Somehow we have survived both
the Republican and the Democratic conventions. It was a very long two weeks,
where huge amounts of money were spent on a big public charade meant to
convince us that our democracy is working just fine. Meanwhile, back in the
real world, the NH state primary election is September 13, about a month and a
half away. Candidates who are hoping to get statewide name recognition don’t
have much time.
Last time I wrote about the Republican gubernatorial candidates, using information gleaned from their candidate websites. After the two conventions, I’m sick of both major parties, so this week, we’ll take a look at the independent or third party candidates using their websites as our guide….when we can.
There are four of these candidates. One is running as a libertarian, the others aren’t affiliated with a party.
Republican State Representative Max Abramson of Seabrook is running for governor as a libertarian. He doesn’t really have a candidate website. He has a personal website that announces his gubernatorial run as almost an afterthought. He has a Facebook page for his position as State Representative that seems to sort of function as a site for his gubernatorial campaign as well. Given the absence of a real online presence, one wonders how serious Representative Abramson is in his quest to become governor.
Abramson moved to NH in 2004 as part of the Free State Project. Abramson achieved some notoriety after being elected to the House, when it turned out that he had been assigned to the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. Abramson is a convicted felon. He had a party that got out of hand and decided the way to calm things down was to pull out a gun and start firing - in a residential neighborhood. (Hey, it works on TV!) After being removed from the Criminal Justice committee, Abramson refused another committee assignment. In fact, he refused to meet with Speaker of the House, Shawn Jasper, claiming it was “a trap.”
Max is a quirky fellow. He’s ranted extensively about the fact that legislators are paid $100 a year. He’s running for governor because he’s upset about high property taxes. When the House refuses to raise sufficient revenue to run the state properly, the costs get shifted to the towns. Welcome to the property tax! It’s difficult to discern what Abramson did for 2 years in the House, but he doesn’t seem to have learned anything about NH fiscal policy.
Last time I wrote about the Republican gubernatorial candidates, using information gleaned from their candidate websites. After the two conventions, I’m sick of both major parties, so this week, we’ll take a look at the independent or third party candidates using their websites as our guide….when we can.
There are four of these candidates. One is running as a libertarian, the others aren’t affiliated with a party.
Republican State Representative Max Abramson of Seabrook is running for governor as a libertarian. He doesn’t really have a candidate website. He has a personal website that announces his gubernatorial run as almost an afterthought. He has a Facebook page for his position as State Representative that seems to sort of function as a site for his gubernatorial campaign as well. Given the absence of a real online presence, one wonders how serious Representative Abramson is in his quest to become governor.
Abramson moved to NH in 2004 as part of the Free State Project. Abramson achieved some notoriety after being elected to the House, when it turned out that he had been assigned to the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. Abramson is a convicted felon. He had a party that got out of hand and decided the way to calm things down was to pull out a gun and start firing - in a residential neighborhood. (Hey, it works on TV!) After being removed from the Criminal Justice committee, Abramson refused another committee assignment. In fact, he refused to meet with Speaker of the House, Shawn Jasper, claiming it was “a trap.”
Max is a quirky fellow. He’s ranted extensively about the fact that legislators are paid $100 a year. He’s running for governor because he’s upset about high property taxes. When the House refuses to raise sufficient revenue to run the state properly, the costs get shifted to the towns. Welcome to the property tax! It’s difficult to discern what Abramson did for 2 years in the House, but he doesn’t seem to have learned anything about NH fiscal policy.
Also hoping to put the goober
in gubernatorial is Michael Gill from Derry. Gill the owner of a company called
The Mortgage Specialists, and is best known for his electronic billboards that
are often defamatory or profane. Gill regularly produces semi-literate rants
about corruption in NH. He’s a regular on right wing talk radio and has a website
that appears to be the NH equivalent of Alex Jones.
One thing Gill does not have is a campaign website. Not even a candidate Facebook page. No positions, no policy – no reason given to vote for him except his rage against this big, unspecified corruption. He is paying people $5 a signature to get his name on the ballot. He can pay signature collectors, but he can’t manage to put together a campaign website? It’s hard to take this candidate seriously.
One thing Gill does not have is a campaign website. Not even a candidate Facebook page. No positions, no policy – no reason given to vote for him except his rage against this big, unspecified corruption. He is paying people $5 a signature to get his name on the ballot. He can pay signature collectors, but he can’t manage to put together a campaign website? It’s hard to take this candidate seriously.
Jilletta Jarvis of Sandown is
running as an independent. She has a website and a Facebook page. Her website
has a schedule of events, and offers information about her views on the
economy, drugs, family, casinos, health care and more. Ms. Jarvis appears to be opposed to Social
Security and supports state’s rights. Her views on how health insurance should
work are rather naïve. She thinks that people on welfare should have to work
for it, and somehow childcare for them will be worked out. Again – naïve, but
hey - at least she is willing to put a position out there that doesn’t involve
slander on an electronic sign. Jarvis appears to be allied primarily with the
libertarian crowd.
William Fortune is our final indy candidate for NH governor. According to the Secretary of State’s office, Fortune is from Rochester. The Live Free or Die Alliance site has him listed as living in Lee. His non-candidate Facebook page says he’s from Warner. On the positive side, they’re all towns in New Hampshire, so we know he lives somewhere here in the granite state. Mr. Fortune has no candidate website. He does not have a candidate Facebook page.
He has two questions answered on the LFOD Alliance page. Apparently Mr. Fortune doesn’t care for college students, and he attempted snark about their need for free college. He’s opposed to renewable energy, saying that it is cost prohibitive and obsolete, “just ask China.” Does this mean all that smog over Beijing is from solar installations? Who knew?
Fortune does have a Facebook page. It is a treasure trove. You won’t find his gubernatorial platform, but you will find out what he thinks about a lot of things. From a July 31 entry: “Apparently hysteria is not limited to just females.” Oops. He just lost my vote. Further down the page, “This all starts with the destruction of the family by the feminists, the growth of government dependency fostered by the Liberals and the lack of meaningful employment.”
Oh, those pesky feminists. They ruined everything with the crazy notion that women shouldn’t have to stay with abusive husbands. A little more research reveals that Bill Fortune is the head of an angry dad organization. Mad dads are men who have lost custody of their children, and may have lost visitation rights. Over the years I’ve seen men friends lose their kids to vindictive ex partners. More recently I’ve seen women friends lose their kids to abusers. And it wasn’t just the woman they were abusing. The angry dads have created a backlash against mothers that has led to some kids being sent off to live with molesters. Doing what is best for children is not a gender issue. As long as parents use children as weapons, this problem will continue. I repeat – this is not a gender issue. It’s an adult behavioral problem.
William Fortune is our final indy candidate for NH governor. According to the Secretary of State’s office, Fortune is from Rochester. The Live Free or Die Alliance site has him listed as living in Lee. His non-candidate Facebook page says he’s from Warner. On the positive side, they’re all towns in New Hampshire, so we know he lives somewhere here in the granite state. Mr. Fortune has no candidate website. He does not have a candidate Facebook page.
He has two questions answered on the LFOD Alliance page. Apparently Mr. Fortune doesn’t care for college students, and he attempted snark about their need for free college. He’s opposed to renewable energy, saying that it is cost prohibitive and obsolete, “just ask China.” Does this mean all that smog over Beijing is from solar installations? Who knew?
Fortune does have a Facebook page. It is a treasure trove. You won’t find his gubernatorial platform, but you will find out what he thinks about a lot of things. From a July 31 entry: “Apparently hysteria is not limited to just females.” Oops. He just lost my vote. Further down the page, “This all starts with the destruction of the family by the feminists, the growth of government dependency fostered by the Liberals and the lack of meaningful employment.”
Oh, those pesky feminists. They ruined everything with the crazy notion that women shouldn’t have to stay with abusive husbands. A little more research reveals that Bill Fortune is the head of an angry dad organization. Mad dads are men who have lost custody of their children, and may have lost visitation rights. Over the years I’ve seen men friends lose their kids to vindictive ex partners. More recently I’ve seen women friends lose their kids to abusers. And it wasn’t just the woman they were abusing. The angry dads have created a backlash against mothers that has led to some kids being sent off to live with molesters. Doing what is best for children is not a gender issue. As long as parents use children as weapons, this problem will continue. I repeat – this is not a gender issue. It’s an adult behavioral problem.
Of the four independent candidates, only Jilletta Jarvis has an actual campaign. Given that Gill is buying signatures, he may well be the only independent candidate that gets on the ballot. All of these candidates plopped down $100 to run for governor. None of them have the kind of name recognition that will propel them into the corner office. Dreamers? Fools? Check them out and decide for yourself. The independent candidate of your dreams may be closer than you think.
6 comments:
Thank you so much for doing an article about independents and 3rd party. Name recognition is indeed an issue for us. I sent press releases and requests to every media outlet (tv, newspaper, and radio) that I could but none were published. TV stations told me they would not consider indies until after the primaries and then they'd look at their schedule. This makes it hard to get name recognition. No - I will not be on the ballot because I can't pay people to get signatures ( and I think it's wrong to hire a company from outside the state to do it for me ) so I fell short. Max did get enough so I believe he will be on the ballot. Regarding some of my stances that you commented on....I never wrote anything on social security one way or the other. Welfare I believe most people on it want off it and the way hiring works they won't hire someone who hasn't been working so a volunteer program keeps job skills fresh and gives them recommendations. One of the volunteer areas would be in a child care facility that they would be able to bring their kids to so I didn't plan on it "working itself out" I did actually have a plan. I spoke to a lot of real people during my campaign and there are a lot of programs out there that this could be built upon to make work. While I wont make it on the ballot this year my campaign is not over and I am not going away. I'm happy to talk to anyone about how to make things work for the people of NH.
Jilletta Jarvis
Jilletta - I went with what I read on your website. In the 10th amendment section you write: "Here's how the Federal Government gets away with things like the Health Insurance Bill and Social Security.." I could be wrong - but that doesn't sound as if you approve of Social Security.
In the welfare section, you wrote: "I understand that many of these people may have children that would need supervision during this time and that could be worked out depending on which volunteer program they chose, the age of the children, and how long they were on the program."
Here's the thing - to get people off welfare there need to be jobs that pay a living wage. There need to be affordable child care options for families. There needs to be affordable housing.
I applaud you for having a platform and addressing issues. That's more than any of the other independent/third party candidates did. I hope you try again.
Ah! Yes, the 10th amendment section where I am upset because the Federal Government gets away with telling us how we must put money into social security and then they take the money from that program ( I know that about 7 years ago I received a letter from the Social Security Administration telling me that when I become of age to receive the money I have been putting in since I was 16 I will only be able to 75% of it because there won't be enough in there). I am sorry I didn't expand on my views of how child care would work in my write up. I should have. That is an error that should be corrected in my next run. Thank you. I completely agree about needing more living wage paying jobs! The trick is to get more without companies just deciding to pick up and go to another state where they don't mandate it. That's why I suggested incentives to companies that offer over $21 per hour to NH residents. Small Business would need different breaks because they could not afford that - they are mom and pop shops and it would put them out of business. One thing that drives me crazy is retail or chains that only offer part time employment to get away with not giving benefits of having to pay well and since the schedules are so varied the employees can't really afford to work 2 jobs there. I'd like to work with the legislature to see if we can do anything about that... Maybe a percentage of the work force can be full time? I also agree about housing prices! There are so many restrictions on what you can and can't do yet you have to pay an arm and a leg to get into a house to begin with! The incredible property tax does not help. I am saddened that the ballot access system here in NH makes it difficult for those really wanting to help get in there but I refuse to give up. I will be fundraising next year and working on name recognition from now until 2018. I am not gone, you can count on that!
"Here's the thing - to get people off welfare there need to be jobs that pay a living wage. There need to be affordable child care options for families. There needs to be affordable housing."
And yet liberals want to tax the bejesus out of businesses and people that could help make those things possible. The more you tax businesses the less people they will hire, and the less incentives they will find to make an investment in the communities they are part of.
If you force businesses to pay a "living wage" ($15/hr to take someone's order at a fast food place is asinine) they will simply look for ways to do the same amount of work with less people. It has already started, btw: by 2018 you will be ordering your Happy Meal from kiosks. That will eliminate at least 4 employees per store right there.
Congratulations, liberals! Y'all won some battles but are ultimately going to lose the war.
Alan - I'm waiting for you Free Staters to start taking over the maintaining and repair of our roads and bridges - and building telecom infrastructure. Here's your chance to show us that private companies do it better.
If anyone has ever received a letter saying that Social Security was "running out of money," it sure wasn't from the Social Security Administration. I smell a right-wing scam. Scare the bejesus out of people. Always read the fine print.
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