Date:                October 14, 2008

Contact:           Fergus Cullen, Chairman, New Hampshire Republican Party
                        603-225-9341 office, 603-520-5450 cell


CONCORD – In an interview with the Keene Sentinel last week Executive Councilor John Shea admitted that his main reason for running for office is to maintain a Democratic majority on the Council so he can be a yes man for Governor John Lynch’s appointments and proposals.

Shea also indicated in the interview that Governor Lynch’s staff are calling the shots for his campaign, including setting up his campaign committee for him and raising money for his re-election efforts. Discussing the change in campaign strategy this year, Shea said “This year the governor’s staff has told me I don’t understand the situation here - ‘We want this seat.’”

Explaining himself to the Sentinel, Shea said “The Governor, of course, wants to keep those three seats,” continuing to add, “When you’ve got three Republicans, he cannot get people through.”

“I’ll bet that voters across the state from Brookfield to Chesterfield will be surprised to find out they elected John Shea to be a rubber stamp,” said Fergus Cullen, Chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party.

“In fact they will probably be as surprised as John Shea was when he got the call in Belgium notifying him that he’d been elected in the first place. Voters in the Second Council District deserve to be represented by an independent watchdog of taxpayer dollars, not someone who describes his job as doing Governor Lynch’s bidding,” Cullen said.

“That’s why voters will reject John Shea and elect an independent voice in Dan St. Hilaire on November 4,” Cullen added.

The Executive Council is a part of the executive branch of New Hampshire government and is intended to serve as a check on the power of the Governor.

BACKROUND

Shea Sees his Role on the Council to be Lynch’s Puppet: “The once-mystery candidate who two years ago won a seat on the N.H. Executive Council says he is running for re-election for two reasons — he loves his job, and his party loves having a majority… ‘The governor, of course, wants to keep three seats,’ Shea, a Democrat from Nelson, said Tuesday afternoon in a meeting with Sentinel editors.” (“Executive Councilor John Shea runs an activist campaign this time around,” by Dan Greisman, The Keene Sentinel, 10/8/08)

Shea’s Priority, Getting Lynch’s Appointments Through: “‘When you’ve got three Republicans, he cannot get people through,’ Shea said of Democratic Gov. John H. Lynch.” (“Executive Councilor John Shea runs an activist campaign this time around,” by Dan Greisman, The Keene Sentinel, 10/8/08)

Lynch’s Staff is Pulling the Strings on Shea’s Campaign: “‘I had never taken a contribution up to this year,’ Shea said. ‘I refused them. And then this year the governor’s staff has told me I don’t understand the situation here — ‘We want this seat. You can’t do it without raising money. We are going to form a Friends of John Shea committee.’” (“Executive Councilor John Shea runs an activist campaign this time around,” by Dan Greisman, The Keene Sentinel, 10/8/08)

Read the Entire Article Here: http://sentinelsource.com/articles/2008/10/08/news/local/free/id_326529.txt

Michael Hamilton
Executive Director
New Hampshire Republican Party
10 Water Street, Concord, NH  03301
603-296-5116 (c)
603-225-9341 (o)
mike@nhgop.org

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)

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.

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.