Aren’t New England GOP’ers supposed to be the good ones? That’s the theory at least. And based on that age-old theory, Phil Scott wants to form a coalition of these fabled (mythical?) moderate Northeastern Republican governors to protect states from policies of the Trump Administration. And Scott wants to include New Hampshire’s Governor-elect Chris Sununu in his new coalition of moderate northeastern Republican governors. Scott also name drops Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan as possible partners (since when was Maryland in the Northeast?).
However, Sununu is right in lock-step with the not-so-moderate national GOP trend to limit voter registration. Shortly before this year’s election on Boston talk/news radio Sununu alleged Democrats practiced voter fraud and said: “[…] when Massachusetts elections are not very close, they’re [Democrats] busing them in [to New Hampshire] all over the place.” He got a pants on fire rating for that one from politifact.com
Now with the election over, Governor-elect Sununu has back-pedaled on his earlier fraud allegations but still wants restrictions: “It’s not about fraud and a rigged system, that nonsense. It’s really just about making sure that our rules are clear, that they’re unambiguous, and that people can believe that as a full-time resident of the state of New Hampshire, your vote isn’t being watered down by someone who’s ‘drive-thru voting,’ ‘drive-by voting.’ We just need to modernize the system.”
Specifically he wants to end or restrict his state’s same-day voter registration law – enacted by a majority of Republican legislators and signed into law by the Republican Governor in 1994. Sununu echoes the language used nationally by GOP’ers and Koch Brother’s ALEC funded efforts to squeeze voter registration rolls. Same-day registration, Sununu says, can have “problems.” He told NH Pubic Radio: “We just need our laws tighter.”
Same-day voter registration can have problems? Well, Ay-yup, and perhaps Sununu and New Hampshire Republicans have a “problem” with this: Same-day registration is a major issue in several college towns in New Hampshire, which this year voted heavily for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Democratic Senate candidate Maggie Hassan.
Oh, I see it now: by “problem” Sununu means figuring out how to limit Democratic voters. I suppose the NHGOP could, like in the old days, allow only property owners to vote – or better yet on the revenue side, impose a hefty poll tax to keep those others from voting – that used to work like a charm.
And that brings it back to Phil Scott’s imagined coalition of ‘moderate’ Northeastern Republican governors. Don’t know much about Governors Baker or Hogan but I wonder how moderate this coalition can be if Sununu is one of Phil’s “good guys.”
So it begins.
If this is to be defined as ‘moderate’ we can expect a whole new dictionary
in the offing.
This election has been stolen. Hillary Clinton won by quite a clear majority of the country but lost by a very thin minority in some key sates. Three deeply antidemocratic factors made it happen, and without any of them, she would have won the election:
First, the FBI is a supposedly independent Government body. By sending a letter to Congress 11 days before election day (the perfect timing) with the claim that they reopened the investigation with “something” big in new discoveries, the FBI tilted a lot of votes of undecided voters with the help of a huge press coverage. It was clear that she had a commanding lead in the polls of about 6 to 7% that shrunk to about 2 % after the “revelations”. She never recovered from that even after the FBI declared it as all phony, that there was nothing in fact. And she indeed ended up winning with a 2,28 % spread of the votes (this figure is still rising, all votes not being counted yet). The Police (the FBI) is absolutely not supposed to disclose an ongoing investigation with no conclusion at all whatsoever, let alone without doing anything yet in that investigation. The sole intent to tilt the election was obvious.
Second, Trump asked Russian hackers to help his campaign which was so outrageous in itself and anti patriotic, knowing that these hackers attacked American interests and security before. These Russian hackers did indeed intervene in the election by hacking into the DNC and releasing emails from them, doctoring many of them by the way. The Trump campaign and the Republicans used it in the full during the last month before the election for their anti Clinton propaganda. Just unprecedented that a hostile nation had a candidate elected in America.
Third, vote suppression
Vote suppression did not start just this year but was absolutely decisive in Trump’s election. In key states like Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, vote suppression of Democratic voters was so massive that the effect of it was way above the margin with which D. Trump won. Republicans use every means to have minorities, especially black voters not vote. the most common ones are
– purging masses of voters deemed to vote Democrat from the voter rolls on false pretense;
– requiring stringent conditions to vote, denying mostly poor black or minority voters, people with disabilities, students, etc.
– making it difficult to vote. Republicans in many states reduce the early vote days, reduce in large numbers the voting places in areas with a large black community only, hoping long lines will discourage them (and it does, old persons, mothers, etc).
With all powers and no check and balances left, with a Government shaping out as a collection of far right extremists, no doubt these kind of very successful attacks on our Democracy will increase greatly. Not sure we can ever recover our freedom.
From posts you’ve written this fall, BP, I hear a voice that is impeccably binary, which is one of the reasons Vermonters chose to put a brake on the D’s running the table.
Silos reign in blue Vermont.
Intentions are automaticaly suspect and working with those of differing viewpoints is verboten, which is like pouring concrete on any problem being discussed.
Not sure where I said working with those with differing opinions is “verboten”.
I’d be more than happy if Governor Scott builds coalitions and resists Trump and the GOP Congress to salvage whatever he can for VT. But spinning a conservative into a moderate as Phil Scott is attempting to do even as Sununu puts breaks on voters should be pointed out.
Sure,form a coalition with the New Hampshire governor, but don’t ask us to pretend he’s a moderate.
What difference what you call him, work with him and you may have some influence on his thinking.
One might begin to wonder why all these “moderate” governors are so busy suppressing voting rights.