NH Newspaper: "GOP House ticket has Free State ties; Message: Small government, low taxes, cut spending"

The Concord Monitor is a big-government, liberal-siding newspaper here in the New Hampshire state capitol. They ran the following article, after some friends of the Free State Project successfully knocked out a big-government GOPer who had been in the NH House for 26 years.

Now they're going into hysterics... stating that the state GOP is "banding together" with Free Staters.

Guess what?

They're right ;)

Here's the article text

GOP House ticket has Free State ties
Message: Small government, low taxes, cut spending

"(Goddard) mentioned that the Free Staters moved here from California,"
Pamela Ean said. "I said we came for the same reasons four years
earlier." The Eans said they moved from New York to escape high taxes.

Garrett Ean, 19, a University of South
Florida student studying criminology, wrote in a post on the Free State
Project's blog that "I consider myself to be an unofficial free stater
as the family moved here in 96 to escape NY's oppressive regime."
Garrett Ean has taken classes on activism and on the Constitution run
by the Liberty Alliance.

"The basic idea is that people are free
to do as they choose with their person and their property, and it's the
state's job to protect that right to do as they choose," Garrett Ean
said.

Liberty Alliance Political Director Dan
Itse said the alliance endorsements are based on a multiple-choice
survey that covers topics such as gun ownership, education and economic
regulation. Among the answers that scored the highest: "I agree with
article 2a of the NH Constitution which guarantees the unrestricted
right to own and carry firearms"; "The education of the child is the
responsibility of the parent and should not be infringed upon by the
state"; and "Government should step back and allow customers and
providers to trade freely, without intervention."

Itse could not give scores for individual
candidates but said anyone who received an endorsement scored higher
than 80 percent. "I'd guess the Eans are 100 percent, knowing them,"
Itse said.

Ingram, 19, an NHTI accounting student,
said he is not connected with any liberty organizations, but he agrees
with Kalb and the Eans on many issues. "On a wide range of problems,
we're all in the same boat," Ingram said. "Not having an income tax,
pro-life, less government, less spending, government not controlling
your life."

In contrast, Hager calls herself "proudly
pro-choice, proudly pro-government." She supports an income tax to pay
for education. In the 1980s, she advocated for land preservation and
pushed for state aid to cities and towns. More recently, she voted in
favor of same-sex civil unions, supported banning smoking in
restaurants and worked to repeal the law requiring parental
notification for abortion.

"She was readily identified with the
moderate, even the liberal, wing of the Republican Party," said Deputy
House Republican Leader Rep. David Hess.

Banding together

From the start, Pamela and Garrett Ean
planned to campaign together. "There's very little we disagree on,"
Pamela Ean said. Kalb knew the Eans through the Concord City
Republicans, and when he mentioned to them that he planned to run, they
decided to band together.

"We decided pretty quickly we were a like-minded slate," Kalb said.

By August, the three were going door to
door handing out each other's fliers. For four weekends before the
election, they and their friends met at the Eans' home on Saturday
mornings, spent the day going door to door, then returned for a
barbecue, Pamela Ean said.

Pamela Ean did more canvassing after
work. Garrett Ean went out alone a couple of times a week. Volunteers
helped out. "We tried to hit every Republican door in the district for
the primary, and we pulled it off," Kalb said.

Ingram spent most of the summer on
vacation with his family and was busy with other things. He relied on
word of mouth and personal connections. He knew Kalb from local
campaigns - Ingram ran his grandfather Tinker Foy's Executive Council
campaign. Ingram also knew residents through his aunt, Mary Hill, a
local fixture who worked at the Capitol Convenience store for many
years.

"Somehow without going door to door, my
name was out there," Ingram said. About a week before the election,
Ingram joined the slate with the other three. The group put together
campaign literature contrasting their positions with Hager's. 

One flier, paid for by Kalb, included a chart contrasting Hager's
positions in one column with that of her four opponents in the other.
The Eans, Ingram and Kalb, it said, have taken "The Pledge" to oppose a
sales or income tax. They oppose "reckless spending increases that lead
to tax hikes and debt" and would work to restore the state's parental
notification law. In contrast, Hager voted for a sales tax and voted
for a budget that increased state spending.

Another flier, paid for by Kalb,
described the four as the "pro-jobs, pro-economy team." A letter mailed
out in the week before the election again stressed their commitment to
rolling back taxes and said Hager introduced legislation "that would
have created an economy-destroying income tax."

Hager said she saw a flier funded by a
right-to-work organization based in Virginia attacking her for not
supporting a right-to-work law. She also saw a flier that showed her
picture on a milk carton as "missing in action." Kalb said that flier
was paid for by a group called Concord Citizens for Good Government,
whose chairman is Denis Goddard. Goddard, the husband of Irena Goddard,
is director of research at the Liberty Alliance.

Hager did not actively campaign, and it
cost her. "I haven't needed to in recent primaries; there hasn't been a
full ticket," she said. "How embarrassing that I lost because I didn't
work hard enough."

Low turnout

Turnout in the Republican primary for the
three wards that make up the House district averaged only 15.05
percent, with 1,355 votes cast out of 9,001 registered voters. Kalb,
who finished fourth, beat Hager by almost a hundred votes, 395-297.

Rep. Jessie Osborne, who is among the
Democrats who will face Kalb, the Eans and Ingram in the general
election, said she sees the winners as "Free Staters" who have
"hijacked the Republican Party in that world." She said she believes
the Republican Party is split among the conservatives and the
moderates.

"Turnout was so low, they got their people out, went door to door and branded Liz as a closet Democrat," she said.

Osborne said she believes the win will
harm the Republican Party overall. "If they want to lose all their
moderate people, this is the way to do it," she said.

Hess, the Republican leader, said he does
not think the victory illustrates anything about the party in general.
"I don't think it means the Republican Party was taken over by a bunch
of crack nuts," he said, when told of Osborne's comments. "The first
question is, did (Hager) campaign and campaign hard? Did the others
campaign hard? . . . They worked harder for it. Four people can get
more things done than one person."

Hager said she thinks the group has
little chance of winning a general election. "One of the things that
made me saddest was that it was worth it to them to spend all their
money just to get rid of me," Hager said. "If they really wanted to get
into the New Hampshire Legislature, a focus on getting one or two in
would be much smarter."

Smith, the UNH pollster, said
conservative candidates have an easier time in New Hampshire primaries
than in general elections. When there is low turnout, he said, "you
have the most ideological of your voters coming out to vote." In the
general election, the majority of Republicans will be what Smith calls
"old Yankee Republicans" - fiscally conservative and socially moderate
to liberal. However, most voters will likely vote by party, without
considering individual candidates, he said.

Itse, of the Liberty Alliance, said the
victory of libertarian-minded candidates in the primary is significant
in itself. "I think we are growing and gaining organization and
learning how to have an effect," he said.