Tea Party Activist Takes Over New Hampshire G.O.P.

[pampango]

Source: New York Times

A fight to lead the New Hampshire Republican Party through next year’s presidential race ended Saturday with an upset victory by a conservative candidate backed by members of the Tea Party and other grass-roots groups. The candidate, Jack Kimball, a relative newcomer to party politics who ran for governor last year as a fiscal and social conservative, beat Juliana Bergeron, who leads the Cheshire County Republicans and was supported by former Gov. John H. Sununu, the outgoing party chairman.

The race was watched as a sign of how much influence Tea Party groups will exert here in the lead-up to New Hampshire’s presidential primary, the first in the nation, tentatively scheduled for Feb. 14, 2012. Mr. Kimball wasted no time in saying, minutes after his election, that he wanted the state’s Republican primary voters to choose a “good, strong conservative” candidate.

Andrew Hemingway, chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, said Mr. Kimball’s win was evidence that the Tea Party and similar groups were pushing the state’s Republican Party to the right. Mr. Hemingway’s group helped a large number of conservatives, including many with Tea Party support, win election to the state legislature in the fall.

In the straw poll, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who has not curried Tea Party support, won with 36 percent of the vote, followed by Representative Ron Paul of Texas with 11 percent. Mr. Pawlenty was next with his 8 percent, and Sarah Palin received 7 percent. More than a dozen other potential candidates won smaller percentages.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/us/politics/23hampshire.html?_r=1

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Nice to see the teabaggers continue to stir the repub pot and pull their party further to the right.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. The fun will begin when they cut the state budget and raise everyone's property taxes.

I predict this legislature will be out on its butt in two years.

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. Romney is a favorite son.

Owning a lakefront mansion on Winnipesaukee sure helps.

And with that crackpot in the state house wanting to arm legislators, the Granite State reverting to the old days.

[Vinca]

3. This is an interesting coincidence.

I live in a small town in Cheshire County, NH, and last week I made my yearly visit to the town offices to register our cars. On my previous visit there was a display of local art work on the walls. Last week, however, there was a new, nicely framed print of Thomas Paine's "Liberty Tree" poem. It sent a chill up my spine.

[jerseyjack]

4. Did they at least

spell the words right?

[WhiteTara]

8. only if they pasted the text

:hi: welcome to DU

[zbdent]

5. Tea party candidate wins ... it's an "upset victory"???

What, with the "liberally biased media" cheering them on (for ratings purposes and all the $$$ pumped in)??? An "upset victory"???

Harry Reid keeping his seat in Nevada was an "upset victory" ... Hillary Clinton being defeated for the 2008 Democratic party nomination was, for the "liberally biased media", an "upset victory"!

[Gore1FL]

6. Upset vicory = underdog won

I don't think there is political motivation assigned to that term.

[sofa king]

7. Sweet. Rack it as 2 pickups in the House in 2012..