The vaunted growth that New Hampshire enjoyed for more than a decade has slowed to a trickle, and the economy, while not bad, is mired in a long period of slow growth. It’s time for New Hampshire to choose candidates who will take this changing state into the future.
In the Republican race for governor, that candidate is Executive Councilor Chris Sununu.
Though fundamentally as conservative as the previous Sununus in government – brother John, a one-term U.S. senator, and father John, a three-term governor and presidential chief of staff – Chris Sununu is genial and capable of compromise.
His changed vote on the controversial matter of funding for Planned Parenthood proved that he can be flexible and put the needs of constituents ahead of party orthodoxy.
His three terms on the Executive Council, which oversees state appointments and contracts worth more than $25,000, taught him how state government works.
Sununu is the first gubernatorial candidate in memory to recognize the fundamental conflict of interest inherent in the state’s combined Department of Resources and Economic Development. The same agency cannot fairly safeguard the state’s lands and public resources and promote economic development that can come at the expense of those resources.
Sununu would break the agency up, as would we.
Sununu would also like to see the state provide some portion of the 40 percent of municipal retirement costs it once gave cities and towns before the entire contribution was scrapped. That helped the state balance its budget at the expense of local taxpayers.
He would also like to see at least a portion of the state’s contribution to school building aid restored.
Only one of Sununu’s opponents, Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas, has the experience to give Sununu a run for it. He is a five-term state senator and past Senate president who knows how to work the levers of government, but he is also a polarizing figure. His performance as Manchester’s mayor has been marked by acrimony and controversy.
As for the remaining contenders, state Sen. Jeanie Forrester and Rep. Frank Edelblut both signed the Koch brothers Americans for Prosperity pledge never to raise taxes, a pledge that binds them firmly to the past. Even worse, Forrester, in an editorial board interview with this paper, seriously proposed deploying the National Guard on the state’s borders with Canada and Massachusetts to combat the flow of drugs.
“Did someone really say that?” an aghast Sununu said. That was our reaction, too.
Sununu is by far the Republican Party’s best choice for governor.