NH Republicans on O'Brien
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 10:58AM A recent survey of NH's "influential" Republicans by Red Granite found that they feel William O'Brien deserves another term as House Speaker. The story found HERE on the Patch website states the following:
In all, 102 Republicans from New Hampshire were asked using an automated survey tool whether they think O'Brien deserves another term as Speaker.
Fifty-two responses were collected.
52 responses?
Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed agreed to some degree that O'Brien deserves another term.
Two-thirds of 52 is only 35.
Asked where they felt O'Brien has succeeded as Speaker, more than half of those who responded cited his work to help balance the budget and keep spending in check.
"Achieving fiscal sanity," said one influential Republican.
"Righting the fiscal ship," said another.
I agree with that mentality in that O'Brien turned this state around. When Democrats took control of the House, Senate and Governorship, they went into a spending frenzy like New Hampshire had never seen and left the state in a bad situation.
Instead of sitting back and just playing the blame game like Obama has done for 3 years now, O'Brien and state Republicans did "right the fiscal ship".
That said, here are the counter views...
Others were more critical, saying his greatest success was in "abuse of power," or "Tearing apart the Republican Party."
The influential Republicans surveyed were more varied in their responses when asked about O'Brien's failures.
Many cited the Speaker's inability to "handle the press" and deal with public relations.
Republicans need to listen to this group of "influential" Republicans.
Despite how well O'Brien has done accomplishing getting NH back in the right direction fiscally and passing things like Voter ID, all that is trumped by bad public relations.
Voters don't pay close enough attention to details, past UNH polls showed that most NH voters weren't even aware that NH Democrats ran the state budget into a deficit. But they sure can recall story after story of Lynch showing up at disaster sites in his yellow ran slicker and they can sure tell you what a nice guy Lynch is. Does it matter that when you look at polling results on issues people continually side against the way Lynch governs? No, because people aren't paying close enough attention.
If you stopped 20 people on the street today and asked if they know which side Lynch or O'Brien took on the more well known issues over the past 2 years I doubt many would be able to answer.
Basically how "influential" Republicans feel is a non story, it doesn't matter. It's how the basic voter feels and as long as O'Brien can't handle public relations and Democrats have someone like Lynch who looks good in a rain slicker and is a nice guy, Republicans will have problems.
The only positive for the Republican party right now is that Democrats have the White House which carries down a lot of votes (or in this case votes against) from the top and they have Obama who is arrogant and continually sliding down the popularity polls. ObamaCare being the largest tax increase ever in US history isn't exactly a boon for the Democratic party either. If it wasn't for that, NH Republicans would be in serious trouble.
O'Brien, Republicans in Republicans
Reader Comments (17)
No wonder the liberals hate him.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24editorial_graph2.html?ref=sunday
You can add compassionate idiots to the derelict deficit problem. Seems like Libs and RINO's alike have the same problem adding up really big numbers.
– C. dog out on safari
1) this article above says NOTHING about the national debt but does discuss NH's deficit spending under Lynch and Democrats. Your response is bringing up apples to those oranges.
2) Regarding the national debt, you can spin anyway you wish picking "policy" as the NY Times did and looking only at that but here are the amounts increased:
national debt April 2001 starting Bush policy era $5,773,739,949,951.53
April 2006 Democrats took control of house and senate $8,175,743,292,992.87
April 2009 Obama took over with democrat house and senate $10,626,877,048,913.08
April 2011 Republicans took control of Congress (only) $14,254,174,516,308.48
As of this moment $15,871,164,214,033.00
So let's do the math:
6 years under Bush with Republicans in control $400,333,890,506.89 per year
2 years under Bush with Democrats in control $1,225,566,877,960.11 per year
2 years under Obama with Democrats in control of both houses $1,813,648,733,697.70
Since Republicans took congress $1,616,989,697,724.52
Spin anyway you want and look at tiny chunks to make yourself feel like you and your party are in the right but those are the raw national debt numbers. As you can see the highest points we've hit since 2001 were when we had full democratic party control and the lowest we had was under full republican control. And if you go back to when Clinton 'balanced the budget" you'd see it was when Republicans were in control under him.
Liberals and progressives do not "spin."
They are flat out liars - always have been - always will be.
Just plain liars.
I'm sorry I was not making myself clear. I was most certainly not defending the Democrats when it comes to budget deficits, either local or national. My point was it does not appear to me to be a liberal/conservative issue but much more of a political system issue. It doesn't seem to matter whether it's Democrats or Republicans in charge; we all end up losing money.
On the local level, much ado has been made about the O'Brien budget and how it saved scads of money for everyone. However, I don't think the full impact of the budget has happened yet and it remains to be seen how it will effect town tax rates and services.
http://www.nhinsider.com/storage/The%20Republican%20state%20budget%20will%20harm%20NH.pdf
On the national level, you say "Since Republicans took congress $1,616,989,697,724.52". That's a fine start but somehow saying "we are good because we suck a tiny bit less" is not very reassuring.
So the choices seem to be tax and spend or tax cuts, borrow and spend. Neither of those are a long term solution and saying crap like
"Liberals and progressives do not "spin."
They are flat out liars - always have been - always will be.
Just plain liars."
isn't going to help anyone but the politicos looking to divide and conquer. With half the country liberal and half conservative, maybe we need to start looking for common ground instead of resorting to pissant name calling.
– C. dog opens discount Sin-mart store that serves only out-o-state dumbocrats
He won, New Hamsphire won.
End of story - except for those who hoped the Democrat tax and spend and borrow scheme would lead to a broad based tax and a smaller PAID legislature.
That is what this, I hate Bill O'Brien tantrum is really all about.
Saul Alinsky loses this time!
You really need to stop holding on to the hate man, it doesn't become you, and it apparently, has consumed you as well.
DT
I'm sorry but I must have missed that. When did Obama exclude the press? I hope you are not talking about the bogus press pool story, That has already been debunk. Fox News was omitting details to the story (imagine that) to make themselves look like victims to cover their own incompetence. Hopefully, you have a better story than that.
If there is a REAL story of press exclusion then my feelings would be the same irregardless of party affiliation. The free press is one of our most important protections against corrupt government and any attempts to silence it (no matter how moronic and self serving they might be) is wrong.
Doesn't Hussein Obama exclude the conservative press from all the stuff his people are leaking from the State Department and military?
Isn't that kinda-sorta like limiting the press?
Yea, I think so - and treason.
Pretty incendiary accusations with absolutely no evidence. Let me guess, you heard on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, right? It must be very comforting to be so sure of your (their) convictions despite the complete lack of any proof.