THE QUANDT PARTY!!!

When Matt and I decided not to run with the tri town, supposedly, one of their co-chairs referred to us as the “Quandt Party”; everybody that heard that including us thought that was hilarious. We just wanted to be left alone and run our own campaign; but, that was not to be.

As the word went around the state that we formed a new party, all two of us, the laughs became louder, and everyone who heard of this knew where it was coming from.

Matt and I have held an election of officers and Bill Binnie was unanimously elected chairman and Bob Clegg is vice chairman (by two votes).

During the campaign the establishment attacked Bill for not backing off of his senate run against the hand picked choice to run. I like Bill, supported him and though overall he did a good job, had a good message and was the one to help get us out of the financial mess our country is in. But once again the message was over shadowed by the best smear campaign I’ve seen in years.

I’m a firm believer if you run a campaign that is based on lies, distortions and misinformation and should you win you forfeit the right to ask for unity from the people you smeared. This will be a very interesting general election. When Bob Smith was attacked and smeared by the republican establishment about 12 years ago a number of Smith supporters would not vote for the person who beat him, that person needed those votes in the last election and they were not there and now we have a democrat in that seat. That may not be reflective in this general election; but, in a close election down the road it will be.

Bob Clegg is a very kind rough and tumble construction company owner. He started digging ditches with a shovel and worked his way up. He can be generous to a fault but, always called in by the state house republican leadership to clean up the messes; I know I was there. Unfortunately, he is being attacked because of his support for Bill Binnie and his outspoken forth right style. Bob, who was the senate majority leader and cleaned up the state senates image of selling your vote for special interest money, is now a lobbyist and doing quite well. An honest lobbyist we can deal with a crooked one, no thanks.

Bob is under attack by establishment republicans who are mad he went against the establishment’s candidate, well get over it and let the voters pick their candidates and stop trying to control us all the time. Now we have to go through the punishment phase to show everyone what happens when you don’t bow to the elitists who are giving the orders and making our decisions for us.

But to Bob and Bill, not to worry you are now part of a different party, a party that puts people before politics and cares about doing the right thing, there may only be 4 of us right now but the message will catch on.

IT IS TIME FOR A SHORT WREST!!!

At least the negative campaigning and name calling should subside in the republican ranks while the democrats can crank up the rhetoric. It was interesting that I was targeted by republicans; it appears originating out of Stratham, making false accusations of some of my positions. Since it had to deal with abortion, I knew where it came from; couple that with a prominent member of a local political group supposedly made the statement, before the primary, that their mission was to see that the Quandts did not make it through the primary.

I knew when Matt and I decided to run independent of the establishment stuff like this would happen; I guess the local establishment doesn’t take rejection well.

The important thing is that the bond between the voters and the Quandts is still strong and our respect, affection and gratitude to the voters of Exeter-Stratham and North Hampton is still our commitment of putting you before the establishment.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your wonderful support in the primary.

Lee and Matt

ABSOLUTELY TASTELESS!!!

I enjoy creative political ads and the more humor they put in them the better I like them, even if it is bad humor. Bill Binnie stayed positive until his numbers started to eclipse CK’s then the Cornerstone group started attacking him, then he came back after CK Aoyette, then CK came after him.

Binnie stopped the negative ads while CK is still doing them attacking Binnie. Then Lamontagne starts in on his ads against Binnie alluding to Binnie having money and trying to buy the campaign (Ovide doesn’t seem to have any money so he is attacking the one who does). OK, we all know money is evil and we all wish we had more of it so what’s the problem? I don’t care who has money or not, I want to know what they are going to do to fix the mess our country is in; it’s about issues stupid.

But what sticks in my craw, and I might just be sensitive to the situation, is CK doing campaign ads on the tragic death of a police officer in Manchester. There are some things that go far beyond common decency and political campaign protocol and campaigning off of a dead police officer or military person is one of them. This speaks volumes about the candidate’s character.

MY FRIEND MIKE DOWNING!!!

Mike is running for Sheriff of Rockingham County in a crowded field. Mike is from Salem, NH and I knew him when he was trooper out of Troop A and also as a Salem Police Officer, when I was working as a State Probation/Parole Officer out of Derry.

Mike was always a good guy to work with, quiet, organized, capable and efficient. You couldn’t ask for a better person to work with, if you needed support on the street or police reports he made sure you had them.

Then when I and then Matt got elected to the house we found Mike in there as a legislator. We worked well together and Mike had an abundance of, not only brains; but, common sense. Mike was in the legislature for about three terms and then ran for the senate when Chuck Morse vacated the position to run for another office. Mike then did about 3 terms as a Senator. He was the assistant republican leader in the senate for the last couple of years. I could not tell you how many times Mike carried the republican message on legislation that made it to the senate. In other words he carried the republican water and party message.

Now he is coming back home to run for Sheriff. After all the hard work and message carrying he did for the republicans he is deserving of all of our support. After what has happened in the state politically it would have been a lot worse without Mike fighting for us. Now it is up to us to thank Mike for all of his hard work and his support for the people of Rockingham County.

Mike is an administrator, his quiet but effective style of management will be just what we need on the country level. His understanding of the duties of the Sheriff’s Office, emergency preparedness, process service, superior court security and inmate and criminal transportation for the courts (to name just a few), will go along way to improve the mission of the Sheriffs’ Office.

Please give Mike your vote on Sept. 14th.

Thank you,

Lee

THE ARROGANCE OF ELITISM!!!

There was a recent letter to the editors from the treasurer of the Tri Town Republican group attacking Bill Binnie for having too much money and calling republicans who disagree with the tri-town malcontents. That’s a lot of name calling for one letter; I don’t think I can match that.

The letter writer, when he was chairman of tri-town, if I remember right was a big backer of Craig Benson. I don’t have anything against Craig; but, I think he was rich and spent about 13 million dollars to win the governor’s seat only to find out that politically it was one of the weakest positions in the state.

Then he talks about lobbyists. I don’t think Binnie is taking a lot of money off of lobbyists while his opponent Kelly Ayotte’s campaign is pretty much funded by special interest, political machine and out of state money. So it makes me chuckle when someone from Westchester County, NY (I think that is where a lot of rich hoity toitys live) complains about people who have money, spend it the way they want and do not run around like beggars to lobbyists and big corporations.

This very attitude is why Matt and I decided after the last election not to run with the tri-town. We are not and have never been supportive of this kind of attitude. If you read my blog I have worked hard at explaining what I think is wrong with our political structure/parties in NH. I love it when someone steps and gives a good example of what I’ve been talking about.

The following link sums it up: http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/214899/charged-business-gave-to-ayotte