You are formally invited to attend the official Kick-Off Event of the Knytych 4 Senate campaign. This event will run from 1 - 3 PM on July 20th.

This is a free event and there will be Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Chips and Corn. There will also be Ice Cream courtesy of the Kellerhaus.

I have invited the candidates for the 1st Congressional District, NH House candidates from the towns in the 4th NH Senate District (Alton, Barnstead, Belmont, Gilford, Gilmanton, Laconia, New Durham, Strafford and Tilton) and many of the residents of these towns. This will allow you the opportunity to meet with the others that are running for office in our area and to hear why I can win this election.

I look forward to seeing you there.

The Grandview is located at 291 Endicott Street North between
the Weirs Beach Sign and Funspot.

From the McCain NH campaign, a note to those that wish to assist:

Town Chairs, 

 

My name is Ben DiSesa and I am writing to you on behalf of the McCain campaign from the Manchester Office on 250 Commercial Ave, Manchester, NH.  We are strongly involved in gathering volunteer support for McCain and as you probably know, just opened the office last week.  We now need volunteers to come down and help to organize volunteer events.  We are also opening up offices around NH and are going to need dedicated people to staff them.  My cell phone number is (603) 978-5710, my email is Ben@nhgop.org, and you can contact me at anytime if you have any questions about what you can do to help McCain and other Republicans get elected.  With only 120 days left until the election, we can't stress enough how important it is to build a strong support network of volunteers.  Starting tonight at 5 pm people will be coming to the Manchester office and anything you can do, either by volunteering yourself, or giving this information to people who you know can help, would be appreciated. 

We need volunteers as soon as possible!  Thanks,

 

Ben DiSesa

Victory Campaign Staff

603-978-5710

Ben@nhgop.org

Our next meeting will be held this Thursday, May 22 at 6:30pm

Place: Gilford Town Hall, lower level Lunch room area

We'll have a special speaker - TBD.

The next meetings:

• June  19    3rd Thursday of the Month      TBD

pending cap initiative

A conservative group is coordinating efforts in four cities to cap municipal spending at the rate of the consumer price index beginning in 2010.

The New Hampshire Advantage Coalition is working with activists in Manchester, Concord, Merrimack and Rochester to put proposed changes to those communities' municipal charters on the ballot in November.

Coalition chairman Mike Biundo said the effort was sparked by "legislative overspending" last year and by the recent initiative by the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition "to strip away our (anti-broad base tax) pledge and strip away what New Hampshire is, a low-tax, low-spending state."

Biundo said that by tomorrow, language for charter amendments will be filed in the four municipalities. He said plans call for similar filings shortly in Londonderry, Conway, Portsmouth, Keene, Somersworth, Lebanon and Bedford.

"When you add up the 11 communities, this is over 30 percent of the electorate in the state," he said.

Biundo said state law requires the proposed petitions for the charter amendments to be reviewed by the Attorney General's Office and Department of Revenue Administration. He said that when the language is approved, organizers will have 60 days to gather petitions signed by at least 20 percent of the number of local residents who voted in the last municipal elections.

Biundo said his coalition has hired former Ron Paul field director Jared Chicoine and brought back former coalition executive director Tammy Simmons. He claims that such an effort "has never been done before on this scale in this state."

Calling all Republican Men and Women!
$75 per person provides: Campaign School Manual and Lunch.
 
What are the workshops being offered?

• Management
• Media
• Strategy
• Get-out-the-vote techniques
• Opposition Research
• Fundraising

Register Now! or call Christine Peters (673-0959)

(Update: looks like the link is bad and their site is down....call first)

CALLING ALL CANDIDATES

The filing period for state, federal, and county offices opens six weeks from tomorrow and runs June 4 – 13. The political environment for NH Republicans is much-improved compared to 2006. John McCain is going to run strong at the top of the NH ticket, guaranteeing that our state candidates will be evaluated on their own merits this year. Republicans will see a net gain in seats this year. The only question is how many will we win back – and will you be among the winners? If you are interested in running for office this year or want more information about what offices are available and what it takes to run, to win, and to serve, please contact Mike Hamilton at 225-9341 or email

STAFFING UPDATES

Here at NH GOP headquarters, our staff are Mike Hamilton, Executive Director, Pete Flynn, Finance Director, Tom DeRosa, Political Director. We expect to add more staff soon as the coordinated Victory effort takes shape. Stay tuned.

120 CLUB

Join the NH GOP 120 Club and help us make New Hampshire a solid Red State. For $10 a month you can help fund our candidate recruitment and our “Get Out The Vote” effort in November. Your contribution can make a big difference. Please click here for more information.

JEANNE SHAHEEN, FLIP-FLOP QUEEN (this week’s example)

Last fall Shaheen Proposed Rolling Back The 2001 Tax Cuts. “‘Nationally, we've got to do something, not just about costs, but about the 47 million who are uninsured and underinsured,’ said Shaheen adding that rolling back the bush tax cuts of those who earn more that $200,000 per year would pay for about half of that expense.” (Gail Ober, “In Laconia: Shaheen Meets With Leaders,” The Laconia Citizen , November 30, 2007) However, earlier Shaheen Said She Would Have Voted In Favor Of The Tax Cuts If She Had Been In The Senate. Shaheen: “One is on the Bush tax cut, where I said that I would have voted for the Bush tax cut had I been in the Senate.” (Harry R. Weber, “Leadership, Abortion, Taxes, Independence, Education,” Associated Press , October 26, 2002)

NH POLITICAL LIBRARY

The NH Political Library’s annual Awards Dinner is Wednesday, April 30 at 5:00 p.m. at the Center of NH Radisson in Manchester. Honorees are former US Senator Bill Bradley, former Governor Mitt Romney, CNN’s Candy Crowley, and former Governor Walter Peterson. Tickets are $150. For more info, call Celina Hurley at 225-4617 x11 or register online.

EVENT HONORING SENATOR WARREN RUDMAN

On May 13, Americans for Campaign Reform is holding a fundraising dinner honoring former U.S. Senator Warren Rudman. Keynote speakers are former Senators Howard Baker and Nancy Kassebaum Baker. The event is at 6:00 p.m. at CR Sparks in Bedford. Tickets are $50 each. For more info, call 227-0626.

CAMPAIGN SCHOOL
The National Federation of Republican Women is holding an all-day campaign school on May 17 in Nashua. The school is open to men as well as women! For more info, contact NH NFRW Chairwoman Christine Peters at 673-0959 and go check it out

When I was asked to help restart the Gilford Town Republican Committee, I accepted, but with one condition - we were not going to be yet another, "not doing much" group of Republicans.  Thus, and since being elected Chair, I see my role as being twofold:

• Help to rally Republicans around a message that can be believed
• Begin to put that message into force with concrete actions

Simply put, let's give people a reason to choose to be and vote Republican!

Tonight, after discussing the NH GOP Platform, this item caught our attention:

Promoting a limited government that is open, responsive and fully accountable to and in touch with its citizens without interfering in their personal, daily lives.

and began a discussion in how it would apply to the GTRC.  Combining that with Charlie Arlinghaus's column on transparency in government relative to the mess that the Democrats have made in Concord (no, its not just the economy, as total State revenues are up year over year, the Democrats just went WAY over the cliff on spending and are now looking for cover), the attendees decided to put that into action:

As Gilford Republicans, our first goal is to request an opening up of local government by making all public information more easily available  by the local govenmental bodies with which we are concerned:

• Town of Gilford
• Gilford School Board
• Belknap County
  

What is lacking is a plethora of flashlights - citizen overwatch of their own government and with the current outcry by some when Right To Know requests are filed, the easiest solution is to make those requests irrelevant by bringing that information to our citizens instead of forcing citizens to come to the information.

One of the easiest ways to do that is with more fully operational and informative governmental websites that would provide portals totally open to the taxpayers. The minimum each website should contain can be seen after the break (and is modeled after requirements listed by the Sunshine Review).

Thus, we call upon the Town of Gilford, the Gilford School Board, and the Belknap County Commissioners to more fully use their websites to more fully open up their levels of government and make it easier for their citizens and taxpayers access the information that is, by right, theirs.

The technology to simply put them out on the web is simple (i.e., put PDF copies of information on the web sites).  The next step is to then put information that can be analyzed (e.g., Check Manifests) out in formats that ordinary citizens can then download and examine (e.g., EXCEL spreadsheets).

The relevant Press Releases can be found after the jump.

Our next meeting will be held this Thursday, April 17 at 6:30pm

Place: Gilford Town Hall, Conference Room A.

We'll be having a "working" session this month (no special speaker).

























The next meetings:

• May 22      4th Thursday of the month     Town Hall, lower Level lunchroom area
• June  19    3rd Thursday of the Month      TBD

I've updated the Town, County, and National GOP organizations in the blogroll (to your right). Also, the known GOP candidates for Congress and Senate are now listed as well as Governor.

Hopefully, we will be getting them in to talk with us soon!

From PolitickerNH:

RNC plan keeps New Hampshire first
By Brian Lawson
Tags: RNC, Ohio plan, New Hampshire Primary, Jim Splaine, Fergus Cullen

The Rules Committee of the Republican National Committee has adopted a plan that would preserve New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary status.

By a vote of 28 to 12, the committee passed the "Ohio plan" that would allow New Hampshire to be the first primary state and specifies that South Carolina follow New Hampshire.

"This is an important first step in the process of preserving our first in the nation primary. There is broad consensus that our Republican nominating process has worked well, and the way John McCain earned our nomination is prima facia evidence of that," Fergus Cullen, Chairman of New Hampshire Republicans, said in a statement.

The plan could be changed at the RNC Conventional in September.

State Rep. Jim Splaine (D-Portsmouth) said he thought the Democratic Party should establish similar rules.

"It would be good if the Democratic National Committee does something similar, although that decision might not come for another year or two. Having states like Michigan and Florida continually challenging New Hampshire could be head off by bringing some sanity to the process," Splaine said.

Splaine also pointed out that under New Hampshire law the Secretary of State must pick a date that is "seven days or more" before a "similar election."

Time to talk about the upcoming elections, take care of some old business.

Date:   This Thursday, 6:30pm
Time:   6:30pm

Where:   DGF Industrial, GIlford
             25 Waterford Place, Gilford, NH
                                                  03249
             (603) 528-6591

(Bumped and Updated):

Well, it WAS a nice article in the Citizen that let others know about this website - the publicity and recognition is much appreciated!  However......

This Thursday the Gilford Republicans will hold a meeting at the Gilford Town Hall. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. and feature guest speaker Fergus Cullen, chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party.

Er, that was a couple of weeks ago (I am away on business, so I'm just hearing about the article now); click here to see the meeting notes.

Our next meeting is not this Thursday but a WEEK from Thursday
_______________________________________________________________
Good evening!  As I said in this Post, I'd be letting you know the "whens" - here they are!

• Feb 21       3rd Thursday of the month     DGF Industrial

                                                     25 Waterford Place, Gilford, NH
                                                                                   03249
                                                     (603) 528-6591

• March 27   4th Thursday of the month      Town Hall, Conference Room A
  

• April 17      3rd Thursday of the month     Town Hall, Conference Room A

• May 22      4th Thursday of the month     Town Hall, Conference Room A

If you do not know where DGF is, Think Pepi Hermann's near the airport.  After the jump is a map!

Kind of late notice, but here goes:

Place:   Gilford Town Hall
Date:   Thursday, 1/31
Time:   7 p.m.

Our guest speaker will be NH GOP Chairman, Fergus Cullen.  His bio can be seen here

From Frank Tilton, Belknap County Chair:

BELKNAP  COUNTY REPUBLICAN MEETING
WHEN:    Thursday, November 15, 2007
WHERE:   Laconia Public Library
TIME:    5:30pm
SPEAKER: Allison Welch
AGENDA:  Workshop on voter vault instructional training. If you have a
	 laptop please bring it with you.

Everyone is invited to attend this informational meeting on voter vault.

I have just added a "blogroll" for your convenience - after all, web sites should be linked and make it easier to see what other like minded folks are doing!

Let me know if there are other sites or category of sites that should be added.

Welcome to the new home of the Gilford Republican Town Committee.  We are a group of Republicans living in the best town in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire that are dedicated to forwarding the ideals and cause of the Republican Party.  Our mission is to get the word out to other Republicans, those that are not affiliated with any party, and Democrats that are miffed over their Party's continued drift leftward.

We are dedicated to the ideals of small government, self-responsibility, and that lower taxes are a results of lower spending. 

Since this is a new website, bear with us as we start to build it up.

On behalf of Gilford's Republicans, thank you for visiting!

Skip Murphy
Gilford Town Chair
Skip@GraniteGrok.com

When:        Wednesday, October 10

Where:       Shang Hai Restaurant
                  331 Main St.
                  Laconia

Time:          Buffet starting at 5:30pm ($10)
                  Actual meeting starts at 6:30pm

Note:         In addition to regular business, State Senator Joe Kenney (who came to our last meeting) is speaking.
 
Contact Person: Frank Tilton
                        franktilton@gmail.com
                        (603) 528-8486