THERE IS NO JOY IN MUDVILLE!!!!

The fortunes of our legislative leadership team are faltering in their desire to be the second coming of Christ. The free staters and other strange but; vocal groups failed to produce a victory in Bully O’Brian’s home district in Mt. Vernon in the recent special election, 58% to 42% against. In a pre-election broadcast the NH Free State leader sent out information to motivate the troops by saying how they had to win because that election was a referendum on the republican leadership and on the republican agenda (their words not mine). They also called for a quick $1600’s to push the campaign forward.

Well it was a referendum; but the spin masters on both sides are trying to spin it to suit their arguments. In reality, it was no more than putting out the crazy agenda we are being forced to adhere to and letting the voters decide if this is what they want and voted for; obviously it wasn’t and is merely a for warning of things to come and an echo of what I said in my previous floor speech against the right to work effort in NH; “this is not a war we should be in and a battle we cannot win”, another warning gone unheeded by a leadership group that not only has lost touch with the voters; but, their own republicans.

What is happening now is state reps are being, as close as I can figure bribed and threatened all in the same day. I have been told that the speaker is promising money for your campaign if you stick with him and vote for RTW by voting against the Governors Veto. Then I hear that the majority leader is calling state reps and threatening them to vote with leadership to override the governor’s veto. Couple this with some far right wingers that are crazier than an out house mouse directing calls to those republicans that are sticking by their constituents trying to get them to change their votes and you have a remake of the movie “One flew over the Cuckoos Nest”.

First they were asking and leaning on republicans to take a walk on the vote if they couldn’t support leadership. Then they reverted to the dirty, MA style of politics by threats and borderline bribes. The growing discomfort with our so called leadership team, is only going to split the house more and make it more difficult, if not impossible to hold a veto proof majority and may put the governor in a better position to negotiate a budget he is more comfortable with, due to the hard feelings and loss of respect for the current house leadership. In fact our leadership group is making their own case for why they should be removed.

It is worthy of note that the so called “big guns” have been called on to call state reps to support the house leadership on RTW. Well if CK Ayotte wants to get involved in a 350,000 vote political buzz saw that will come back and bite her, welcome aboard. Gov Sununu is active and people are talking he is upset with the unions for not supporting Chris when he ran for governor’s council, I don’t know if that is true; but, it wouldn’t surprise me.

NH is a non union state which is why RTW has not passed. NH’s economy, although not where we would like it to be is better than most with unemployment about half of the national average so we are doing something right and lets not mess it up. Pushing RTW is a political agenda, not an economic one and is bad for NH. Why these out of state odd ball groups with their odd ball agenda’s don’t just leave us alone and let us chug along in our blissful ignorance with our low unemployment and growing economy? I have so much confidence in NH that I don’t need any out of state low wage, low benefits and reduced quality of health care groups, coming to NH to tell us how and why we should lower our standard of living to match Alabama or any of the former slave states. I hope I haven’t missed something.

From the bottom of my heart I want to thank those state reps that are sticking by their beliefs and by you the voters and taxpayers of NH. I am so proud of each and every one of them, even though in the minority on this issue show the individual NH ruggedness that makes NH such a wonderful place to live. Their voters should be as proud of them as I am to serve with them By no means are we alone, in the minority in THIS HOUSE, yes; but there are thousands of republicans that are collective bargaining supporters who cherish NH’s way of life (they should they help make it happen) and they vote.