Elections are not held to anoint the inevitable, which is why the unsettling and infuriating comment by NH Democratic Committee chair Ray Buckley that “it would be foolhardy for us to then encourage somebody to run only to then lose in a primary” is genuinely horrifying.
Why would anyone think Cinde Warmington would be a stronger democratic candidate in 2026 than she was in the last election? Where has she been for the past two years — sharpening and honing her message or amplifying her platform? Listening to ordinary people for new ideas? Taking a little pep juice to help her out of the rocking chair? To the ordinary voter, she has been nowhere.
Even jumping over the opioid issue, she has few new or good ideas, little energy or enthusiasm for the campaign and acts content to think that public disgust with the current sad state of affairs will transport her into the Corner office. More of the same.
Encouraging candidates with innovative ideas, energy, and a will to campaign with enthusiasm is a winning formula. It can make every candidate step up and dig a little deeper. Democrats can’t utter a word that doesn’t include “income tax” and have yet to understand it won’t win a New Hampshire election no matter how true it is. No matter how disgusting and toxic they are, Republicans at least have ideas.
Democrats need a reboot. No wonder that young people think it’s time to toss out the old guard. And please, forget the notion that the name Democratic Socialist is an electable moniker. Take a lesson from Libertarians who lost more than a few elections on their ascension to the top before realizing it would be a non-starter if they had any hope for the future. Calling themselves Republicans would win the day. It has, and that awareness has served them well.
We now have a government full of Libertarians from top to bottom and nobody recognizes an actual Republican when one lands in their lap. Does anyone really believe John Sununu will buck the Trump train in the Senate and be independent of the corrupt? No, but he has a big smile which works well for Republicans and makes people feel content and comfortable election after election even as things fall apart for most of us.
I’ve long believed that that since his second term, Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we had since Richard Nixon. That statement gets a bewildered look from most people, after all, wasn’t he a Democrat? Refer to the old trope about ducks — if it walks, talks and looks like one….
We have him to thank for coopting traditional Democratic ideas of people first, in favor of banking deregulation, NAFTA and a host of other Republican policies that his “centrist” policies sold us as the only way to get elected, at least the only way for him to get reelected. Most democrats have been Republican lite ever since. That whooshing sound we heard was not just jobs fleeing to Mexico, it was the whole middle class being tossed out baby, bathwater and all. Yet another example of calling yourself something familiar, coopting the policies of the other side and you, too, could become somebody on your way to the bank.
Just like Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football in the Peanuts comics, people always seem to believe a promise of hope even when it repeatedly fails to materialize. Lucy never once let him kick the football as she promised. Every time. No wonder whole generations of people don’t believe Democrats care about people, pocketbooks or working people — they haven’t! Hey, anybody remember FDR or LBJ, the New Deal or the Great Society? Two great plans that burned some but gave opportunity to millions of “just folks.” And created prosperity for many Americans for several decades.
Congress, the branch of the government mandated by the Constitution to pay for things, rarely steps up and taxes those most able to pay and has soured most people on the notion of evenhanded taxation. Even the Robber Barons of the last century believed in giving back. Remember, we have Andrew Carnegie to thank for 1,681 public libraries in the U.S. and 2,509 worldwide. Not today, when what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine too, sucker.
Given current reality, the 2026 and 2028 elections should be the easiest for Democrats to win in a very long time. Remember the outrage when Hillary Clinton was accused of stealing an ottoman and a lamp from the White House on her way out the door? Where did that go?
It’s time for new leadership in the New Hampshire and national Democratic party. It’s time for new candidates and ideas. I remember the idealism of my generation in the 1970s before the big sell-out after the summer of love went bust. I didn’t understand that idealism wouldn’t translate into triumph over greed or corruption for long. Humans are nothing if not human and there is a reason nearly every society identifies deadly sins.
Nearly 60 years later, battle tested and scarred from disappointment by nearly everyone, I often think of a quote from “The Dark Knight” when Alfred asked Bruce Wayne as his house was burning up around him: “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.” Here we go again.
Nancy Needham is an antiquarian bookseller, a college English professor and an ordained minister of natural healing. She lives in Hopkinton.