2016 upended all my previous experience with political analysis, and so I no longer have faith in my election thoughts. So you'd be wise to stop reading this now.
Still, I am having thoughts, specifically about the #NHGov primary, on which I'm not yet decided. #nhpolitics
The Kelly gubernatorial campaign seems the latest iteration of the formula whose previous iterations were the Shaheen and Hassan campaigns. Lots of institutional support, take the pledge, broad themes.
It works!
More accurately: it has worked.
Marchand feels like Cilley in 2012 (disclosure: I worked social media for that). Wonky, specifics, no pledge, willing to take risks, little institutional support (and so fewer resources for field,) etc.
A first term gov who is not a Craig Benson type is supposed to win re-election in NH.
Trump was supposed to lose, too, remember. A lot of political "supposed to"-s are in the dustbin now.
A blue wave could easily knock out Sununu this November.
Is the old NH Dem formula still the best one? In a campaign that Sununu is expected to win, but might not given our new era, do we need something bolder?
Hard to say.
Complicating all this is past vs. present.
Kelly's past is solidly progressive, but who's today presenting as more moderate.
For Marchand, the opposite.
Bernie demolished Hillary in NH in 2016. Rightly or wrongly (I believe wrongly), he was perceived as more progressive.
Maybe times are changing. Maybe it's time for the kind of campaign Marchand is offering for a better chance at victory in November.
Or, maybe not.
Both of them would make terrific governors.
This is hard.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I was struck by this post-primary note of thanks from @marchandsteve, so I'm posting it here. Important unity, important message. This is how you do it. #nhpolitics
"more often, I was learning. I learned about people, policy, and about what matters."
🚨Crazy high youth and Dem turnout is quickly becoming *the* story of yesterday's primary. This is B A N A N A S level good news for November. 🚨#nhpolitics
⬇️
democracy, individual liberty & the rule of law,
⬆️
as well as to peaceful resolution of disputes. Importantly, the treaty sets out the idea of collective defence...an attack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies."
I’m reading a book about #Shostakovich’s 7th, LENINGRAD: SEIGE & SYMPHONY, and a good portion of the opening chapters concerns Stalin’s myriad purges of his own people.
But this story of life battered by an unyielding autocracy really stands out among the others.
Here are (I presume) the 24 Preludes & Fugues Zaderatsky composed in a frozen logging camp on scraps of telegraph paper.
Most of the horrors in the book are much shorter and go something like:
1) Someone wants a nice apartment, so 2) another is falsely accused of conspiring against the state, and 3) is shot a few days later, then 4) his wife or child is also killed or ruined a little later.