GOP Post-Mortem

It may have been "a perfect storm," as Jeb Bradley dubbed the Democratic triumph at the polls that swept him and many other Republicans from office, but the good ship GOP was leaking and listing well before the weather turned foul. Nowhere did the tempest that buffeted Republicans across the country wreck greater havoc than in New Hampshire where it toppled the virtual monopoly of political power the GOP had enjoyed since the Civil War.

Not so long ago New Hampshire annually vied for the honor of most Republican state in the nation. Jeanne Shaheen was just the fifth Democratic governor of the 20th century. Republicans have dominated the congressional delegation for the past 25 years, holding both Senate seats and, apart from two terms, both House seats as well. With exception of two years, Republicans held all five seats of the Executive Council from 1985 until 2005. When Democrats won 13 of the 24 seats in the Senate in 1998, it was the first majority the party enjoyed since the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. And Democrats last outnumbered Republicans in the House of Representatives in 1874.

On Tuesday, Democrats ousted two incumbent congressmen and re-elected John Lynch governor by the widest margin ever recorded. Democrats captured three of five seats on the Executive Council and while Ray Burton survived to serve his fifteenth consecutive term in District 1, he lost an unprecedented 42-percent of the vote to a virtually unknown Democrat, who ran without support from his party. Democrats won control of both houses of the Legislature, increasing their numbers in the Senate from eight to 14 and in the House from 149 to 237.

"Thank God, a United States Senate seat wasn't on the ballot," one Republican breathed.

In New Hampshire as elsewhere disillusion with the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress arising from the conduct of the intervention in Iraq, mishandling of the federal budget and revelations of widespread corruption contributed to the Republican defeat. Without discounting these factors, Republicans, conservative and moderate alike, agree that forces close to home turned defeat into disaster, though they disagree sharply about how their party reached this impasse and how to escape from it. This dissension itself represents a major source of the malaise that afflicts the party.

Moderates,believe the GOP has drifted too far to the right, especially on so-called "social" and "cultural" issues, losing the support of centrist voters. Representative Alida Millham of Gilford, an unabashed moderate, points out that conservative Republican candidates have lost five of the last six gubernatorial elections (Ovide Lamontagne, Jay Lucas, Gordon Humphrey, Craig Benson and Jim Coburn) and Benson won the sixth against a Democrat touting an income tax only to become one of the rare governors to be denied a second term.

"The party should move to the center," Millham said. "That's where the people are and that's where I am."

Several Republican insiders agreed that had the GOP nominated Bill Zeliff in place of Lamontagne in the 1996 primary, the corner office might not have been lost to Jeanne Shaheen, who ran off three straight victories by comfortable margins and contributed to the first Democratic majority in the Senate since 1911. Likewise, they suggest that had Benson not edged Bruce Keough in the 2002 primary, the door would not have opened for Lynch.

Conservatives, insist that the GOP has failed to rally its conservative base. By pledging to veto a sales or income tax, both Shaheen and Lynch successfully appropriated the credo of the GOP, leaving the party bereft of a compelling message. Charlie Arlinghaus, a former executive director of the Republican State Committee, said the party lacked "brand identity." Ed Mosca, former chairman of the Manchester Republican Committee, said that the party has yet to frame an alternative and cannot expect the Democrats to surrender the tax issue by championing a broad-based tax.

Representative Fran Wendelboe of New Hampton, among the leaders of the House Republican Alliance which preaches strict adherence to the GOP platform, rejected suggestions that the party should move to the center, insisting that "a correction to the right will be more effective." She noted that conservative organizations like the pro-life, family values, gun owners and anti-tax coalitions, which have traditionally provided shock troops for Republican campaigns, were "absent" on Tuesday. While she doubts the Democrats will remain united in opposition to broad-based taxes, she believes Republicans can craft a compelling message from the positions on the "social" and "cultural" issues like school choice, abortion, same sex marriage and family values contained in the GOP platform.

Since many of the issues that divide Republicans turn on moral questions that brook no compromise, whichever direction the party takes, it risks alienating a significant share of its voters. While moderates join the ranks of the "undeclareds," or even become Democrats when the GOP moves to the right, conservatives grow disenchanted when it drifts toward the center. Moreover, the longer the Democrats nullify the tax issue, the longer the GOP wrestles with its message and the more it aggravates the rifts in its ranks.

Meanwhile, beset by a series of adverse events the Republican organization withered and its resources dwindled. Five years after the event, the GOP has spent some $2.5-million defending itself in litigation over the telephone jamming scheme in the 2002 election while donors have withheld contributions for fear their money will enrich lawyers not support candidates. Warren Henderson resigned as chairman of the state committee, touching off a three-way contest for the succession. Feuding among Republican senators led to the ouster of Senate President Tom Eaton of Keene by Ted Gatsas of Manchester, sowing dissension in the majority ranks. Republican Speaker of the House Gene Chandler of Bartlett resigned amid a scandal over his fund-raising efforts. "A long series of events led the party to disaster," said one Republican activist.

To top things off, the GOP could not recruit a credible candidate to challenge Lynch and was left with Jim Coburn, a freshman representative who quickly became more of a liability than an asset on the ticket. His running mates were reluctant to appear with him and only half-heartedly endorsed him, and then only when pressed. Eaton, who was trounced in his re-election bid, said that he would not discourage anyone from voting for Coburn while Robert Flanders of Antrim, who lost his seat in District 7, touted his relationship with Lynch.

Laconia conservative pundit Niel Young observed on election day, no one held a sign for Coburn at any of the six polling stations in Laconia.

Despite abundant signs that the GOP would face a stiff challenge in the mid-term election, the party did little to shore up its ramshackle organization. Wendelboe said that the party was not "engaged."

Fergus Cullen, who worked on Jim Fitzgerald's failed bid for the state Senate in District 4, said that the Democrats deployed ten salaried campaign workers to every one Republicans could afford. Although Fitzgerald had professional staff, Carl Johnson, who lost his bid for a seventh term in District 2, did not. Peter Spaulding, who lost the seat on the Executive Council he had held for 11 terms, said "I got more support from the governor with my sign on his lawn than I did from the Republican state party."

Likewise, Democrats outspent their Republican rivals in state races by a wide margin. Although the final financial reports have yet to be filed, days before the vote, Democrats had invested more than $800,000 while Republicans put up less than $250,000. In the Senate races in the Lakes Region, a traditional Republican stronghold, Kathy Sgambati outspent Fitzgerald and Deb Reynolds outspent Johnson by margins of nearly three-to-one, excluding the independent expenditures made in support of the candidates by the state committee. While Sgambati listed some 500 contributors, Fitzgerald reported barely 100, most of which were political action committees.

Finally, for all the party's troubles, Republicans, resting on more than a century of unbroken dominance, appeared understandably complacent about their fortunes. Congressman Charlie Bass, ousted by Paul Hodes after six terms in the Second District, acknowledged that he kicked his campaign into high gear only after polls began to indicate the race was tightening. In his race for the state Senate Fitzgerald, the popular and successful former Laconia High School football coach, littered the district with signs, but made few public appearances and steadfastly refused to debate his opponent, apparently confident that a district that had returned Republicans for generations would do so again.

Then, on the eve of the election, arrogance was added to complacency when the Belknap County Convention, faced with filling a vacancy on the county commission, announced that no Democrats need apply and pursued the selection process behind closed doors. The party held a 17-1 majority of the convention, but that has now shrunk a little to 14-4 because of the election of three Democratic women from Laconia.

Judie Reever, her daughter Beth Arsenalult and Jane Wood were all elected without spending a single nickle on their respective campaigns.

The GOP suffered and succumbed to many of the ills that afflict the majority party in a one-party state. One election, no matter how lopsided the outcome, may not ensure the emergence of competitive two-party democracy in New Hampshire, but if it does both parties will be healthier for it.