NH-SEN 2022 Megathread: General Dysfunction

[Schiff for Senate]

What happened in Virginia must have emboldened him.

This is true, though I think the race would lean toward him even if McAuliffe won in VA. Now he has pretty much nothing to fear if he does make a bid. As for myself I'm on the fence about who to support if he runs. I usually oppose Republicans and Phil Scott and Charlie Baker are more my type, but Sununu doesn't seem too bad, though I wish he'd made NH enter the interstate climate agreement that Baker, Scott and Larry Hogan put their states in.

[Schiff for Senate]

Also if Sununu runs for Senate, NH Dems should see the silver lining, bail on the Senate race completely and instead gun for NH GOV to take away the GOP's trifecta.

[Schiff for Senate]

What happened in Virginia must have emboldened him.

This is true, though I think the race would lean toward him even if McAuliffe won in VA. Now he has pretty much nothing to fear if he does make a bid. As for myself I'm on the fence about who to support if he runs. I usually oppose Republicans and Phil Scott and Charlie Baker are more my type, but Sununu doesn't seem too bad, though I wish he'd made NH enter the interstate climate agreement that Baker, Scott and Larry Hogan put their states in.

I'm a moderate Republican who voted for Biden too. But if you're at the point where your heart wants the Democrat to win most of the time, that should tell you that you're not a centrist Republican, you're a centrist Democrat. Sununu is very moderate. Any self-described moderate Republican should support him.

>implying he hasn't been a rubber stamp for our legislature
>implying our legislature isn't as right wing as texas

That first point might have some merit but honestly, you're either massively exaggerating or delusional if you believe the NH Legislature is nearly as bad as TX's, particularly given the bills the TX legislature's been unleashing recently. To be honest, I think I wouldn't be much farther to the left of the average Republican in NH. NH's Republicans (both voters and legislators) aren't that Trumpish, or at the very least not nearly as Trumpish as the Texan GOP. The TXGOP is one of the worst state Republican parties in some ways - at least if you look at in terms of the power and control they assert and the number of people they get to govern over. The NHGOP is much more moderate.

[Schiff for Senate]

What happened in Virginia must have emboldened him.

This is true, though I think the race would lean toward him even if McAuliffe won in VA. Now he has pretty much nothing to fear if he does make a bid. As for myself I'm on the fence about who to support if he runs. I usually oppose Republicans and Phil Scott and Charlie Baker are more my type, but Sununu doesn't seem too bad, though I wish he'd made NH enter the interstate climate agreement that Baker, Scott and Larry Hogan put their states in.

I'm a moderate Republican who voted for Biden too. But if you're at the point where your heart wants the Democrat to win most of the time, that should tell you that you're not a centrist Republican, you're a centrist Democrat. Sununu is very moderate. Any self-described moderate Republican should support him.

Fair enough, but I consider Sununu more libertarian. I absolutely support centrists like the GOP governors of two of NH's neighbouring states - Baker and Scott. Sununu is more conservative (fiscally conservative, I'd say, and socially moderate, just like a libertarian). He holds some liberal views, but in reality my top two issues (aside from COVID19 and stopping the Big Lie) are guns and climate change. While Scott and Baker have taking meaningful action on these issues, Sununu has not - he didn't join that interstate climate agreement which Baker and Scott signed their states up for. He's pretty pro-gun. And he hasn't handled COVID19 as well as Scott or Baker. And while Scott and Baker have been vocally anti-Trump on some occassions, Sununu's stayed silent on the issue. In fact, I agree with you on my being a centrist Democrat in practice - I usually support Democrats over Republicans, and it's not even just a Trump thing, so it's actually saying a lot if I'm on the fence about supporting Sununu. I think this post might help explain to you why I'm a 'Republican' despite really being more of a Democrat in many ways. Returning back to my previous point for a moment, even if Sununu is to be considered a centrist he's liberal on issues which I don't really care much about and/or am myself moderate-to-conservative on. For instance, he supports some drugs. Myself, I firstly hardly care about drugs (it's not my 1st, 2nd, or even 7th most prioritized issue), and secondly am not liberal on the issue (I think veterans should have access to marijuana, and it can be used for medical purposes, but if it's for non-veteran and recreational purposes, it should be allowed but with a hefty sales tax imposed nationally, to discourage drug use without banning it and to create new national revenue).

[Schiff for Senate]

That first point might have some merit but honestly, you're either massively exaggerating or delusional if you believe the NH Legislature is nearly as bad as TX's, particularly given the bills the TX legislature's been unleashing recently. To be honest, I think I wouldn't be much farther to the left of the average Republican in NH. NH's Republicans (both voters and legislators) aren't that Trumpish, or at the very least not nearly as Trumpish as the Texan GOP. The TXGOP is one of the worst state Republican parties in some ways - at least if you look at in terms of the power and control they assert and the number of people they get to govern over. The NHGOP is much more moderate.

You're an idiot if you think the NHGOP is moderate. If you've been following my state you'd very clearly know Sununu is part of a dying breed.

The Freedom Caucus-types have effectively been in control of the GOP legislative agenda since 2010. It actually took Democrats making a deal with the normiecons in 2014 to keep the Freedom Caucus out of the Speaker's chair. There was a shadow war between the normies and the FC-types, and the NHGOP has chosen their side. The same party leadership is full of the same Freedom Caucus-types that dominated the legislature.

I won't get into much of it this year, but the NH legislature has arguably been the most anti-vaccine in the country. We're also not talking about the abortion ban, which, aside from the term length, is one of the strictest in the country. I'd argue that the state hasn't gone as far as Texas because of what few normiecons are left. Even Sununu has to make some concessions to not bleed support to Bolduc.

Again - I would very highly recommend not condescending to people unless you come correct. Especially not to people who, you know, live in the state you're talking about.

All that is fine, but your point of comparison is the TXGOP. They've been there, done that, and much more. I mean, maybe it's got to do with the fact that TX is much bigger and therefore is more important to the media than NH, but I don't see controversial actions the NH legislature/governor have taken cropping up in the news on a regular basis. TX is, as I said, one of the craziest GOP's even otherwise. The NH legislators may be terrible, but they still, no matter what their motivation, have not done nearly as much damage as the TX legislature has.  

Having said that, you are right about some things. I sincerely and wholeheartedly apologize if you considered the way I spoke in a rude or condescending (admittedly, some of it - the "delusional" part - was unnecessarily aggressive) manner. That wasn't my intent. And yes, you obviously have more knowledge about NH than I do, given that you reside there. Those are fair points. And lastly, I think I was also overestimating how many Rockefeller Republicans are left in New England. I think the reason was because I consider most New England Republicans to be like the three best-known New England Republicans: centrists Susan Collins (yes, I consider her a centrist), Phil Scott (KaiserDave can attest to this), and Charlie Baker (almost identical to Scott in terms of policy).

But I still stand by much of what I said. I'd invite you to name bills the NH legislature have passed that are as terrible in magnitude as TX's. TX has passed terrible bills on masks (schools and businesses), guns, abortion, critical race theory, to name just a few. If you can, name what the NH legislature has done that is as bad on each of those issues. And if you can't (which, quite frankly, I suspect to be the case), you've proven my point that the NH legislature is still much better than TX's.

[Schiff for Senate]

Lean D, you can't beat someone with no one

You can actually. Especially in New Hampshire where nobodies win races for State House all the time.

I really don't think you can compare a state house race, especially in New Hampshire of all places, to a U.S. Senate race.

Yeah, the State House has 400 members and each of them represent some 6,000 people. It's mainly retirees and people who have a side job and are known in the community who run for the House of Representatives. It's exactly nobodies who run for a state legislature where their vote is 0.25% of the total. Now, if it was a New Hampshire State Senate race, that may be a different matter, since there are 'only' 24 of them, but the biggest experience I'd expect a candidate for state representative to have is maybe some city council experience. To be honest it's quite likely in some cases that serving in the state house is actually a step down from serving on city/town council (it depends). But I think the main qualifications for running for New Hampshire House isn't prior experience, but rather, you need to be very well known in the district and have lived there for a while, so you have enough name recognition. This is true for not just the NH State House - it's true for a lot of other state houses of representatives, but it's especially true for NH, which has the largest State House by far (and to add to that it has a very small population when compared to most other states).

[Schiff for Senate]

All that is fine, but your point of comparison is the TXGOP. They've been there, done that, and much more. I mean, maybe it's got to do with the fact that TX is much bigger and therefore is more important to the media than NH, but I don't see controversial actions the NH legislature/governor have taken cropping up in the news on a regular basis. TX is, as I said, one of the craziest GOP's even otherwise. The NH legislators may be terrible, but they still, no matter what their motivation, have not done nearly as much damage as the TX legislature has.

But I still stand by much of what I said. I'd invite you to name bills the NH legislature have passed that are as terrible in magnitude as TX's. TX has passed terrible bills on masks (schools and businesses), guns, abortion, critical race theory, to name just a few. If you can, name what the NH legislature has done that is as bad on each of those issues. And if you can't (which, quite frankly, I suspect to be the case), you've proven my point that the NH legislature is still much better than TX's.

I was going to ignore this, but you're still condescending to me like you have any sort of idea what you're doing, so here we go:

The main thing is the 2021 state budget, which includes a vague anti-CRT provision and one of the strictest abortion bans in the country (aside from the term). While it's a ban for up to 24 months, it forces ultrasounds before abortions, weakens the life-of-mother exception, and doesn't include exceptions for rape and incest. It also has a similar ban on "divisive concepts" - again - attached to the budget.

The NHGOP has also passed a controversial voucher program that gives away public school funding to private schools. It's based on Betsy DeVos's "education freedom account" policy, and has been radioactively unpopular. Instead of costing $130,000 as advertised, it cost $7 million. It's a massive giveaway that's being balanced on the backs of our towns. (And we haven't even mentioned Sununu nominating Edelblut, a political hack with no education experience like DeVos, as EdSec)

Nothing on voting rights passed this session, but SB3 from 2017 was very, very bad. HB 1264 attempted to change the residency definition, but did little to suppress voting. SB3, however, required new voters to sign a lengthy form to prove their residency. Sununu notably admitted that the law suppressed the student vote, yet signed it into law anyway. His own Supreme Court agreed, unanimously striking it down.

They have also prevented state or local governments, or public facilities, from issuing vaccine mandates.

And that doesn't even get into the Executive Council's $27 million rejection of federal vaccine funding and defunding of Planned Parenthood. The latter is the first time PP has been defunded in 8 years.  

It's funny, because if you actually followed NH politics closely enough to be an expert, you'd know all of these things. I've posted these bills, at length, on multiple occasions and how it would hurt Sununu in a Senate run. I've even done it in this thread! Yet somehow, after our last conversations about NH politics, you're still condescending to me like your entire opinions on my state aren't based on a false assumption.

Fair enough. I should not have doubted the essence of what you said; you are completely correct inthat you know a lot more about NH politics than I do. I apologize again if I came off as condescending, but now that you've provided meaningful examples of far-right bills instead of just saying the NH legislature is as bad as the TX legislature, I believe you. I owe you an apology, but I still stand my what I said: the reason I'm apologizing is because you were right and were able to name multiple examples of the NH legislature passing very right-wing legislation, NOT because you are from NH. Being from NH does of course give you greater knowledge about NH, but I questioned what you said because you made a statement I considered incredulous without providing any evidence whatsoever except for the fact that you are from NH. Having said that, you've now given a lot of evidence. In any case, I apologize again for the language I used in the first post ("delusional" wasn't the right thing to say), and I apologize if you considered what I wrote in my second post to be condescending toward you (most certainly not my intent).