National security, unity at front of Republican congressional primary

Seven Republicans are competing in the primary for a chance to run against Democrat Congresswoman Annie Kuster. The candidates include one man who attempted to walk across the breadth of the state to spread awareness of his campaign, a Chinese immigrant-turned U.S. citizen, the current mayor of Keene, and the owner of a pharmaceutical quality control and safety company with a long career in Republican politics.

One of the top issues for congressional candidates was security, especially the U.S. southern border and America's relations with China. For freshman candidate Lily Tang Williams of Weare, the eastern giant is an insidious threat not to be taken lightly. Williams used her status as a graduate student to flee China in 1988.

“I grew up during Mao's cultural revolution,” Williams said. “When I finally gave up on my native country to the CCP's dictatorship, I realized there was no future, no personal freedom for me. I decided to leave for the U.S. to get a graduate degree. Coming here for graduate school was the only way to get out of China at that time legally.”

Williams met her husband at the University of Texas-Austin, who helped her improve her English as she studied for her master's degree in administration and planning. Before coming to America, Williams described herself as not very political.

However, over the past few decades, Williams said she is seeing parallels between certain recent shifts in American culture and what she experienced as a child during China's cultural revolution. Williams spent years touring and giving talks of her experience through schools and conservative media outlets before deciding to make her current bid for office.

“The last two years kind of scared me,” Williams said. “I see lots of similarities and more and more intensified rise of authoritarianism where you have people who think they are very elitist. They think they have these emergency powers during the pandemic. They can just shut us down, make us stay home and endless mandates, and cancel culture is just out of control.”

Williams cited her experiences of identity politics during the revolution, where “people were categorized under oppressor versus oppressed,” in an effort to divide people, particularly land owners or other wealthy families.

“Those people were classified as 'black families',” Williams recalled. “Some went to labor camps, and some were publicly executed. That's how my childhood started.”

Bob Burns of Pembroke expressed concern of the United States' entangled and dependent relationship with China.

“It's really national security issues that got me into this race,” Burns said. “Most Americans like to buy the cheapest product, but at the same time the cheapest product comes with national health and security issues.”

Burns cited the U.S.'s specific reliance on Chinese manufacturers for prescription drugs and other essential products as a cause for concern. According to Burns, who runs his own pharmaceutical business, if China were to cut off the U.S., there would be “mass death” in the U.S.

“We need to promote those industries in South America. We should send manufacturing there instead of China,” Burns said. “We need to reward our allies, and allies in the backyard. I want a strong Canada and Mexico. We need to work with Mexico and have friendly relations with them to nip illegal immigration in the bud.”

Burns, who is the child of an immigrant, expressed support for the border wall, and called the current immigration system broken.

“Coming here the right way and legal way is the best way,” Burns said, criticizing efforts to bus migrants to major cities like New York and D.C. as “giving the wrong message” to prospective immigrants from South America.

As a Latino, Burns offered an interesting take on some of the driving factors for illegal immigration from what he calls racist countries.

“The problem in South America is colonization,” Burns asserted, stating that many undocumented immigrants in the state are native-blooded people of countries like Honduras or Mexico. “Most people are being pushed out of their home countries by white colonizers,” Burns said, referring to lighter skinned South Americans, and the history in the region's caste system where people have, and in some cases still are, sorted by the shade of their skin.

“Those are the people who are being sent here, mistreated in their own countries,” Burns explained. “That's the thing people don’t get about this. They are being driven out of their native homelands.”

On a more local level, Burns spoke of the state's opioid crisis, leveling criticism at the relationship between government funding and the privatization of rehab centers and prisons.

“No one should be making hundreds of millions off the pain, suffering and death of others,” Burns said of private, high-profit recovery centers and prisons. “I love the free market but you can't have it with prisons and drug rehab. My proposal is we wouldn't give money to rehab centers that are just profiting. No federal money. Cut that off. If someone wants to come up with true nonprofits where there is no CEO making hundreds of millions, and low recidivism, we would reward those companies. I don't think that’s controversial.”

George Hansel, the current mayor of Keene, had a more localized platform that emphasized “kitchen table issues,” namely inflation and fuel prices.

“Rep. Kuster has not been fulfilling her responsibility to her constituents,” Hansel said, citing her record of voting with the Biden administration “100% of the time.”

“We're in a very vulnerable position to be passed over by these outside interests and the very progressive agenda that is too expensive, not based on finding solutions and has nothing to do with you and me in New Hampshire,” Hansel asserted. “We punch above our weight in different areas; we need a representative who's going to go down there and share the rest of our ideas in this country.”

Hansel expressed a desire for increased energy independence, and wide criticism of Democratic energy policies adopted since the Biden administration.

“I'd like to look at our strategic reserves and oil and gas production here in the U.S.” Hansel said. “We should move towards actual energy independence and not try to manipulate the markets. I think that's what the Biden administration has tried to do.”

Hansel cited the Biden administration's canceling of the Keystone XL pipeline construction as an example of market manipulation that ultimately backfired both on the administration and the country.

“The market responded by not investing in oil and gas production,” Hansel said. “It makes us more reliant on foreign entities that don't have our best interests in mind.”

In addition to his role as mayor of Keene, Hansel is a fifth-generation executive of the Filtrine Manufacturing Company based in the city.

“In general, I'd love to make a more business-friendly environment that promotes people working and growing their businesses and entrepreneurship and innovation and all the things that have made this country prosperous over the last 200 years,” Hansel said. “That means tax reform, reducing spending at the federal level and reducing regulations that are very burdensome to small-business owners and people in New Hampshire who are running businesses.”

If Hansel was to win the congressional seat, he would leave his position as mayor of Keene, but for him, moving up the political ladder is a necessity to serve his city.

“I see this as a responsibility. I love my city, I love being mayor, but looking down the horizon, seeing Washington move down one direction that is not taking into account our needs in New Hampshire, and I see our quality of life and economic prospects being eroded,” Hansel said. “I can't sit back and let that happen.”

Stepping from outside the norm is candidate Michael Callis, a stonemason based out of Conway. Callis has run for Congress five times, and wears it as a badge of honor.

“It shows resolve,” Callis said of his multiple runs. “I walk the walk. I want to resolve problems, I want unity. That’s what Ben Franklin was about. They put it on the money in 1776.”

For Callis, the current division among the Republican Party is the same as the country as a whole. Despite running as a Republican, one of Callis' key platforms is to “lock Donald Trump up” and place him under house arrest in Mar-a-Lago for his possession of classified documents taken from the White House.

“The first step really is to call Trump and this security breach out,” Callis said. “The next would be to vote for me in the Republican primary.”

Callis criticized the cult-like following of Trump, and groups like We the People New Hampshire, also known as The Resolve, an activist group claiming nonpartisanship while espousing MAGA politics, election denial and right-wing Christian nationalism content on its website.

“They've got a very inflammatory photograph of the Old Man of the Mountain in flames. In front of it it shows a rhino with Chuck Morse's head on it,” Callis said, referring to Resolve's website and symbolism. “Not only that, but when they say 'look to heaven' in that flag, that was a statement by John Locke, and that statement was used to justify shedding blood.”

Callis sees the current climate of political extremism as not representative of what most Republicans and most Americans want.

“I'd like to attract level-headed people to the Republican Party because that’s all it takes to change it,” Callis said. “Right now it’s been overtaken by the Free Staters. It can be overtaken by moderates. My goal is to get people into the Republican Party and get them in to save the party of Lincoln and Roosevelt."

According to Callis, American disunity and extremism is causing the country to suffer from a security and international perspective.

“We're pretty much in a time of war right now,” Callis said, referencing the U.S., NATO and the current conflict in Ukraine. “It's critical for us to be unified, and it's critical for [Russia and China] for us to be not unified.”

As for the cause of such hyper-partisanship and disunity, Callis blames money and the media.

“It's coming from people who are making money,” Callis said. “Rachel Maddow, she's making a lot of money. She's friends with Tucker Carlson. They got their start together. They're playing both sides, inciting people. That's how they get the eyes. People need to really understand this.”

When asked about running as a “lock up Trump” Republican and the criticism Callis has received, he stated, “They've gone after Pence, they've gone after Romney, they've gone after McCain, if they want to go after me, I'm in good company.”

Candidates Scott Black of Whitefield, Dean Poirier of Concord, and Jay Mercer of Nashua could not be reached for this story.

Black's website touted a commitment to bring Northern New Hampshire values to Washington, as well as his extensive experience in the hospitality industry.

In a Ballotpedia survey, Poirier emphasized avoiding big money and unknown donors, instead relying on his disability money and local donations. Poirier also wrote that he would send 50% of his congressional pay back to the state, with 25% going to pantry and kitchen programs and the other half going to loan and business grant programs throughout the state.

Poirier also highlighted election security, writing that elections need to be kept at the state level to avoid “the full corruption of our voting system that the Democrats want to put in place.”

Mercer did not fill out surveys from Ballotpedia or Citizens Count, and does not appear to have an active campaign website.

The state primary is Sept. 13 and the general election is Nov. 8.