Both Party Chairs Should Just...Well...SHUT UP!

For the sake of returning civility to the New Hampshire House now that Billy the Bully has bitten the dust, chairmen of both parties ought to consider sticking a sock in it.

That means both Republican Chair Wayne McDonald and Democratic Chair Raymond Charles Buckley.

The dust had barely settled from the races in the two party caucuses last week when both chairs decided that they had to weigh in with an injection of venom into the body politic (Hey, Raybo; he Wayne, leave it to those of us in the blogosphere for venom!).

Buckley, in trying to denigrate Republicans, tried to label Gene Chandler as a Tea Party Republican.

Get real, Raybo.  Gene Chandler is about the farthest thing from a Tea Party Republican you can find.  I might be termed a Tea Partier.  In fact, I am proud of that label especially since the Tea Party stands for three things and three things only.  The right wing social crap is nothing the Tea Party espoused; merely those who tried to usurp the Tea Party movement and bastardize it (people like O'Brien, Baldassaro, Tamburello, etc ad infinitum). I firmly believe in all three Tea Party platform planks (following the Constitution; controlling spending instead of adding more trillions of deficits; and free enterprise capitalism).  Most Americans do.

However, Raybo clearly was attempting to smear Gene Chandler with the social crap, something Chandler was never a party to.

McDonald, as if to one up Raybo (one can never one up such a zealot) immediately came out with a charge that Terri Norelli, the Democratic choice for Speaker, was linked to Dan Eaton's corruption.  While it's true that Norelli never removed Eaton from a leadership position while she was Speaker, it is unfair to link her to the Eaton scandal.  Now, if she chooses to place Eaton back in a leadership position now, that's another matter, but both party chairs would do us all a favor by calling off the dogs...if only for a few months.

With partisan hacks like Buckley and McDonald at the helm, no wonder people at large are turned off by the political process.  Raybo and Wayne had a chance to start anew with a modicum of graciousness. 

They both failed miserably and really ought to apoligize for their boorish behavior.

Comments

[C. dog]

Hey, I thought they were paid by the thinly veiled insult hurtled at the other team, just like you and me? Maybe we should get a paying gig in the apparatchik. Which side do you want?

Speaking of verbal IED's, what do you think about the newest "anarchist" on the democratic team? Perhaps the two of you could play freedom tag under the gilded dome by marrying pro-freedom legislation from both sides? If nothing else, sure would be a novelty act that might make the next edition of "This American Life" and Reason magazine.
– C. dog uncharacteristically constructive for a day

[Rep Steve Vaillancourt]

I think I'll like (maybe even love) the guy. It's great to see at least a few Democrats devoted to less government and personal freedoms. I hear that there are now three; Joel Winters, O'Flaherty, and someone else. It's also quite delicious that after attacking Republican Free Staters and Tea Partiers, Democratic hacks like Buckley, Sullivan, and Donald Manning (Norell's once and future? chief of staff) have to backpedal and defend one of their own. It doesn't get much beter!
I've already heard from O'Flaherty; he was interested in co-sponsoring death penalty repeal. I'm letting Renny Cushing take the lead on that.

[C. dog]

Steve –
How 'bout a bipartisan bill to lay the Dept. of Cultured Affairs to rest? Just in time for the Holiday Season!
– C. dog