Publisher's remarks

Go Humph Go!

By Jody Reese
HippoPress.com

Yesterday, I said I was voting for Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Al Gore; today it's GOP gubernatorial candidate Gordon Humphrey.

What are you nuts? Voting for the pink Gumby? Isn't he a wing nut, a whack job, a homophobe, woman hater and gun freak?

I'm really not sure what Humphrey is other than a candidate for governor with a plan. I like candidates with plans. Vermonter Fred Tuttle had a plan in the movie A Man with a Plan. He even won because of it. I like Tuttle.

Humphrey might win because of his plan too.

It is intellectually dishonest for Gov. Jeanne Shaheen to present no school funding plan to voters before the election.

Humphrey is right that the Blue Ribbon Commission is a snow job. Shaheen has had years to solve this funding crisis, but has failed. The New Hampshire Legislature even came to her with a plan all worked out, and she vetoed it.

There is no doubt Shaheen has been in a difficult position. Her ABC plan was struck down by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, and then she was presented with an income tax, even though she had pledged to veto one. She did as she had pledged. Shaheen was in a no win situation.

However, that didn't preclude her from outlining a plan for this election. What does she favor; an income tax, sales tax, a statewide property tax or more gambling to pay for the looming billion dollar education funding bill?

Since Shaheen has nothing to present to voters, she went on the attack, wrongly accusing Humphrey of saying Social Security is pin money and that women's shelters are antifamily indoctrination centers. She also brought up Humphrey's support of anti-abortion nut Randall Terry, who supports, at least in theory, the execution of abortion doctors.

How does all this solve the school funding crisis? Why do Humphrey's remarks about abortion, social security and women's shelters have anything to do with the campaign? Since when did governors appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices? Since when did governors vote on federal programs, such as Social Security? And when was it that the state took over women's shelters from the towns that are currently responsible for them?

The answer to all those questions, of course, is that they never have. Perhaps the sole job of the next governor is to solve the education funding crisis.

To be honest I don't care how it is solved. I'd rather not pay an income tax because I rent, and fear as most renters do, that lowering the property tax won't lower my rent. I'm not keen on a sales tax for the same reason, and because it is so regressive.

I would have happily voted for Shaheen had she presented me with an education funding plan I could read over. I might even had disagreed with it, as I do with Humphrey's, but still voted for her.

But it's the arrogance of presuming that she doesn't need a plan to get reelected that so bothers me, and that instead of a plan she spends most of the campaign attacking Humphrey, and before that Democratic primary opponent Mark Fernald.

That isn't leadership. That isn't good politics. And it's not enough to get my vote. Through default, Humphrey will get it, just as Gore will get it at the top of the ticket.