Editorial: New Hampshire: Lighting the way back to the center

In a Washington paralyzed by extremes, New Hampshire’s U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan have done something rare: they governed. In helping to break the December 2025 funding cliff — and preserving Affordable Care Act subsidies in the process — they showed what leadership looks like when the goal is to keep the country running, not score points on cable news.

Their actions remind us what New Hampshire once took for granted: that moderation is strength, not weakness. For decades, our governors and senators earned respect by solving problems, not by deepening divides. Shaheen and Hassan, both former governors, carried that tradition to Washington and used it to end a national stalemate — much as they worked together years ago to secure bipartisan support for opioid treatment funding at home.

It’s a model worth remembering. Our new governor, Kelly Ayotte, campaigned as a uniter. But unity isn’t built through slogans — it’s built through the steady, often thankless work of governing from the middle. If she hopes to stand in the tradition of her predecessors, she’ll have to show Granite Staters that bipartisanship is more than a talking point.

Those who call compromise weakness miss the real problem. America’s paralysis isn’t caused by too little conviction — it’s caused by too much absolutism. The loudest voices on both sides treat every negotiation as a loyalty test and every disagreement as a personal affront.

The extremes — from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), who helped scuttle the shutdown-ending deal over missing health care expansions, to Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who routinely tanks bipartisan bills with hardline spending demands — feed on confrontation. They pull both major parties toward the edges and leave little room for the rest of us who simply want a government that works.

Shaheen and Hassan know better. They understand that leadership means getting results, not headlines. As Shaheen put it: “Waiting another week or another month wouldn’t deliver a better outcome. It would only mean more harm for families in New Hampshire and across the country.”

That’s the voice of experience — steady, practical, and unmoved by the noise.

New Hampshire, small but fiercely independent, has long resisted the pull of extremes. “Live Free or Die” has never meant “think alike or else.” It’s a call to freedom with responsibility — to reason, independence, and community in equal measure.

Shaheen and Hassan have shown that the center is not a void, but a working place — where ideas meet action and progress gets made. If the rest of the nation is looking for a way back from the brink, the path is paved with this kind of Granite State common sense.