Talk:Politics of New Hampshire

Contents of article

The article should not be about campaigning, and who voted for who, but about discussion in the political arena. Liberals vs Libertarian vs Conservative legislation for example. Statutes. The stuff that is here now should all go into Elections in New Hampshire or some allied article. Newbies always try to put electioneering into every article. This has nothing to do with governance per se. Terrifically exciting and all that, but not very relevant in the long run. Kind of like actors - the movies they are in have nothing to do with the actors character. Newbies writing an actors bio would probably gush over the persons Oscars and omit their wife-beating, public drunkeness, and just general stupidity. Turning every article in a campaign report is like reporting on Oscar night in every article - it rather misses the point!  :) Student7 (talk) 23:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It does happen; I've noticed that some of the articles on New Hampshire's politicians are exculpatory or house-of-horrors, depending on the party of the politician. In this article, it is suspect that the only two See Also's are to articles on libertarian movements.

Let me mention here the discussion we've had over on Government of New Hampshire that material there on New Hampshire's perennially controversial items--the state motto, broad-based taxation, and perhaps seatbelt and helmet laws--belongs here. I've volunteered to do the move but am waiting to see if more discussion emerges. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 22:06, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I see that Beland has beaten me to the editing I promised to do "this weekend." Sorry; due to the recent ice storm my web-surfing has been from inside the car parked in front of a library. Am in more comfortable settings now and will make minor fixes until they kick me out. The Neutrality warning in the article says there is an explanation on this page, but the warning is new, and I don't see a new explanation. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 18:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

This is getting pretty robust for the modern era. I would ask editors to refrain from using wrestling or television commentator commentary when editing, Please skip "dominate" and stuff like that. It isn't encyclopedic. Voters are supposed to be making choices here. But getting there otherwise. Student7 (talk) 16:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Granted in theory, though you replaced "dominate" with "predominantly" which is essentially the same (even if the latter word is not used in wrestling). But you also added text about New Hampshire's changing political "allegiance." The shift in partisan strength is a fact, but the state at large has not sworn allegiance to any political party. Am going to reword this sentence and see if you think the result sufficiently neutral. --14:55, 25 December 2008 (UTC) (unsigned in error).

PS--User:Student7, your edits of today are an improvement. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 22:54, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

The stuff about elections should go into the article on elections. Free state stuff and demographics probably okay here. Really should be about politics as formally defined, not as defined on television which always means the next election to them. tv doesn't seem to much care what happens in between elections. But what happens is politics which this article should be about. Student7 (talk) 02:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Citations needed

The most glaring fault with the article now is the five separate requests for citations. I added the final one; the quip of John H. Sununu, which he made toward the end of his governorship to an auditorium full of state employees in Concord, summarizes one side of the taxation debate but I have not been able to pin it down. Nor have I been able to locate the UNH professor's assertion that border-town vote counts in 2008 contradict the notion that Massachusetts emigres were decisive.

Another user attributed the Republican Party's decline in New Hampshire to the Republican Congress governing at odds with traditional Republican voters, whom he categorized as libertarians and paleoconservatives. This drew a request for citations. I believe that what he observes is a major factor, but without some documentation, it's basically an anecdote.

I added to his new section a list of other factors that might explain the decline. The folklore about the influence Massachusetts emigres, and the assertion that Mass. and Vermont residents influenced politics in New Hampshire are, I believe, true facts;

  [-Hear, hear.  Citation is important, but anyone who's lived in NH more than 10 years knows this.  F@#kin' Massholes.  -NH Resident]

but my word doesn't make it so. I invite other users to substantiate or refine these factoids or add other theories with substantiation. But don't just delete them and leave no explanation at all. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 23:11, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

---

Section 1.1, Subsection "Demographics" contains a qualifier to the Massachusetts-emigre phenomenon, that a UNH professor found counterintuitive effects at the Mass. border. An anonymous contributor has appended: "This would indicate a possibility that, contrary to popular belief, an influx of Massachusetts transplants has not only not contributed to the electoral shift in the state, but perhaps even delayed or diminished that shift." I have reverted it because it merely tells the reader what to think about the preceding sentence. Regarding "contrary to popular belief," the popular belief is set out earlier in the paragraph. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Will Buchanan's "stunt"

I am reverting the mention of Will Buchanan's move to New Hampshire on foot. The assertion that "New Hampshire is like X," especially when backed up by citations, is noteworthy. The assertion that "one person believes New Hampshire is (or should be) like X" is anecdotal, no matter what the believer does to publicize it. It is not noteworthy, regardless of whether it grabs headlines. The anonymous user at 199.125.109.96 who added this material may be Buchanan himself, or may be another Free Stater, but in either case it seems to lack neutrality. It is an ad.

By comparison, two other Free-Stater stunts not only got headlines (and Letters to the Editor), they forced the government to react and may have public-policy consequences: (1) The performing of an unlicensed manicure outside the headquarters of the Office of Barbering and Cosmetology, and (2) the clean-up of a public park in Manchester one hour before the end of an overnight curfew. I think that both of these deserve brief mention. (PS--Have now done so. --Spike)

I think that, although a few Free Staters have run for office, most want to find a community of like-minded people and retreat from politics. If this can be quantified or refuted, it too should be mentioned. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 16:15, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

PS: A strong attribute of New Hampshire is apparently not reported anywhere in the Wikipedia articles on NH: It is firmly within the New England culture, in which acquaintances are hard to form but very durable, and one doesn't respond to or acknowledge utterances of a person to whom he has not been Formally Introduced. Compare the west coast, where friendships are instant but only last until you move a block away. The glib and anecdotal book "The Seven Nations of North America" is probably not a persuasive citation, but it is observing something real. As it relates to the Free Staters, the most frequent reaction I read on blogs to the Free-Stater episodes of civil disobediance mentioned above, though not majority opinion, ignored the Free Staters' assertions about the value of individual liberty and merely cursed them as outsiders who deigned to engage in activism before having lived here for a couple of decades.

Separately, it is notable in the Politics of New Hampshire the effort made by out-of-state towns to enter New Hampshire. These too were "stunts," but they illustrate something. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 18:49, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

The "hard to meet" attitude may be typically New Englandish and maybe English as well. Still true that we would need a WP:RELY source.Student7 (talk) 00:35, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I've just written the first cut at some of these topics; others are welcome to add detail and citations. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 17:22, 15 January 2009 (UTC) Post-edited by Spike-from-NH (talk) 11:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess my thought would be to chronicle successful initiatives (statutes) by legislators. With all due respect, I don't see "demonstrations" a legitimate topic for this article. Where would you stop? Every college and a lot of high schools plus pressure groups hold "demonstrations." Maybe in another article "Demonstrations in New Hampshire"? Be a really long article!  :) Student7 (talk) 02:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Individual demonstrations are not legitimate; a coordinated influx of people with a common vision, accompanied by a series of "stunts" that will or will not have an effect on public policy, might be--whether it is the Free Staters, Massachusetts emigres, or the GOP. The article now is not perfect (especially as the article I cite identifies Fisher not as a FSP "member" but just a "proponent") but the collection is better at illustrating a trend than a mention of one person's walk to NH. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 17:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Killington vote

I can appreciate your thinking that this has something to do with New Hampshire, but the main thrust of the Killington vote was to try to give credibility to an effort to change the tax structure in Vermont. To join New Hampshire, a town (or whatever) needs a) the permission of Vermont, which they aren't going to get being a high tax base! and b) permission of Congress which isn't going to happen either for fear of "starting something." and c) permission of NH which might not be that automatic. The residents have no idea (and don't really care since it is, after all, a Vermont protest) how they would be affected by NH laws - probate, for example, contracts, trusts, statutes that they have taken for granted, that sort of thing. This is not about NH at all and doesn't really belong here IMO. It does not involve NH voters or politicians and never will. Student7 (talk) 22:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree entirely that Killington will never succeed in joining New Hampshire, and would have major technical headaches if they did. I disagree that Killington's protest "is not about New Hampshire." We are trying to document New Hampshire's political nature; its attraction to the people of Killington (and Salisbury and Amesbury) is an indicator. Killington didn't select Massachusetts, New York State, or the Province of Quebec for very obvious reasons; it sees New Hampshire as a place where more limited government would let it prosper. This may be untrue, or it may be less true than in the past, but they believe that citing New Hampshire still serves as a pointed protest to the State of Vermont. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 02:36, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

C'mon, User:Student7! My sentence that you reverted was not trying to tout the Free State Project but to quantify its actual effect in inducing people to move to NH, and my description of the source as "sympathetic" was intended to counteract POV. I don't defend my source as authoritative, but we need to quantify the FSP. 600 people constitutes a legitimate political movement; 1 person with a catchy name and a web site would not. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 14:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Is there actually a WP:FOOT from a WP:RELY source? I think the quote was from a blog or something? Not quite scholarly if I remember correctly. We have no real idea how many, if any, libertarians have moved into the state. In the normal course of things, libertarians, like everyone else, move out as well as in. I don't think there is any objective counter keeping up with movement in either direction. Same with, say "Unitarians" BTW or any other fairly small group that one might be interested in, that people can't easily track. Another good reason for limiting the scope of this article to the measurable, and higher level plane. Student7 (talk) 01:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

We have no real idea. Someone may. The FSP itself has an opinion, of course. I would have retained the "sympathetic blog" until we find something better, tagged as problematic if you like. Yes, no one tracks demographic movements in and out, but this was a coordinated campaign; knowing its magnitude is important. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 06:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

It would really be desirable to preserve this article for high level, trackable, reportable facts from reliable sources. "Protests" are meaningful when they result in elected officials changing things, but that is part of "Elections in New Hampshire", not this article. Student7 (talk) 13:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Quantifying the Free State Project

Today we have an edit from an anonymous user on 199.125.109.96 who seems to be a Free Stater. It adds information on the FSP's civil disobedience but also adds a FSP official position, based on an e-mail from FSP founder Jason Sorens to an editorial writer at the Nashua Telegraph.

I have reverted the edit in part, changing it from a matter-of-fact recitation of the character of the FSP to a remark about what FSP leaders say their policy is. I suspect other readers of this article will want to revert it further. But first, I will try to contact the user through his Internet address and see if we can get hard answers, supported by independent sources, to the following questions:

• How many state reps have the FSP elected? Who are they? Were they elected as FSP members, or are they merely libertarian-leaning people who used the support of the FSP?
• How many FSP members actually have moved to NH? --Spike-from-NH (talk) 20:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The number of Freestaters who have moved to NH is closely tracked on the FSP website,[1] with many keeping track of which number they were. As of today the counter says there are 9,140 participants and 675 have moved to NH. The number who have run for office and been elected has not been published, but it is disproportionately high - as many as 10%, as many of the early movers tended to be "Super-Activists".[2] The first to be elected was in 2006.[3] No one could ever run "as FSP members", as the project has no political involvement (it has encouragement, but not involvement). Instead they would be "FSP members who ran". "Libertarian-leaning people" are commonly counted among the "free state or free state leaning reps". 199.125.109.96 (talk) 19:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. An assertion from the FSP about its own strength and influence would not be accepted here based on the criteria in WP:RELY. In fact, I have advocated that the article include such a figure and have been shot down as there doesn't seem to be any third-party source to use to get it--See above, repeatedly. Regarding "participants," surely the fact that the remaining 8,465 people have signed a petition and not done what they promised to do is not significant. And reinforcing the FSP by claiming that the many libertarian-leaning state reps are "free-state-leaning" is self-serving. I am eager to include information in the article that documents the strength of this movement, if it can somehow be gotten from a source other than the movement itself. --Spike-from-NH (talk) 20:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I would think that official membership numbers would always be expected to come only from the organization involved, whoever they are. Just to clarify a point, the 8,465 people signed a petition saying that once there were 20,000 signers they would move to New Hampshire within 5 years after the date that was accomplished. So you will have to wait 5 years after there are 20,000 signers before you can accuse anyone of not doing what they promised. 199.125.109.96 (talk) 21:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Cleaning up page & focus

This page currently reads more as if the topic were "Taxation in New Hampshire" or "Libertarianism in New Hampshire." It seems to have a very strong libertarian/conservative bias and focuses almost entirely on those issues. There is no mention of political outcomes or history--New Hampshire's long Republican-leaning status, its more recent shift toward the Democratic party, or the most recent shift in 2010 (and of course the pending results of upcoming 2012 election). It also does not mention the political makeup of the state--the percentage of registered voters in each party, and the makeup of state and federal offices. It also ignores important recent (and ongoing) political issues such as marriage equality, education, right-to-work and so on. I'd like to propose updating this page to reflect some of those issues and topics, which would make this page more in keeping with other "Politics of..." pages. I think this old version from March 3, 2011 would be a good starting point, and the page can be built from there to include recent trends, history, and political issues including taxation, marriage equality and so on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FrankLloydMike (talk • contribs) 15:30, 29 October 2012 (UTC)