Howdy do, sweets. It’s the middle o’ September and the weather is still warm and humid, bordering on hot. But as yew know around these parts that could change on a dime, and usually does. This missive is bein’ writ before the voting starts for the Sept. 14 primary, and you should know the winner by the time this gits to you.
Headin’ into Primary Day things were perty much the same as they were before the hours were ticking down. As I said to yew last week, this has been one o’ the quietest primaries for the Demmies one has seen in a long time. Usually, things are popping, people are angry with each other, and accusations are tossed to and fro. Not this time.
The weather always plays a part in these things. Politicos will tell yew that sunny weather will help the incumbent, whilst stormy weather (don’t git into your Lena Horne routine) brings out the vote for the challenger – people will come out to vote a person out, goes the bromide.
No one was makin’ any predications about this goin’ into the final hours cuz the turnout is what’s gonna be the tell. Effen the turnout is way low, John Lewis will have a better chance of beating Nancy Rossi. However, effen the turnout is average or a bit above, Rossi was thought to have the upper hand.
That was the thought going in, and, of course, as I said, we’re scribing this before anything is known. You, on t’other hand will have a handle on whether those prognostications were on the money.
Last week, the papyrus had both candidates answer the same questions and the Wag was in t’other afternoon and made an interesting observation. He thought Lewis, who was making taxes a plank in his primary campaign, missed an opportunity to expand on his answer about taxes.
Says the Wag, it’s easy to say taxes are too high, but the real kill shot would have been effen he had an alternative to the tax increases/spending as mandated by the MARB (Municipal Accountability Review Board). Effen he said the city could have done something other than raise the taxes the way the MARB insisted, he would have made a solid pernt. Instead, it was just a generic “taxes are too high” mantra, when everyone knows MARB wouldn’t approve the budgets effen they didn’t have tax increases.
Meanwhile, sitting in the wings are the Republican candidate and Ed O’Brien who is running as an independent this go-round.
O’Brien, like to told yew last week, was watching this whole thing unfold very carefully, and now knows a couple of very important things: who his opponents are gonna be; what they are using as planks of their campaigns; how he can craft his campaign to be different; and what voter demographic he has to tailor his campaign for and to. That last one is a big one.
Effen Lewis takes the primary, O’Brien has to appeal to something other than the voters both he and Lewis are reaching. They could be fishing outta the same pond, as I said before. That means both would hafta expand their appeal to other voters.
Effen Lewis lost, O’Brien probably has many of those voters, but not all. The fack he didn’t stay in the party will irk some. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
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Barry Cohen, the GOP standard-bearer, is prepping for his own town hall at the high school auditorium on Sept. 22. That’s a perty good offensive move on his campaign’s part. Effen anyone wants to know what his campaign is hoping to do effen it wins, this is a good opportunity. It gives people a bit of a venue to vent effen that is their pleasure, and gives the slate the ability to meet and greet with the average voters.
It’ll be very interesting to see what the turnout is for this lit’le event. Effen he gets a sizable throng warming the seats of the auditorium it might be a gauge as to how discontented the populace might be under the current regime. Effen it’s a light turnout, it could be interpreted by the political class that people are perty satisfied, despite the grousing about taxes.
Effen he live-streams the town hall, he would have an event bigger opportunity to reach voters who might not be happy with the present crop of rulers. One way or t’other it should be a fun campaign.
One thing the party has to do is go outside its base. There are only about 3700 registered Republicans, and that number has stayed consistent for about three decades.
In the old days, when the GOP used to win elections, the platform was attractive to Independents and disaffected Demmies. That’s what’s gotta happen this time ‘round. Also, the party has got to pull together and not stay segmented. It only works for the Demmies cuz they have about 3.5-times as many on the rolls. Like I said, this “election cycle” as they like to call it nowadays is gonna be a hoot – at least for observers like yew and me.
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Weather, as yew know has been on the wet side around these parts. We’ve had more rain in the last couple o’ weeks than the ground can handle. Frum whot we understand thing go soooo bad the gym floor at the new high school got an unscheduled bath, and is unusable for a time. Events had to be moved, and an insurance claim’ll be made to repair the damange.
Now, in all the years Cobina can remember, the old gym was never flooded – but it was the feds who told the city they had to build a new gym cuz the old one was too close the flood zone. The original plans had the old gym refurbished and used, but some pencil-pusher said no.
Now, one has to wonder effen we have storms like this on occasion effen this is gonna be a regular occurrence. Jest asking….
But gittin’ back to the weather, one of the casualties of the weather has been the Centennial Concert that was supposed to be a blowout event. That event has been postponed twice already, and is set to happen this weekend. From what Sammy Bluejay sez, all the persons of interest around here are keepin’ their fingers crossed that no storms venture their way up the coast and dump anymore rain and postpone anyore events.
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Speakin’ of events, Nelly Nuthatch reminded Cobina that this weekend finds the annual town-gown event, the WestFest is back on after a year’s absence for the usual reasons. This is an event that tries to git students from UNH to get to know where they are living over the next little while – besides going through the “Campbell Avenue Crawl.” It’s also good PR for the university, letting potential students know about the college. It’s a win-win.
Then at the end o’ the month is the Apple Festival, sponsored by the Congregational Church on the Green. That’s usually a nice way to begin the fall, and brings out hundreds o’ people over the weekend. Sooooo, there’s still some things to do before the coats and hats come outta moth balls.
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I know these are state roads, but Cobina has been traveling in her gassamobuggy, and there’s two very dangerous areas that the state better look at before something serious happens. The intersection of Sawmill and Meloy Road is very busy around late rush hour, and the lines o’ cars tryin’ to git onto the highway block off traffic trying to turn left onto the thoroughfare. It gits to the pernt people run the red light to try to git moving.
Then there’s Wagner Place and Main Street/Kelsey Avenue. The same thing happens in the early rush hour with people trying to get onto Wagner Place. The lights ain’t synced and it gets very congested. Something bad is going to happen
But, knowing the state, it won’t be fixed until something does, in fact, happen.
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With that bit o’ chatter, I’ll close this time till next, mitt luff und kizzez,