NH State Representative Steven Smith

I’ve gotten some things done over the last 2 years.  I have fought for the local bus service (successfully), ensured that the Route 12 project is on track, kept NH licenses as valid ids for air travel, created a much lower cost passport alternative, and secured a state grant for Sullivan County’s TRAILS drug offender program.

There is more, but the takeaway is that it was a calm productive session.  Democrats serving on my committee told me that they felt included, respected, and treated fairly.

There was very little politics. We just went to Concord and did our work.

We passed a budget that gave more health and human services funding than any in our states history while providing business tax cuts, and no tax increases for anyone else.  I hope that my work on your behalf has earned me another term.

I am asking for your vote on November 8th so that I can continue to advocate for, and serve, Acworth, Charlestown, Goshen, Langdon, Lempster, and Washington.

Your public servant,

Steven Smith

I have not weighed in on the Presidential election, even through the Primaries…. until now.  American voters are in a tough spot.  In past cycles, the policy differences were at least louder than the juvenile antics that always seem to accompany the circus we know as a Presidential Election.  That is not the case this time.  You have been subjected to the equivalent of a junior high school cafeteria fight.

• Candidate A: You’re horrible!
• Candidate B: Oh yeah?!
• Candidate A: YEAH!!
• Candidate B: Well you’re even more horrible, and your supporters are horrible too!
• Candidate A: Oh yeah?!
• Candidate B:  YEAH!!

… and on forever.  You have been done a great disservice.  I honestly don’t know how you are going to filter through all the sensationalism and hype to find your choice.  I wish the candidates had worked together to discourage it.  I am just a lowly NH State Representative.  Despite that, I’ve had personal attacks against me.  I’ve never responded in kind, and I am grateful to the voters for re-electing me… proving that dirty attacks don’t work.  If I can stay above it, you would think that the next President could.  We have to work together to make sure that this never happens again.  If a candidate uses a personal attack, call them on it.  Write to a paper.  Contact a local party official.  A lot of them think that you want it this way.  I don’t, and I bet that most of you agree with me.

Good luck on Tuesday.  When you go the polls, sometimes discussion happens.  Disagreement even happens.  Please let’s all be polite.  There are press outlets that are fanning the flames by predicting violence during the election.  I know the people here, and you are better than that. There are elements who may be out trying to egg you on to conflict.  Just don’t let it work.  You have that power.  Candidates will be at the polls.  If you disagree with them, by all means express that if you want to… courteously.  Talking with people who we disagree with are the most important and productive conversations we can have.

Looking forward to the quiet that should come on November 9th

Steve

George Washington 1796

“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”