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Health & Fitness

Andrew Hemingway: It's "Live Free or Die" for the NHGOP

It has been a decade since New Hampshire has had a Republican governor. And it shows. State policy is driven by the government-employee unions and politically favored corporations who dominate our elections. School choice for poor children was hit by a lawsuit from the current governor (whose own children attended private school), while the healthy competition in medical insurance that we had a decade ago has been replaced with near-monopoly. 

The difference between the parties in fiscal policy is stark. House Republicans introduced a bill this session to earmark our gasoline-tax money for road and bridge repair (most people think that it already is). Hassan instead signed into law a 23% increase in the gas tax, much of which will be spent on non-infrastructure items. 

But where Democrat governors have betrayed their own supporters most is on personal-freedom issues. Independents and Democrats alike have been horrified at Hassan’s rigid opposition to Drug War reform (Lynch also stonewalled reform during his eight-year tenure). The Republican-written bill to legalize and tax marijuana was fought tooth and nail by the governor’s allies in the House. And she has blocked any meaningful progress on medical marijuana by refusing to implement the legislature’s mandate, turning suffering cancer patients into political pawns. 

Hassan’s political capital went into a casino-gambling monopoly scheme (for a company that was a large campaign donor). Yet Hassan has sent Liquor Commission officers to raid charity gambling games at a veteran’s club in Lebanon. This is Boardwalk Empire hypocrisy taken to the extreme. 

Republicans have two choices in the primary. The pundits expect us to follow the Democrat playbook, and run another predictable supporter of the status quo for a predictable sixth-time loss. Or, we can be the party of Live Free or Die, and win.

This year’s country-club choice got his money from Federal government contracts, not from entrepreneurship. (He sneered at the NH Republican annual meeting that “my company’s budget was three times bigger than your state’s”… which is true, and part of the reason the US national debt is bigger than our GDP).  He supports Hassan’s position on Drug Prohibition, throwing away the personal-freedom issue before the contest begins. He took a tax break for his “homestead” in Maryland during the time he was supposedly accumulating the seven years of residency that our state requires of its governors. This out-of-touch crony capitalist is supposed to be a credible successor to Josiah Bartlett?


Andrew Hemingway doesn’t have finance-industry contacts or a country-club background. But he is young and vigorous enough to drive through the reforms that our state needs to rebuild our economy. His vision is of New Hampshire as a “start-up state”, welcoming any entrepreneur with a new idea. Instead of the Democrat model of subsidized corporate welfare queens like Solyndra, New Hampshire should be home to hundreds of software, biotech, and factory startups. His solution to education, jobs, and health care problems alike is the NH tradition of freedom.

Freedom works. All the economic “miracles” in history were the result of economic freedom. From the continent-spanning US in the 1800s to tiny enclaves, the recipe works: Liechtenstein, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai. There are even the “controlled experiments” of East vs. West Germany, North vs. South Korea... freedom always wins.

Freedom wins elections, as well. It is the Independents who decide New Hampshire elections. Independent voters in New Hampshire want economic freedom for jobs and prosperity, and they want personal freedom. If the GOP runs a freedom candidate we will get the Independent vote. 

New Hampshire’s GOP has the opportunity in 2014 to give our state a bright future. Our children can have the economic options to stay and raise their families here. If we lose the corner office for the sixth time in a row, the Democrat economic and social stagnation will only get worse. Support Andrew Hemingway in this primary, and make New Hampshire the Live Free or Die state again. 

 

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