The recent Speaker’s race came out as predicted; but, what really surprised me was how close it was, O’Brien by 4 votes; however a win is a win and we now have him back for two years. Unfortunately, Chandler is not a good campaigner coupled with the fact that too many of the crazies were elected or re-elected. There is a good side and that is the house is not veto proof and if things, once again, get too far out of hand, they will not be able to override Maggie’s vetoes.
I predict
the biggest fight will be over the budget with UNH and HHS getting hit hard, as
they did a couple of years ago. Although
what Maggie did to get UNH to hold down tuition increases was to subsidize UNH
with taxpayer $’s and taking credit for keeping the increases down. HHS, as I’ve heard has problems in their budget
and the Medicaid expansion is a budget buster by all accounts.
I would not
be surprised to see another 10% or more budget reductions across the
board. These can be very painful but we
have lived through them before.
The big
Republican fear is how much damage will O’Brien do before the 2016
elections? The last time the Republicans
got clobbered, state wide, and it was laid at O’Brien’s feet. The rumors are that Chris Sununu, a good guy
and formidable candidate will be running for governor and Kelly Aoyette is up
for re-election with the two Congressional seats up also.
What people
are not discussing publicly is can O’Brien survive without the support of the
Republican Party and establishment. Will
he make a move to control the State Party Convention, the Republican
Chairmanship and or the executive committee? Will he fight with the
establishment over control of the Republican political process?
The
Republicans are using 20 year old campaign strategies in a changing political environment
with NH showing the growing dissatisfaction with both parties.
Where do we
go from here? We have to ask the party
bosses and establishment Republicans who are second guessing the voters and
trying to control the political process.
