We are in the early stages of a genuine worldwide economic crisis. The stock market continues to crash, unemployment figures increase month after month, banks and major industries (e.g., automobiles) are failing, and Washington seems unprepared to respond (at least until the third week of January 2009).
It's less than a week before Thanksgiving, and [...]
Leadership includes many qualities -- such as vision, commitment, and an ability to understand an unfolding situation -- but communication perhaps carries the greatest role for anyone who seeks that responsibility.
Now, everyone knows President-Elect Barack Obama can deliver a great speech. We also know he is a terrific writer, and consequently a terrific thinker, [...]
Madeline Kunin, the former Governor of Vermont, wrote a terrific post the other day about how she feels like a manic depressive in the final days of this campaign.
Governor Kunin, who has been canvassing very quietly and effectively in the Upper Valley with nothing more elaborate than a simple white name [...]
I began this post two weeks ago on October 14, 2008. The demands of family, work, local politics, and a 1,001 things have caused me not to finish the post since then.
But the title of this post remains as true as it was two weeks ago. Here is what I wrote [...]
At a meeting of the Lyme Democrats earlier this week, on a day when the Dow had dropped some 500 points again, I reminded everyone that seventy-five years ago, a great American had risen to speak to the nation about illusory power of Fear.
Franklin Roosevelt's first inaugural address bears re-reading in 2008, not only [...]
On Thursday night, I hurried home from a fundraiser for Barack Obama to watch the Vice Presidential debate with my daughter, who had wisely been asked to watch it and an upcoming Presidential debate as part of her 8th grade social studies class.
Along with Red Sox, the 2008 Presidential race has been [...]
About a month ago, just as the kids returned to school and the pace of activity began to increase at work, I began to worry about the month of September.
Sure, there was some stuff I knew to expect. The slower pace of summer in northern New England gives way, suddenly and dramatically, to the [...]
Last week, John McCain assured us that the fundamentals of the economy were basically sound. This week, he’s suspending his presidential campaign to ride his white steed into Washington to save the US economy. One thing is certain; a McCain presidency wouldn’t be dull. No Canadian bacon at breakfast? Bomb [...]
Let's get the obvious of the way.
Barack Obama is going to win the Presidential election in November 2008. The issues dominating this race, and the desires of most voters, point to a solid Democratic victory in November. Everyone knows the race will be tight and hard fought, but I believe that's how [...]
September 4, 2008
An open letter to Sarah Palin,
Dear Sarah,
Congratulations on becoming the Vice Presidential nominee for the Republican Party in the upcoming election. It is a great thing to see a woman on the GOP ticket. Your candidacy is a truly historic event.
Still -let [...]
There's been a lot written about Governor Sarah Palin in the last five days since she was chosen by Senator John McCain to be his choice as Vice Presidential nominee.
As might be expected, much of the attention has gone into the choice itself -- how it was made, what this choice reflects about [...]
The end of the Olympics this year meant the beginning of the US political Olympics, the Democratic National Convention this week, to be followed by the GOP convention next week. At the Democratic Convention the traditional media has worked hard on pushing the meme that there is a [...]
New Hampshire’s own US Senator, John E. Sununu has been to Conway twice in recent weeks. He is running for re-election this year, running against the same candidate he opposed in the questionable 2002 election, former governor Jeanne Shaheen. That was the election where the NH GOP jammed phones in [...]
By many accounts, Barack Obama has made his choice for Vice President on the Democratic ticket and will announce it later this week.
According to most pundits, it's the first and most important choice a candidate for the nation's highest office can make.
Most commentators ask, who is on the short [...]
John Edwards served one term as a US Senator from North Carolina. He was chosen as John Kerry’s running mate in 2004. He ran for president in the 2008 election, but failed to win the nomination. At this point in time, he is not a candidate, and he is [...]
On Sunday, July 27, 200 people were attending the Sunday worship service at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville. Twenty-five children were performing “Annie, Jr.” for the congregation. A man named Jim Adkinsson, who was carrying a guitar case walked in to the church. Once inside he opened [...]
On Sunday, July 27, 200 people were attending the Sunday worship service at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville. Twenty-five children were performing “Annie, Jr.” for the congregation. A man named Jim Adkinsson, who was carrying a guitar case walked in to the church. Once inside he opened [...]
Until a few hours ago, this was my perspective on the world...
*On Saturday morning, I leave for our annual two-week vacation to an isolated lake in Maine where this is only clear, clean water, good friends, and no phone-Internet connection to the world.
*I'm tired, fatigued even from a busy year. The last [...]
"Summer Time, and the Livin' is Easy..."
....and man, it's true. Thank you, George Gershwin, for capturing the season just so.
In this year of 2008 -- with $4.00+ gasoline, food prices on-fire, and housing in a major slump -- when there is good, solid, non-partisan reason to be [...]
FairPoint Communications announced this week that it would need more time to complete the takeover of Verizon’s telephone network in northern New England. The controversial sale of Verizon’s landlines to the small company took place at the end of March, after being approved by the Public Utilities Commissions of Maine, [...]
For anyone curious to learn why Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination (and what happened to Hillary Clinton's campaign), it's re-assuring to know that plenty of good analysis and solid reporting exists about the fast-moving political events of the past week. I'd recommend these stories for anyone interested in quick digest about what happened, and [...]
The routine works likes this: come Memorial Day weekend, regardless of the air temperature or water conditions, I don a wetsuit and enter a frigid lake in either New Hampshire or Vermont for the first open swim of the season. The experience is almost always the same: bracing. And I mean bracing. Gone is [...]
The assassination of Bobby Kennedy in Los Angeles in 1968, a few short hours after he won the California primary, when he seemed poised to have enough momentum to win the Democratic nomination, stands apart for many Americans as a defining, tragic moment in 20th [...]
We are all feeling the pinch of the failed Bush economic policies of the last seven years. Unemployment is on the rise, and so are food and energy costs. The sub-prime loan crisis is causing record numbers of foreclosures. Working families are in desperate need of relief. This administration has [...]
In about December 2006, I received a discrete phone call from an adviser to Senator Obama about his prospective race for the Democratic nomination and the Presidency in 2008. Towards the end of our conversation, I was asked whether or not race would play a factor in either the race [...]
Riding home tonight from a town meeting in New Hampshire, over country roads as beautiful as those found in West Virginia, I heard Hillary Clinton's sad call to arms on the radio -- "You will never quit, and I won't, either -- and wondered, why?
Although she is behind in [...]
Late last month, NH’s junior Senator, John E. Sununu, Jr. published an editorial in the Union Leader, NH’s own Republican newspaper. Sununu waxed poetically about NH’s admirable record for protecting our water, air, and land. Luckily he didn’t pat his own back too, far, since his own environmental record is [...]
The further north a person travels in New England during the months of late March and April, particularly if that travel occurs away from the interstates and city highways, the closer a person comes to discovering first-hand the fifth season of this region -- mud season.
It's an odd and quiet [...]
In the history of sloganeering, few political candidates in the history of the United States approach the recklessness of Hillary Clinton.
Last week, on the day of the Pennsylvania primary, Senator Clinton was asked what she would do if Iran invade Israel.
Her response?
"We would obliterate them..."
"Our party is emerging from one of its most hard fought battles for the
Democratic Party's presidential nomination in our history. But our healthy
competition should make us better, not bitter."
These words, spoken by Reverend Jesse Jackson, seem to refer to the increasingly negative political campaign being waged between Senators [...]
I did not support, and will not support, Hillary Clinton in her quest to become President of the United States for one very simply reason.
I could point to a host of policy choices with which I disagree with Senator Clinton. Consider, for instance, her support for the Iraq War, not [...]
John Sununu's has a dream about achieving victory on Election Night in November 2008 that ain't so crazy. In fact, it's about 40% realized already.
First, Sununu needs a Republican Presidential nominee with a strong, positive identity in the Granite State. Someone who could appeal to the entire base of the [...]
The presidential campaign is increasingly contentious with supporters on both sides saying they will not vote for the other candidate.
Senator Clinton has indicated a willingness to campaign for three more months to win the nomination.
Will there be a Democratic Party left by then?
What will this do for our chances in
New [...]
Lobbyists at the NH State House wear orange badges that identify them as lobbyists. In 2007, there were 252 registered lobbyists. I was surprised at the last hearing I attended to see how many of them were in the room. It was a hearing on water issues, and there were [...]
Over the past few days, a number of very interesting things have happened in the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
Today, for instance, the leading left-wing blogs -- dKos, Swing State Project, and Open Left -- endorsed Obama. No surprise really, at least to us living in the climes [...]
It's interesting to see, over the last week, two major pieces from leading political observers on the inevitable end of Hillary Clinton's candidacy.
First, Mark Halperin of Time Magazine and ABC News has issued a post listing 14 reasons why Hillary Clinton should quit the race. He puts it a [...]
The Pew Research Center released a report last week, grading states on the efficiency of their governments. NH scored a D+ - the lowest grade in the nation. The report found that NH is particularly weak with regards to our infrastructure, and long range planning. At this point, the 10-year [...]
In New Hampshire, it's not "Beware, the Ides of March" so much as it is, "Beware, Early March" because two critical disruptions occur at this time of year.
First, there are three critical public meetings which occur in the first ten days of the month of March. In my town of [...]
It's late Winter in New Hampshire. Which means less snow, and more rain and mud. It's the kind of weather that matches the climate in the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
A few weeks ago, I called for Hillary Clinton to leave the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. [...]
