    

Maura Sullivan                 $2,638,370

Stefany Shaheen              $1,800,994

Carleigh Beriont                   $385,021

When every campaign becomes a money chase, we paraphrase American paratroopers in World War II, as we rumble along in our trucks and caissons, "It's a Helluva Way to Fight a War."