The Free Stater In Me

The more I think about my run in with the Free Staters last Wednesday, the more I ask myself how much I believe with which they might also resonate.

I have for years believed myself to be a most unelectable man because I question certain sacred beliefs:

1/ Marriage licenses:  I am offended by the notion of a government sanctifying what should be the most personal and intimate relation two individuals have.  Why do we need the government to issue a license? Well, if there are rights which people need, like visitation rights in a hospital, if there are financial rights connected to arrangements with mortgages and joint ownership or child support, marriage streamlines all this, but you could handle all this with contracts and you do not need licenses.
The Free Staters I met also resented licenses, but they extended that resentment to licenses for barbers and fingernail cutters. There I would draw the line. Licensing is a pretty inadequate way to protect the public health, and it has often been ludicrous and structured to protect a guild more than to protect the public, but I do not want a fingernail cutter spreading MRSA or a barber spreading hepatitis and a license might be at least a wave in the direction of certifying the practitioner has a passing familiarity with risks to public health his practices might present.

2/ Legalization of prostitution: I am told Free Staters are for this.   I think we ought to do this in some way. I realize there might be problems with sex trafficking and pimps and involuntary prostitution, but I cannot see that keeping prostitution illegal has, in a real world sense, ever addressed these problems. Better to treat this as a public health problem and make sure sex workers are tested for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

3/ Legalization of drugs: Again, I'm told Free Staters want to legalize drugs. I'm not really sure what that means. I'm convinced our current "war on drugs" is stupid and ineffective. I think it might work better to legalize not just marijuana but heroin and cocaine, which could be treated as a public health problem, sold inexpensively in package stores or pharmacies along with clean needles to prevent the spread of hepatitis and HIV.  But there will always be drugs which are too lethal to be legalized: PCP, methamphetamine, Fentanyl, among many others. There will always be an illicit drug for sale. 

But what are our goals in making drugs illegal? To prevent members of the public, particularly stupid kids from using them? There is no evidence making drugs illegal reduces their use. The prevent deaths from overdoses? Again, no convincing evidence laws or drug rehabilitation programs work to prevent this.  I think we have to admit the truth, namely that we will never save the majority of dope fiends from their addictions or the consequences of these addictions. We can treat this problem as a disease to be dealt with but we cannot cure it.

4/ Foreign wars: The Free Staters I spoke with said it would be better if the United States was broken up into smaller states like New Hampshire because then we would not be big enough to wage wars around the world which have been, overall, destructive and done more harm than good.  I have often thought about this:  Since World War II what wars have the United States fought which were "the good war?" Certainly not Vietnam, or even Korea. The Gulf Wars? Were they really a good idea? Afghanistan?  Well, that helped us hunt down Osma Bin Laden, but did we really need to stay in Afghanistan for 10 years for that?  Our "Global War on Terrorism," really is no more a war than the "war on drugs" or the "war on cancer." 
We did some good in Kosovo and maybe we should have tried to do more in Rwanda, but look what happened when we tried to play policeman in Somalia.  
On the other hand, when you are facing a threat which has grown into a massive threat, like the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, or in the future, possibly China or even Korea or Iran, the very size of the United States is essential. 
Were we to follow the libertarian point of view, we would have very possibly found ourselves conquered by Hitlers hordes and living in a world of High Castle dimensions.  
Having a big federal government spelled the end of the evil of slavery, so big government is not always a bad thing.
The FSP folks often argue against the most basic obligations of an individual toward a larger group. They value individual freedom to the point where it threatens group freedom or the greatest good for the greatest number: Thus, they argue people should not be forced to vaccinate their kids against polio or measles. 

Refusing to get your vaccinations is not simply a matter of your being allowed to take a risk for yourself: You put the whole society at risk if you get polio or measles or Ebola. You are a potential walking contagion. Yes, there may be risks to vaccines, but that's a risk you owe your fellow countrymen.

And then there is that question of your obligation toward your fellow man. The Free Staters say they would have stayed home during the Civil War. That makes sense in terms of their belief in insisting government not press individuals to do things those individuals don't want to do, like give up their slaves. So they would have sat home. 

I like to think I would have put on the blue and gone to fight to free the slaves. I place a higher value on that sort of freedom. You can sit home with your family, by your hearth and tell your wife and kids, "It's not my problem. I want to be left alone."  But I could not live with myself, having done that. 
The essential mindset of the Free Stater is anti-social; it is tribal at best.

I am no student of history, so I may be missing something here, but is there another nation in the planet's history which fought a civil war to free of an underclass as we did in our nation's biggest war? 

I don't believe in "American exceptionalism" except in this one respect. I think we are the only nation in the world which really did fight to make a people truly free, to emancipate a whole slave population. 

And, somehow, even though it wasn't me doing that fighting, it makes me proud to live in the nation that did that. 

Shifting Sands: Government in the Service of the One Percent

David Owen, writing in this week's New Yorker, offers, almost inadvertently, a perfect example of how government serves the very rich, out of sight, significantly and on a scale which dwarfs food stamps.

This is an article about geology, "The End of Sand/ Annals of Geology" actually, and there is much in it to fascinate the least political among us.  
Who knew so much was known about the microscopic properties of sand, the shapes of grains and what this means for asphalt roads, beach volley ball, concrete skyscrapers?  Just on an intellectual basis alone, it is worth reading. Makes you appreciate how much mankind knows, how he can use minutia to build vast metropolises or to preserve them.

But from the political angle, there is enough here to outrage people from either end of the political spectrum, everyone from Howard Zinn to the New Hampshire Free Staters, who  would, I expect,  howl to hear how our government has dedicated itself and billions of dollars in an open ended effort to preserve the million dollar summer homes along the East Coast, in particular New Jersey.  
After Hurricane Sandy, Congress appropriated billions in the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013.  What this funded was a massive Army Corps of Engineers project which was contracted out to a company called Great Lakes Dredge & Dock.  This company, a perfectly legitimate enterprise, started around Brigantine, New Jersey and worked its way up Long Beach Island, a twenty mile long island no more than three blocks wide, shifting sand from the ocean bottom to at twenty foot sand dune designed to protect the million dollar summer homes lining this island.  (Some of the beneficiaries complained because the dune blocked their ocean views.) 
As Owen notes, these barrier islands over the millennia formed and reformed, the ocean side washing toward the continent and then back out, but with houses on the islands, this cannot be permitted. 
The federal government has made coastal second, third, fourth and fifth homes possible by the simple expedient of funding flood insurance, but this new effort is something else again.

At the same time President Trump aims to cut food stamps, Medicaid and every program he can find to force the undeserving desperate and poor from the government teat, Congress has sent billions upon billions to mow the lawn, shore up and protect of the nation's richest citizens. 
And, of course, the owners of these homes feel absolutely entitled to this government largess. It's disaster relief, after all.
The disaster, of course, is not just Hurricane Sandy, but the best Congress money can buy bowing and scraping back in Washington. 
The argument can be made this coastal development pumps billions into the economy, as the building trades and the services and businesses connected to seaside homes and vacationers profit.

But whatever happened to the "free market?" If people want to enjoy coastal homes, why should citizens in the interior or who are simply too poor to afford ocean front homes pay for this extravagance?  If the free market actually operated in America, the homeowners would pay for these dredging operations.
Living on the East Coast, I can certainly appreciate the aesthetic joys of living on the ocean, and one can say the more people who spend time near the ocean, the more people will have a vested interest in protecting the oceans. 
But this effort should be front and center whenever anyone complains about the federal government spending money on the undeserving poor. 
Why are the rich so much more deserving? 
One might ask the same question about the ultrarich mega industrial farm corporations which get billions in federal dollars for farm subsidies. 
I'd bet, if I were better at Google, I could churn up more programs of government welfare for the rich, except, of course, when those dollars go to the rich, it's not welfare.
 It's investment. 
Or disaster relief.

Let Them Eat Coal

Whenever I can, I read the comments section responding to Paul Krugman's wonderful Op-Ed pieces in the NYT and this time he pointed out how the voters of West Virginia had voted by 40 points for Trump over Hillary and how a huge proportion of West Virginians are on food stamps, disability, Medicaid through Obamacare or Medicare, more than almost any other state and yet they hate the guvment and resent the Democrats who brought them all this relief. Almost 1/3 of West Virginians are on Medicaid and 1/5 on food stamps.
The Federal Government is carrying that state and they resent the federal government so much they voted for Trump to destroy it. Drown it in a bathtub.





West Virginians have the same mind set as Kentucky voters who refused Obamacare until it was renamed "Kynect" and then they loved it.


West Virginia is a small, impoverished, poorly educated state of 1.8 million people about the size of New Hampshire but without the education level of the Granite State.


As one of the letters in response to Krugman's piece said, "Let them eat coal."


It's hard to have much sympathy for people who seem too obstinate and stupid to help themselves.


But as others observed, people at the bottom of the social ladder need to have some group below them to feel superior to and West Virginia is 93% white so there is not even a significant Black population to hate and blame for their misery--they have to blame the folks Fox News points them toward.


The fact is there are large swaths of each of those "blue wall" states from Wisconsin through Pennsylvania which are basically Alabama between the big cities.

If ever the Democrats get back into office, the question will arise--should we try to do anything to help these determinedly miserable people or should we simply ignore them and move on?

Democrats and Free Staters Meet In Exeter, NH

Last night, I went to a meeting of New Hampshire Democrats in Exeter, where a woman spoke who works for an organization (Granite State Progress?) which tracks a group called the New Hampshire Free State Project (FSP).

All I knew of the Free State Project is what I've read on the internet and Wikipedia from which I concluded these people believe in as little government as possible, government only to insure the rights of the individual to not be bothered by the oppressive hand of government. Government small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Part of their utopian dream is to make New Hampshire a place where like minded small-to-no government types can establish their ideal society, and possibly secede from the United States and set up a homeland for semi-anarchists.

The lady with the microphone asked if there were any Free Staters in the audience and about six stood up and introduced themselves.

Then she had them sit down and she proceeded to outline the nefarious plot the Free Staters were hatching, saying they infiltrated, undermined local government, town councils, and subversively denied they were up to anything at all.  But they have come to New Hampshire to take control of the state by getting themselves elected to the state legislature.
In Keene, she said they harass parking meter maids, who they claim are the agents of an oppressive government trying to extract parking fees. Several meter maids have had to retire because of post traumatic stress as a result of these encounters.
Meter maids with PSTD? Really?

The lady with the microphone gave her version of what Free Staters believe without ever allowing any of them to confirm or deny what she said.

She did sound very much like the old Joseph McCarthy news reels as she ticked off all the underhanded ways in which the FSP tried to destroy democratic town councils, the state legislature, the courts,   so people would lose patience with government and abandon it.

Her assumption seemed to be that we all know all there was to know about the ideas of the FSP and her job was simply to inform us how they intended to take over and what we could do about it.

One member of the audience rose to say he wondered what the FSP thought about the shift toward huge economic inequality, which the free market had fostered, not prevented and which as far as he could see only the government had the power or will to reverse. No FSP was allowed to respond to his question because the microphone lady seized control and moved on without calling on any FSP person to allow an answer.

I finally stood up and admitted I did not know much  about the FSP apart from some internet chatter about their belief we had too much government and I wanted to hear more from those people from the FSP who had come to the meeting, presumably to answer such questions.

I wanted to know, for example if the FSP believed that government had no role of any sort which could justify its existence, like for instance, protecting the public from terrorist acts.
If I saw a man belting on a suicide vest, or what I thought might be a suicide vest,  at the Manchester airport, I would go right to that government run TSA and tell them, but could I assume the FSP person would say, well this is a man who has the right to carry whatever ordinance he wants to carry--the FSP is for open carry gun laws--and would not want to bring the heavy hand of the TSA down on this individual who might want to express his displeasure with the public by blowing himself up in the airport?

To my surprise several of the FSP people said they would report the suicide bomber to the TSA. They were barely allowed to respond by the microphone lady, who was off to other assertions about how "ridiculous" their ideas were.

But what was evident is that some FSP disagreed with others about questions like this and they were by no means a top down organization with members. They insisted they were too free spirited to be members of any organization.

The big problem with the meeting was the scold with the microphone was simply not bright enough to allow the audience to tease out the FSP beliefs and to demolish them with questions.





She was a perfect example of what is wrong with the Democratic party,  which has been accused of being elitist, unwilling to listen to opinions from others who they believe are "ridiculous."

Fortunately, after the meeting we were allowed to stay and talk with the FSP people and I had some revealing exchanges which I wished the larger group of 100 had been allowed to hear.

I pressed the FSP about several examples which I thought illustrated the need for a government, as opposed to private sector efforts, and I pressed them about the value of being free from government interference vs the value of insuring the just functioning of a free society.

With respect to the TSA question, the FSP people told me we didn't need a government agency to protect us from suicide bombers at the airport because the airlines could hire their own security for that. But what about the public spaces? Would Southwest airlines pay for security in the bathrooms and hallways and gates?  Well, that could be worked out they said.
What about prisons? Should they be run for profit by the private sector rather than by the government? If the prisons are run for profit would it not be in their interest to keep prisoners as long as they can to keep beds filled? No time off for good behavior?
Well, no said the FSP, there is enough business for the prisons to have plenty of customers; they wouldn't need to keep prisoners in place to keep cells filled. But the experience, as I understand it, with private prisons show just the opposite.

The heavy hand of government

What about government intervening to right wrongs?
Take, for example, slavery.
Would the FSP people have sat home in 1860 and not gone off to force slave owners to give up their property in states where slavery was legal?  After all, the federal government waging war on slave owners trying to defend their property rights is the ultimate in the heavy hand of government.
Yes, they said, they would have sat home and allowed slavery to persist in the South.
But they would have opposed the Fugitive Slave Act to prevent the slave owners from pursuing slaves in New Hampshire.
But by what means would the FSP have opposed the private armies of the slave owners when they appeared in NH to reclaim their "property?"  Would the FSP have called out he NH national guard? Again, government getting between a man and his property. Or would the FSP have hired a private force to oppose the slave owners' armies? Who would have skin in that game, to pay for a force to protect runaway slaves? No profit in that.

The problem is, the profit motive does not motivate change for those who cannot immediately contribute to your profit. (I would argue there are whole parts of the economy where the profit motive has proved a conspicuous failure, driving up costs and decreasing quality, e.g. health care.)

The big vulnerability in the FSP people was they had never thought through the implications of what they were saying, which is they basically are anti social, and if you follow their line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, they want to live "off the grid." 
How much appeal would these hermits have to the 1.3 million citizens of New Hampshire?  The best disinfectant for these thinkers is sunlight. Just let them talk in open venues and they will burn up under the glaring light of scrutiny.

What about the lunch counter question? If a man owns a lunch counter and hangs up a sign saying "No Negroes served. Whites Only,"  are we wrong to bring the heavy hand of government down on him to get him to serve the public, all the public, as he is holding himself out to do?
Well, the FSP people said, market forces would drive out of business the guy who refuses Blacks service. Now that's a practical argument, but for 100 years in the South no market force drove those segregated businesses out of business. This response is a dodge. It avoids the moral question of whether such expressions of racism as they take the form of concrete action should be permitted. It says the rights of private property (owning a soda fountain) should be ascendant over the right of every citizen to enjoy the benefits of public access to public places and to not be discriminated against on the basis of race.

 And  what of public bathrooms labeled Whites Only or Blacks Only? This practice was by local governments acting as a matter of policy to support segregation.
The FSP answers:  Well those bathrooms could have been privatized.
And what would be the profit motive in integrating private bathrooms?

And what about public health?

If an agent from the federal government shows up at a man's private farm and says he wants to test his cows for Mad Cow Disease, would the FSP be opposed to that heavy hand of government? 
--Yes. The market would close that man down if his cows had Mad Cow disease.
--Ah, but the disease does not show up for 15 years in human beings who eat that meat, the market is too slow. That cow is out of the barn. 

--Well, private companies could certify the meat free of Mad Cow disease. 

-- But that's like Moody's and all those private companies rating stocks--they were motivated by profit to rate stocks highly, for fear of losing the business of the companies they were rating. What company paid by the farmer would find the disease in the cattle of the man who is paying them?



What about thalidomide? 

The FSP hates that heavy handed agency of the Federal government which harasses drug companies.  Had there been no FDA unsuspecting American mothers would have been swallowing thalidomide and giving birth to thousands of babies who had no arms or legs, as happened in England. Would the FSP think that's just fine?

Better than laying the heavy hand of government on the drug companies?

And what of the polio vaccine? 

Many FSP people oppose requiring polio vaccination (or any vaccination, measles, mump, tetanus) for kids to attend public schools. Again the right of the individual to place the group at threat.

Government requiring the individual to not be a threat to others or a burden to others.
Many also oppose requirements for health insurance as a government intrusion into their lives.
If we had an Ebola outbreak in New Hampshire and vaccine to prevent it, would you oppose mandatory vaccinations, knowing those who refused vaccination could pose a threat to the entire population by getting and spreading Ebola?
Blank stares in response and much blinking.
Back in the 1940's and 1950's every child and parent knew about and feared the yearly epidemics of polio--would you want to return to that?
FSP answer: It's up to the individual to assess risks for himself.

We went back and forth about all this and I understood the FSP stance, or rather, their variety of stances, always coming from the point of no government, and I understood it is no more monolithic than the Catholic population of America.  The pope would forbid contraceptives, but American Catholics use them anyway. They reject parts of the orthodoxy but still consider themselves Catholics. So it is with the Free Staters who disagree with some dogma and embrace other parts of it.

They are not "ridiculous," although as is true of many absolutists, their absolutism gets them into precarious intellectual positions.
Even the American Civil Liberty Union accolyte gets hung up on his absolute belief in free speech when Oliver Wendell Holmes asks, "But do you have the right to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater when there is no fire?" 

Small government guru. Worked for him. Owned slaves. Except for the Louisana Purchase

The microphone lady kept going on ominously about the 20,000 FSP subversives who have moved in to the state to seize control.
Personally, I've got no problem with 100,000 true believers moving here--they still have to convince others they are right and given my conversations with them last night, I doubt they'll ever be able to persuade more than their own numbers. They find few converts beating up on meter maids as the example of the oppressive hand of an overweening government.

If you want to look to a model, look at Utah, where true believers flocked and set up a utopia which over time gave way to the demands of the greater nation.

I would hate NH to become Utah, but we are a free and open nation, with no borders which prevent free travel and relocation. We have to defend our ideas, not our borders. Even the Mormons had to change their beliefs to accommodate the heavy hand of a federal government which forbade polygamy.

The trouble with Democrats is they react in the authoritarian /scold mode.
I do not fear these FSP guys.
They collapse quickly enough when you press them on their positions.
They are hardly a pernicious threat. Listen to them. Argue with them. Respect their right to believe crazy things and then demolish those crazy things and watch to see if they are capable of seeing the truth as you see it.

Let's Cut Food Stamps for the Welfare Queens!

President Trump's budget is out and he's cutting food stamps and disability payments and giving the money to defense contractors.
And as the Republicans in Congress and in his administration see it, it's about time.

All those welfare queens, driving around in their Cadillacs, are using the food stamps to buy orange soda pop, cigarettes and booze and then selling that on the street to make a tidy profit and buy themselves mink stoles and pink Cadillacs.


It's an abuse of the welfare system, all those undeserving poor, living off the teat of the federal government.  Not like the defense contractors who do not live off the teat of the federal government but earn their money, fair and square and then keep it by using the carried interest dodge in their federal income tax so they pay less than their secretaries.


Finally, we got a guy in the White House who, for the first time since Reagan, will root out all those people on welfare disability who are perfectly able bodied but who prefer to go fishing rather than to the factories (which President Trump will be reopening shortly) and take their welfare checks which they spend on drugs, booze and loose women. 
I hear the women in my office talking every day about how it's high time all those shirkers, parasites and underserving poor got what's coming to them. The women in my office who talk this way do this between answering phone calls and telling whoever calls in they better call back later because it's not their job and the person whose job it is is out on break. Then they go down to the kitchen on break.


So, the universe is coming aback to a better place now that President Trump is in office and states like Pennsylvania will realize they voted right. Pennsylvania, you know that state, which is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and Alabama in between.

Voting in Iran and Invasive Species

What a wonderful age we live in: Last night I saw Steve Inskeep on The News Hour, and as Judy Woodruff interviewed him you could see people behind him voting in a mosque in Iran.  
It was a gorgeous mosque, with lots of tile and colors but the most amazing thing was the people.

Steve Inskeep

I could hardly focus on what Mr. Inskeep was saying because I was so taken with the images of the Iranian people behind him.  I had heard him say, on NPR radio, earlier in the day, that women lined up to vote in separate lines from men, so I imagined a sort of bleak and dreary event. 

But, NO!  The women behind him on the TV screen were vibrant, smiling, laughing, having a wonderful time. The whole scene was joyous and the vibrancy of the people came through.

It reminded me how very narrow and distorted an image I have of Iran and likely of the entire Middle East. Yes, they have to be careful about what they say and write for fear of a visit from the government goons, but they have lives, joys and the political climate cannot suppress that.

Reminded me of my father, returning from a visit to Spain, years ago, when the dictator Franco was still in power and he was laughing in dismay.  "I was wandering around in Madrid and seeing all these happy people, having a wonderful time, laughing, sitting at sidewalk cafes--didn't they know they lived in an oppressive dictatorship?" He had to laugh at his own ignorance. He expected life in a dictatorship would be all grimaces and sloped shoulders.

Of course, a glimpse over Mr. Inskeep's shoulder should not convince me life is fine in Iran, but when I listen to Mr. Trump and his bombastic band of brothers talking about Iran and the Iranians, I have to think of the possibility these people have their side of the story to tell.

Which brings me to pythons. Another story on NPR about the opening of python hunting season in Florida, where pythons are "destroying" the everglades, eating up raccoons, alligators, deer and Bambi.  They are an "invasive species."
We don't like them.

I really hate that idea of "invasive species."  
In New Hampshire, Norway maple trees are legally an "invasive species" even though they are nearly sterile, are not seen outside of all the house lots, church yards, or planted along median strips as landscaping.  
But somebody at the Horticulture Department of the University of New Hampshire testified before a committee of retirees who comprise the New Hampshire House of Representatives and called these trees an invasive species and poof! No longer can you buy or transport these trees or plant them in New Hampshire, under plenty of law in the Live Free or Die state. 
Unlike the pythons which have spread out and occupied territory, Norway Maples are simply not seen in any of the woods or forest surrounding Hampton or, to my knowledge, anywhere else in New Hampshire.  They are the most rooted invaders one can imagine. They simply do not move. 
Far as I can tell, the prime offense of these invaders is they have offended the aesthetic sense of the UNH faculty of Horticulture. The UNH faculty simply does not like purple leafed trees and took offense at how many people had planted them in their front yards, churches and town spaces and so they called them "invasive."

The fact is, there is nothing scientific about the notion of "invasive" species. A new bug arrives, finds a niche it can exploit and devours the stuff people living in the area like and that becomes an "invasive species."
We don't like them.
But this is a value judgment. We like trout. Trout are pretty and fun to catch. 
We do not like the snake fish, which can walk on land and devour all the trout in the lakes and  streams and so they are new and invaders and should be eliminated. 

Same thing for some insect or virus or fungus that kills the chestnut trees or the elms we love or the birch trees we love or the corn we plant or the apples.

We value certain things we like to look at or eat and these are good. These are not invasive. Cornfields in Iowa which replaced the grassy plains are not invasive. They are good.

We draw borders around what we like and what we want to defend: Our green sunlit lawns, and anything in nature which crosses that line is an "invader."
Fair enough. But remember, this is not nature or evolution. This is our imposition of our values within a territory of our own choosing.

When England voted for Brexit, Mr. Trump summarized it succinctly: "People want borders."

And he was right--the Brits were aggravated about their white, rosy cheeked children, now being displaced by immigrants from the Caribbean, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, all those "invasive species."
Globalization means that rats carrying plague from Singapore can jump ship in London or New York. 

But it also means we might meet new people with new virtues we had never really thought about. 

New Blood

Let me first say I have never met Ray Buckley or heard him speak. I have only heard of his positions and exhortations second hand from my fellow Hampton Democrats, who, for the most part really like him.

But what I have heard lately is, in the wake of our crushing defeat by Donald Trump, Buckley has been insisting is what we need in the upcoming elections is more of the same, more local, grassroots efforts on the part of neighbors talking to neighbors, the old back yard, across the fence New Hampshire thing.

Let me also say, having read his Wikipedia profile, the guy strikes me as a man who has suffered for his party, has worked longer and harder, first as a state Representative and later as a party chairman than I have, by a country mile. And he had a tougher upbringing than I did. All the cards were stacked against him, while I had a lot of support from my family and friends. He had to work for everything he got.

But then again, Hillary worked longer and harder than anyone else and that did not make her a winner.

Here is what I would like to say to Ray when he comes to Hampton to speak to our town Dems, who are still licking there wounds.

"Mr. Buckley, I don't know who first said it, but it's attributed to Einstein: The essence of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and to expect a different result.  
What I have heard you say is we need to get back to the knocking on doors, telephone calls and all the in town techniques--cookouts, clambakes, cake sales, yard sales. 
You say you have studies which prove this works, and you say that politicians in the know say you don't know which of these work but some part of them work so you have to do them all.
Well, let me tell you, when studies don't match what you see in the field, they are likely not true.

For one thing, neighbors don't talk over fences about politics  in towns like Hampton any more, if they ever did. My neighbors will raise a hand and say, "Hold on. Let's not talk politics or religion. We can talk lawns and kids but not politics. It'll only sow bad blood on the street and it won't change anyone's mind." 
The fact is, people who love Trump will  not have their minds changed by their neighbors. They got that love from somewhere and it's in their brains and you have no chance of dislodging it by knocking on their doors, if they would answer them, or by calling them on the phone, even if they see you on their caller ID's and answer. 

The fact is none of those techniques worked last time. 

Even when people answered their doors last time, they didn't  know you, even if you are both from Hampton. Hampton's too big for that. You had to explain you lived in the town. And you didn't change anyone's mind. And people were determined to get to the polls so you didn't really increase turnout.

And phone calls--forget that. You just got people angry bothering them at home. 
And the stark fact is, in 2016 from summer until November, we did phone calls and we walked the neighborhoods and never saw a single Trump person canvassing, never saw Trump literature on the door knobs, but we saw overwhelming Trump lawn signs. 
Trump found a better and more effective way without using any of those grassroots techniques.
He was said to have no real political organization, as Mr. Buckley would recognize a political organization. But he won without one. He was outspent in every county, and sometimes by 9:1 and still won.

The fact is Trump crushed us, beat Hillary and from what I can see, nobody from the top (Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Kane, DNC chairmen) on down has any idea how he managed to unleash a tsunami of resentment which washed away all our efforts.

You can deny it. You can say, we won New Hampshire for Hillary using canvassers, but that was 1000 vote margin in a state of 1.3 million and if we rely on that again, it will likely not even be  close.

The fact is, if you have nothing new to offer. If nobody at the DNC has anything different, any better analysis, we need to clean house, starting with you.

It was clearly the judgment of the folks in power at the DNC from Debbie Wasserman Schultz on down that Hillary was the safe choice, the intelligent choice. It is understandable they cleaved to this idea--the polls supported that idea.
But the fact is, they were dead wrong.

Trump counties in red.

I don't know if Bernie could have beaten Trump, but it seems pretty clear in all those counties that went from Obama to Trump, Bernie would have stood a much better chance than Hillary and our leaders, based on all their studies missed that.

You say the Dems spent a million dollars on focus groups and market research to come up with a new and better message and failed. 
Trump spent no money on any of that and he came up with a winning message, if we could just figure out what the hell that message was.

I'm not saying we can simply ape and imitate Trump and out Trump Trump, but Bernie saw the way last time. He had a few simple messages and pounded them through. 

If that's the formula, when we need a new leadership to embrace it and go with it.
Thanks for your service, Ray. But it's time for a change."