Democrats: Vote for a Republican, elect a Free Stater
As the 2014 campaign heats up, Democrats are highlighting the association between Republican candidates and the Free State Project, the controversial group attempting to persuade 20,000 libertarians to move to New Hampshire en masse.
A searing letter to the editor in today’s Hampton Union from the chairman of the Hampton Democratic Committee accused Free Staters of teaming up with former House Speaker Bill O'Brien and “trying to destroy our government.” A vote for a Republican state representative candidate, warned Dick Desrosiers, is a vote for Bill O’Brien and a Free Stater agenda.
State Senate candidate Lee Nyquist, who is challenging incumbent Andy Sanborn in District 9, recently sent out a mailer linking his opponent to the Free State Project and chairman Aaron Day. The piece highlighted votes by Sanborn that Nyquist claims would have weakened the state’s public schools.
Day, who also leads the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire and the Stark360 super PAC, has raised the political profile of the group with his outspoken support for Republican “pro-liberty” candidates.
And some Republicans, including former state party chair Fergus Cullen, have publicly acknowledged the toxicity of that Free Stater connection. “I just don’t think, in a competitive district, an informed electorate is going to elect someone running on a Free State platform,“ Cullen told the Concord Monitor.
Sanborn, the target of Nyquist’s mailer, is a New Hampshire native who describes himself as a ”liberty candidate.“ He was the New Hampshire co-chair for Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign and has been endorsed by the RLCNH and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance.
Nevertheless, the Bedford Republican’s pro-liberty credentials were called into question earlier this year when reports surfaced that he had threatened a constituent who sought his support for legalizing marijuana. Hilary Sargent had the story:
New Hampshire State Senator Andy Sanborn (R-Bedford) doesn’t want to legalize pot. And if you e-mail him suggesting he consider it, he just might threaten you.
Or that’s what happened to one constituent when he sent Sanborn a polite and thoughtful e-mail detailing the reasons the senator might consider supporting marijuana legalization. […]
Upon receiving the e-mail, the senator, who touts his beliefs in “personal freedom” and “personal liberty” in campaign videos, appeared to have figured out that the sender was a college freshman and the recent recipient of a scholarship.
Sanborn then lashed out, responding with a thinly veiled threat of what might happen were he to contact the organization that awarded the scholarship.