For Immediate Release                                                                                                 Contact: Press Office
Friday, August 29, 2008                                                                                               703-650-5550

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain today announced that he has selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate and to serve as his vice president.

Governor Palin is a tough executive who has demonstrated during her time in office that she is ready to be president. She has brought Republicans and Democrats together within her Administration and has a record of delivering on the change and reform that we need in Washington.

Governor Palin has challenged the influence of the big oil companies while fighting for the development of new energy resources. She leads a state that matters to every one of us -- Alaska has significant energy resources and she has been a leader in the fight to make America energy independent.

In Alaska, Governor Palin challenged a corrupt system and passed a landmark ethics reform bill. She has actually used her veto and cut budgetary spending. She put a stop to the "bridge to nowhere" that would have cost taxpayers $400 million dollars.

As the head of Alaska's National Guard and as the mother of a soldier herself, Governor Palin understands what it takes to lead our nation and she understands the importance of supporting our troops.

Governor Palin has the record of reform and bipartisanship that others can only speak of. Her experience in shaking up the status quo is exactly what is needed in Washington today.

From the Citizen:

Republicans talk about victory as they open Laconia headquarters

New Hampshire Republicans spoke confidently of making a political comeback as they officially opened their Lakes Region office Monday in downtown Laconia.
 Sen. John Sununu who is up for re-election and 1st District congressional candidate Jeb Bradley made a guest appearance at the grand opening for the Lakes Region's headquarters at 664 Main St. for Republican John McCain's campaign for President. The facility will serve Belknap and Carroll counties.

"This is going to be a team effort." said Peter Spaulding, a former executive councilor who was representing presumptive presidential candidate John McCain. "We have great volunteers throughout New Hampshire."

There are five other Republican offices in New Hampshire, located in Concord, Manchester, Nashua, Stratham and Lebanon.                       

Sununu was excited about the facility. He exclaimed that the New Hampshire GOP is an outstanding organization and he thinks the volunteers will "get out the vote, get out the message."

The senator claims that Republicans understand the issues and challenges today such as energy conservation and rising taxes. He wants to open up offshore drilling, produce more oil and energy alternatives at home and "keep the money in the United States." "We're going to win because we've got the best candidates," Sununu said.  

Jeb Bradley, who held the 1st District seat in Congress for two terms before he was defeated two years ago by Democrat Carol Shea-Porter, also made an appearance at the opening and said that "Democrats are after our pocketbooks" and that Shea-Porter promoted multiple tax increases because she wants to spend all our money.

Bradley said he is "ready to take back our state and turn it around and make it red again."

[Note: Other NH candidates in attendance were Greg Knytych, Tom Brown, Bill Tobin, Frank Tilton, Karen Brickner,  and Barbara Luther (there may have been others that I have missed; my apologies -Webmaster)

(cross posted at GraniteGrok)

The NH GOP, Belknap County Republicans, and in conjunction with the McCain 2008  will be opening their Laconia office on Monday, August 25th from 5pm to 7pm.  


will be dropping by, arriving between 5:00 and 5:15pm and staying for a while to greet any and all Republicans at the new office.

As part of the opening, Robert Brennan Heuchling is looking for for volunteers to help make phone calls to Belknap County and to go door to door in Laconia and other local towns.   Our biggest push is to have volunteers in here on Tuesday (8/26) and Thursday (8/28) evenings (or during the day) and on Saturday. Stop by for a few hours or for the whole thing, we will have pizza and light refreshments for lunch.

Since all Republicans and Republican candidates are well, please feel free to stop by to leave your campaign literature and signs.  Lists will be available for phone calls and neighborhood walks.

We also have signs, bumper stickers and other goodies to hand out for those that want them.)

Location:

Republican Laconia Office
664 Main Street (next to Barbary Barbers) on the left side of Main Street
Laconia, NH
03246

All will be welcome!

For further information, contact:

Robert Brennan Heuchling
New England Coalitions Director
John McCain 2008
Office: 603-369-4972
Mobile: 603-369-7558

For media questions, please either email Mark Hamilton (NH GOP Executive Director) or call him at 603-219-3933.

Click here to go over to that entry (and to get to the video of the meeting)

August 14th, 2008


 OK, I'LL ASK:  If a nationally prominent Republican did what John Edwards has admitted to, would it get the same level of media coverage?

IMPRESSIVE CANDIDATES:  I was one of the crowd of 130 people watching the First CD debate between Jeb Bradley and John Stephen in Ossipee on Monday night, and I have to say both of them were outstanding.  Look out, CSP (who was recently rated among the five incumbents most likely to be defeated this year by Politico)!

Congrats to Henry Mock and the Carroll County GOP for putting on a great event. 

OUTSTANDING REGIONAL COMMITTEE:  Also on Monday, Councilor Ray Burton and I had the honor of doing the ribbon cutting to open the Pemi-Baker Valley GOP's headquarters in Plymouth.  Omer Ahern, Henry Ahern, Lud Flower and the whole Pemi-Baker gang have done a model job of re-starting a defunct town committee, and now they have even put together the wherewithal to open and fund a headquarters to support our candidates.  If there isn't a town committee in your community but you have the iniative and leadership to start one, contact tom@nhgop.org and we will help you get the ball rolling.

LET'S GIVE 'EM SOMETHIN' TO TALK ABOUT:  Bonnie Raitt's got some good licks.  It's her left-wing, blame America first politics I can do without.  But there was Raitt in Concord this week doing a concert to raise money for Jeanne Shaheen.  Some of us recall that back in 2000, when sanctions was the extent of our opposition to Saddam Hussein's regime, Raitt signed a letter in the New York Times blaming the US, not Hussein, for causing the deaths "of over one million Iraqis, mostly children under five."  Does Shaheen share Raitt's blame America first mindset?

AND THE GOLD MEDAL FOR FLIP-FLOPS GOES TO:

Our next meeting will be held Wednesday, Aug 27 at 6:30pm

Place: Gilford Town Hall, lower level Lunch room area

We'll have a special speaker:


Greg is running to unseat Kathy Sgambati (D-Tilton) in NH Senate District 4 - (Alton, Barnstead, Belmont, Gilford, Gilmanton, Laconia, New Durham, Strafford, Tilton)

Just trying to catch up on some things that I didn't have to put up when I ran across them.  This from Betsy's Page is one of them:

Incredibly this man is one of the leaders of our nation. Watch this video of Harry Reid explaining over and over and over again that the United States has a voluntary tax system. Libertarian interview, Jan Helfeld tried to ask Reid about how people feel when their money is forcibly taken away from them to pay for welfare for others, but Reid refuses to accept the premise of the question because, as he repeats several times, the government doesn't force people to pay taxes and that we have a voluntary system. He can't claim that he misspoke since he is quite forceful in his repetition that our system is voluntary. His explanation is that we have deductions for mortgages and medical costs and so the entire system is voluntary. Imagine that.

Remember this as you are filling out your tax forms. The Senate Majority Leader insists that the system is voluntary.

Amazing.

When the Democrats try to demonize John McCain for his ignorance on economics, I hope that the Republicans will blanket the media with this video.

Well, we're trying!

I commented earlier (Belknap County Republicans website) that the Democrats are not worried at all with what they wrought with the latest State budget ("The senator insisted that “new” spending measures added up to “barely 3-percent”, with the rest of the increase caused by “things we had no control over”).

Well, in the same article (Daily Sun, P20), an NH House Democrat candidate was quoted this way:

"Ellen McLung of Gilford — a candidate in House District 5 – got off the best one-liner of the day, saying she was interested in mass transit issues but her home state’s only real example to date is ski lifts."

The problem with her statement is that it may well be true that, indeed, the only places that mass transit may be needed is at the area's ski lifts. Mass Transit systems only work where the population is high density (think large urban areas like Boston and New York City). Even with that as a given, Mass Transit systems are not self sustaining - they continue to operate only with massive taxpayer subsidies that yield a "reasonable" fare per rider.  Thus, many are dinged for the few.

Looking around the Lakes Region, it is clear that this fundamental necessity for success, high population density,  is missing.  In fact, even the Winnipesaukee Transit System's own numbers shows that taxpayers might as well give each rider almost $26 each time they get on one of those always empty buses.  It would probably be more cost effective to give out taxi vouchers and let the private sector provide that service more efficiently. 

From the Coordinated Transit Study Final Report:

• A budget of $194,077 per year
• A ridership of 7,566 people per year
• This breaks down to $25.65 / rider - trip
  
• Given an 8 hour operational day, that is only 21 riders / day, or if you prefer 2.5 riders per hour.
• That is out of a possible ridership (as estimated in 2000) of 15,500 living with 1/4 mile of all the stops.

No way that this could be judged to be a successful program (unless you are one of the very few riders that WTS  does have).  It could be said that all that the WTS seems to provide is jobs for the bus drivers and their  management.  And just think of all the carbon offsets that are needed to compensate for burning all that gas / diesel while running empty the vast majority of the time.

The Downeaster, running down from Portland to Boston still requires a taxpayer subsidy of pretty much $20 / rider / trip.  We are talking millions in subsidies!

Once again, Democrats seem willing to provide a solution for which there is no problem.  Once again, they are willing to spend lots of other peoples' money to benefit very few.

Video shot during the June 25, 2008 Belknap County Convention meeting that took place at the Belknap County Complex.  The purpose of the meeting was to decide whether or not to appoint someone to the office of the Belknap County Sheriff, and if so, who?


Length - approximately 71 minutes.  If the video does not work with your browser, click here to go to Google Video to watch it directly.

Well, Rush Limbaugh has made no secret that the purpose of his "Operation Chaos" - having Republicans cross over to vote in a Democrat primary - was to keep the Democrat primary season going as long possible (subscription required, I think) to keep having Hillary and Obama bat at each other like crazed badminton players after a shuttlecock:

So Operation Chaos was born primarily for the purpose assuming Obama was going to be the nominee at the get go of this.  He needs to be bloodied up politically since McCain is not going to do it. Since the Republican Party is not going to be on the field in this way, somebody's gotta bloody up Obama.  The only person that can do it is Hillary, and she can't do it if she's not in the race -- and so the purpose was Operation Chaos was to keep her in the race and to have her bloody up Obama in the process of staying in the race.  I'm talking about politically. 

Well, it looks like the "Kossacks" (writers / readers at the Daily Kos, the largest Liberal blogsite) are realizing that here in NH in Congressional District 1, they have the same capability, except they want to dictate the outcome of a primary instead of merely prolonging it:

I am wondering if anybody on here lives in New Hampshire's first Congressional district represented by Democrat Carol Shea-Porter.  The reason I am asking is that new polls out show her beating one candidate (John Stephen), but trailing the other (former Rep. Jeb Bradley). 

See Politico

I am thinking that anyone who lives in this district should grab a Republican primary ballot on September 9th and vote for John Stephen, who is almost certainly the weaker candidate. 

OK folks, all you Republicans and Right leaning independents, you now have some knowledge if you do not want to keep Carol Shea-Porter as your Representative. Get out there and vote!

Im really surprised that nobody has thought of this yet on here.  Carol Shea-Porter is probably one of our most endangered incumbents and will need everything to break in her favor to win reelection.  She trails Bradley by six points, but leads Stephen by six.  If she faces Stephen in November, I think she will win.  If she faces Bradley, who held this seat from 2002 until she beat him in 2006, she will have an uphill climb.

We should call this our own "operation chaos", like what Republicans tried to do to us in the Democratic Presidential primary... New Hampshire does have an open primary, so I will encourage anybody who lives in the first district to grab a Republican ballot and vote for John Stephen on September 9th.

Well, it can work both ways...but I do believe that as the election comes neigh, we'll have the better candidates.

More details on the polls here.

Date:        8/13/08 (Wednesday)

Time:        5:30pm   Buffet Dinner (Note: this month, the Buffet Dinner will be a fund

raiser for Greg Knytych - a $20 donation is requested)

                6:30pm   Meeting

Place:       Shanghai Restaurant
                331 South Main Street
                Laconia, NH
                (603) 524-4100

 (see map below)

Speakers:

 

Map of Shang-hai:
    (map)

From the NH Reagan Network:

TO ALL:
 
Reagan Network is holding an issue forum on Saturday August 9th at the Legislative Office Building (the building behind the state house).  (we had requested Reps Hall and were turned down but LOB will work)

It will begin at 9 and should be over at 2.  Please let us know if you are coming if possible so we can have an idea on how much to get for lunch. (we don't need to use scarce financial resources buying too much food)
 
We will be covering ed funding, the budget, energy, second amendment, family values, respect for life, right to work, nanny state legislation and transportation.

It will also be a good opportunity to meet many of our new conservative candidates, although ALL Republican candidates are invited.  (some of them could use being reminded where we should be on these issues.....)  Please encourage new candidates you know to be sure to come.  We know it is busy election time, but felt this was needed before the primary.  Thanks.
 
Feel free to forward.
 
Fran

To RSVP you can reach Fran at mattwenfran@verizon.net.