For The Good Of The Party

by Brendan Smith
Weirs Times Editor

It’s beginning to look more and more like I will have to run for the Flatlander Party nomination for governor of New Hampshire again.
It was just a couple of weeks ago I explained how I have been contemplating if I had the energy, at (almost) 65, to be able to not just run but, more importantly I guess, actually do the job once elected.
My concerns fell on uninterested ears in my own party who kept reminding me that there are folks a lot older running more intense campaigns for higher offices and I am, in comparison, a young man.
But the real reason they want me to run again is that there is someone else who has decided to run and his ideas are not necessarily well received within the party. He has been gaining a lot of traction and the elders (some actually younger than myself) want me to run to try and stop him.
They feel I have the name recognition and the experience.
The Flatlander Party began about twenty years ago. It was formed by a small group of us who were concerned with the bad name Flatlanders were getting by some new transplants moving to the state who were trying to change our “Live Free Or Die” philosophy by getting elected to the legislature and bringing in more regulations and taxes and to be more like where they came from.
Our original group was comprised of many transplants who moved here because we were attracted to the way of life and the (then) small intrusion of government into our lives.
Along the way, the Flatlander Party grew, it began to erode slightly at its edges as new members, not necessarily aligned with our original philosophy, began to have an influence on things. Yes, some of these same Flatlanders were fighting against the very core or why we came into existence in the first place.
It was never a real big problem until this year when one member, an older gentleman originally from Brooklyn, New York, suddenly announced his candidacy and it appears he has quite an enthusiastic following.
Little did we know that the small house parties he was hosting for some of the newer members were far beyond innocent gatherings. Plying these New Flatlanders, most of them from New York, with delicious pizza straight from the Big Apple as well as fresh Baked Brooklyn bagels and chopped chicken liver, he instilled in them the need to change New Hampshire to be more inclusive to others like them.
He didn’t give a lot of specifics, but with the promise of a never-ending supply of free pizza, bagels and chopped liver paid for by a new state tax for those making over 100,000 dollars a year, he mesmerized his base into a frenzy.
Of course, so many of these Flatlanders were new to the area. They had yet to understand that there was more to life in New Hampshire than familiar food from back home. In fact, New Hampshire had much more to offer like great Clam Chowder and even bean hole beans, to name two out of five.
But these transplants were young and new and very pliable.
The sudden surge in this gentleman’s campaign has become very concerning to us older, more established, members of the Flatlander Party. We were once lured by the promise of free food we craved when we first arrived here, but we came to realize over time that, hey, if we really wanted to, we could just make it ourselves.
It has become obvious to us that this gentleman’s following has become more than we anticipated, and we realize now that he must be stopped. We cannot let our party be so radically changed after all our years of hard work.
So, I guess I will be running again, if only to try and save the party that we worked so hard to create. It will be a tough fight and I need to be ready for it whether I like it or not.
This time it will be more than just idle messages and promises that can never be kept. This time we have to face the message of the other candidate and try to explain that his pie in the sky (or should I say bagels in the sky) promises may just create more problems than they solve.
As the standard bearer for the party, this all falls on my achy shoulders. I do admit I was looking forward to possibly not running this year, to take a year or more off and attend to more personal things.
But now I realize my responsibility in making sure this guy doesn’t win the party’s nomination is much more important than my own needs.
Still, it will also serve as a great excuse not to have to cut the lawn this summer. Those kind of things really tire me out.