Letters to the Editor
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New Hampshire
As a former resident of the Granite State, I want to point out a few things that should have been mentioned in this article.
Jeanne Shaheen was a popular Democratic governor who chose to run for the US Senate in 2002. She almost won. She would have easily been reelected governor. NH does not fit into the Dem / Rep mold of the rest of the country.
NH has a strong tradition of military service AND distrust of the government. In our current situation, where the federal governent is misusing our military, and using the individual service personnel as dispensable commodities, it should be expected that the voters of NH would favor the other party.
This was a good and interesting article. But the thing about New Hampshire is that it is New Hampshire. If you haven't spent a lot of time there it is hard to understand it. They still really believe that government cannot be trusted, needs to be small and manageable (those 400 members of the legislature are part timers that are only paid a few hundred dollars a year), and watched closely. They also beleive that everyone has neighborly and civic obligations that cannot and should not be fulufilled by the government. The last bastion of what this country used to stand for. And the first place to expect the people to rebel against authoritarianism, regardless of which party it is coming from.
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Mistake?
Mr. Shapiro, you keep this up, you'll be drummed out of the Beltway Broder Club! Didn't you mean to write about how the Democrats are dead in the South and will never ever win another election? Wow -- the GOP dead in the Northeast. It's only taken -- how many years? -- for someone to notice.
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What makes NH the greatest state in the Union?
"Live Free or Die."
It's a great motto.
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NH is not so secular
As a native and current resident of New Hampshire I have to agree whole-heartedly with the way the previous poster characterized the state: this is a very independant voting population, wary of big government and distrustful of any paternalistic attitudes in government. I think that this election was certainly a strong statement and, from my stand-point, a wonderful victory, but no one should take this to mean that NH voters have changed in any fundemental way.
One last thing I wanted to address: Shapiro wonders how Republican candidates will justify their socially conservative stances with the secular voters in New Hampshire. While there certainly are secular voters in the state, this is not by-in-large a secular state. In fact, it's a strongly Catholic state, among other things. There are still many supporters of conservative values in the Granite state, and the fact that so many of them were upset enough with Washington to make a statement this time does not mean that they will be turned off by the Republican "values" wedge issues. Now is no time to get complacent about New Hampshire!
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Good motto
But I think it should be extended to "Live free and die while stuck in a traffic jam on two-lane I-95. Add another lane, dammit!
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Mass. played a roll too
Another point missing in this article is the fact that many thousands of Massachusetts residents have fled north to New Hampshire for cheaper housing. This has certainly played a role in the liberalization of at least southern NH.
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Republicans Were Repulsed by Their Own Party
Andy Smith says, "Perhaps the largest factor, though, is demographic change."
Sorry but I worked on the Carol Shea Porter candidacy and I know what people told me when talking to them. Many, many Republicans told me they would not vote for a Republican this round and that for the first time in their lives would vote a straight Democratic ticket. They were disgusted with their party; as well they should be. Our Republicans lost their way about 5-6 years ago with their hardball politics and their "it's our way or the highway" attitude. The party split and honest moderates came to support moderate Democrats. Also our large group of Libertarians shifted from Republican to Democrat. A few won in local races.
Andy Smith hasn't been correct with his polling in years and few people listen to what he has to say these days.
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Are there other types of Republicans?
Why is the word "Yankee" in the title? I'm certain the author is talking about Republicans in the U.S. but are there other types? British Republicans? Autralian Republicans?
Since "Republicans" exist in the U.S., one assumes thay are "yankees". Then again, what do I know, I don't live in New Hampshire (or the U.S.).
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about "yankee"
To Anonymous, who was puzzled about "Yankee Republicans":
To much of the world outside of the US, "Yankee" means any citizen of the US.
To people in much of the southern US, "Yankee" tends to mean anybody from the northern US.
To most other people in the US, "Yankee" means someone from "New England", which includes the northeast states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. (This is the context used in the article.)
If you hear someone in the US referring to "damn Yankees", it's either someone from "the South" referring to someone from "the North", or it's someone from New England referring to the New York Yankees baseball team.
Clear?
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All 1.2 million of you?
Who cares? I read recently in the WSJ that anarcho Libertarians are trying to do the same thing in NH as the psychochristians tried to do with South Carolina; e.g. flock to one state and institute their own little private government. So it looks like some people prefer NH specifically because NH doesn't represent much of anything at all. And so what? At 0.3% of the national population no one actually cares what you do. Better that Democrats should work to influence where the people are.
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Iowa Too
Much of the same story can also be written about Iowa. I think for the first time in the history of the state, the Democratic Party controls both houses of the legislature (and by respectable margins) and the governorship.
Now, I just pray that the Democrats know how to govern. (They haven't had this kind of opportunity before so it's really hard to know.) If they do and it becomes evident to Iowans that they do, then the state that used to be classified as "reliably Republican" might become "reliably Democratic."