Thursday, December 13, 2012

Northern Lip Service

Governor-elect Maggie Hassan recently announced the creation of a "north country team" to help her reach out to local communities to learn what their priorities are. The story was in Wednesday's Conway Daily Sun .

I find I'm not high minded enough to refrain from pointing out that this is the same Hassan who spent little time in the north country prior to the election, and was quite clear that this isn't where the votes were.

It comes as no surprise, then, that she's packed this "team" with supporters and elected officials either past or present. No regular working stiffs, no food stamp recipients, and no one scraping by on $10 an hour in a resort area and living in their car because they can't afford the outrageous cost of living. None of the folks who work at providing NH's tiny safety net.

I'd like to have seen some dissenters - folks who do NOT support the GOP tax pledge that Hassan took at the earliest opportunity. I'd like to see folks who work for fuel assistance or food stamp programs, or local health clinics. I'd like to have seen Governor-elect Hassan use some creativity. Instead she's created a group that will almost certainly provide her with exactly the sort of echo chamber she's looking for.

By taking the pledge, she's already ensured that nothing will change in terms of infrastructure or education. There weren't enough votes here for candidate Hassan to pay attention to, which means there aren't enough people up here to waste much time on. This is the same kind of lip service we're used to seeing up here in the area between Concord and Canada.

The beat goes on.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Completely agree and couldn't help but think these identical thoughts when reading this article. I'm glad I didn't vote for her but this doesn't change the fact that she is just more of the same and has always struck me as somewhat of a party hack. I see little difference between Hassan and Ayotte and that's very distressing.