09/01/2002 Archived Entry: "NH Gov should be surprising"

The Price of Politics is a short piece on the costs of the recent campaigns in New Hampshire. The amount of money being spent is obscene. Hundreds of thousand's of dollars being wasted on ineffectual campaign tactics. The simplist, most effective way for a candidate to win in this situation would be to buy an army of "volunteers" on election day. With the sums that are being thrown about --13M amidst three GOP candidates-- a mere half a million, $500,000 spent on giving $100 to 5,000 people who each agree to be responsible for getting 10 people to the polls to vote for their candidate would bring in 50,000 votes. Sure, this sounds like the candidate is buying votes, and it's true. But as Clift says, the pool of voters in tiny New Hampshire is not large enough to justify such mammoth expenditures, and a voter has it right: “We should just put our hands out,” says the owner of a bed-and-breakfast in the town of Wilton.

In the latest poll, Craig Benson is still ahead, but just barely ahead of Gordon Humphrey (who has come back from a large deficit) in the mid-30%'s; and Bruce Keough is creeping up in the numbers-- around 20% now. Amidst this GOP spending spree, there's not much the Democratic candidates can do to get noticed. Most polling shows the highly-publicized Benson ahead of either Democrat. However, the negative fallout for this massive expenditure is going to be upon Benson, and voters shun him for someone more experienced with Gov't. I wouldn't write this one off as a takeover for the GOP right now, nor would I assume Benson is going to win easily.

In an ARG poll just released, Fernald Leads Hollingworth by 14 percent, 44-33 with 20 percent undecided. Among likely Democratic primary voters registered as Democrats (85% of the sample), Fernald leads Hollingworth 50% to 35%.

Replies: 5 comments

Good call, mydd. It looks like Fernald will be the Democratic nominee, but the Republican nomination could go to any of the three. GOTV would be key. If I run when I'm older, I'll organize a GOTV army of volunteers well before the election. These people would not have to work at all, until GOTV time begins. Giving each a salary of, say, 50$ would encourage many to help.

Posted by Mr. Liberal @ 09/01/2002 09:53 AM PST

Great idea for small states, but for larger states (California!) that amount of GOTV wouldn't create a blip at the polls and money would still be better spent on TV.

Posted by RParker @ 09/01/2002 03:59 PM PST

Concord Monitor Polls on NH Primary for Governor:

Republicans
Benson-33
Humphrey-31
Keogh-21

Democrats
Hollingworth-38
Fernald-34

Okay, I take back my statement on the Democrats. That race is too close to call too. An average of the two polls gives Fernald a 41-36 lead, but I could go either way.

Posted by Mr. Liberal @ 09/01/2002 06:12 PM PST

I think Democrats have to hope that both Gordon Humphrey and Sen. Robert Smith emerge victorius in their primaries next Tuesday. Both are extreme conservatives and both would be defeated on Nov. 5th by their Democrat counterparts.

I predict a Fernald vs Humphrey race. I also predict a Smith vs Shaheen race. I reached th conclusion based on turnout. I think conservative voters will turn out massively to support Smith and Humphrey.

Posted by Ced @ 09/03/2002 07:55 AM PST

I would agree with you, Ced, on the primary predictions. Also, there are two moderate Republicans in the Gubenatorial primary-Benson and Bruce Keogh-they will probably split the moderate vote

Posted by Mr. Liberal @ 09/03/2002 08:08 AM PST