With the growing concerns about the need for change and the approaching election, last Sunday afternoon my wife and I volunteered to go door to door for our local Democratic Party in a “get out the vote” effort. We do not want to wake up in two weeks on November 7 with the painful feeling we had in 2016 on the morning after the election. We have accepted the reality that there is no super highway to an improved political climate in our country. I believe that if we want a sustainable civility, attention to the needs of the underserved, universal healthcare, a healthy planet, a growing middle class, and social justice, the effort must begin at home. Our current state senator is a woman who has a long record of voting against the progressive positions that we care about. Her conservative views on public education, gun control, and healthcare are a concern to us. The fact that our state legislature is controlled by a party that has demonstrated a limited ability to help the underserved or improve the health of our state is also a concern to us. We would love to pay more taxes for a better New Hampshire for all of her citizens. We know from participating in the complex network of charitable organizations that are trying to make a difference in the “live free or die state” that there must be a better way than “compassionate conservatism.” We believe in the important role of charities, but we also believe that there should be a better foundation of collective efforts through better public policy.
New Hampshire is a small state with a House of Representatives that has 400 members (one of the smallest states with the biggest house) and a state senate with 24 seats. All of our legislators make $100 a year plus expenses. At an average age of 66, the New Hampshire legislature is the oldest legislative body in the nation, a distinction that does not augur well for a state that needs to hang on to its youngest citizens. You need “a real job” or economic independence from a trust fund to be a member of the New Hampshire legislature.
We have two members of the House from our district. One is a progressive Democrat and the other is a local businessman who is a moderate Republican. He is a nice guy, a townie, but his seat adds to a controlling majority that is not doing its job. My candidate is a new guy in town. The incumbent house member and our current state senator are barriers to progress just by contributing to the majority control of a party that fails people in need. The Republican Party controls our state legislature and has been involved on a small scale with attempts to limit voters’ rights with a recent law that the New Hampshire Supreme Court has left in place. Every seat counts in the effort to gain control of the legislature, so we are hoping to replace our otherwise very affable Republican representative with a Democrat. It is an uphill climb and a difficult concept to explain, but the Republicans have long understood the importance of controlling local government as the foundation of control of the federal government.
We have a great young woman as a candidate for our Senate seat. She was on Medicaid, public assistance, and food stamps as a child. Jenn Alford-Teaster draws wisdom and insight from her previous dependency on an inadequate social safety net. She knows the pain of going to bed hungry and knows the value of solid public education and public support for students in college as a way out of poverty. She brings an informative personal experience to her work on the issues of poverty and healthcare at Dartmouth. It is a joy to try to help someone like Jenn get elected because she brings talent, commitment, and personal experience to the issues that are of concern to our collective future. She is willing to reduce her job to part time in order to serve in the state senate. She is a perfect example of the fact that a childhood in poverty does not necessarily mean a lack of intelligence or ability. She knows that America will remain a land of opportunity only if we “pay it forward” by supporting programs that can lift people out of poverty.
We feel that working for a Democratic majority in our state legislature and making an effort to elect a Democratic governor are essential steps to improving healthcare and the other issues that we care about close to home. Fortunately, we had the positive reinforcement of seeing our small efforts join with others in our little town in 2016 to help send an excellent senator to Washington, Maggie Hassan, to join our other Democratic senator, Jeanne Shaheen. It is hard to imagine a healthy state or a healthy country without working to make your own community a better place to live. New Hampshire was slow to embrace the ACA because of its conservative history and the domination of its legislature by Republicans. The future of healthcare in New Hampshire is as dependent on the Democratic control of its legislature as it is on what happens in Washington. As the continuing difficult experience of the ACA in many states with Republican controlled state government has demonstrated, an unreceptive legislature can resist what comes from Washington and undermine the desired outcomes with resistance to implementation, conflicting local regulations, and legal challenges. On the positive side, a legislature that cared about universal coverage could theoretically insure better care for New Hampshire’s citizens, no matter what happens in Washington. Since we care about the future of our community, state, and nation, it feels important for us to be involved.
It’s just a short mile from our home on Little Lake Sunapee to the home where all of the campaign workers were gathering on Sunday afternoon for their assignments. When we arrived at the meeting we were surprised to learn that Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley was coming by to encourage us before we set out on our mission. I was quite excited. I have followed Merkley’s career with interest. I have a fondness for Oregon and have spent a lot of time there. One of our sons married a classmate form Reed College in Portland, and some of our best friends call Portland home. We visit Oregon as often as possible. I was excited by the opportunity to meet someone who I had heard was “the real deal.”
Senator Merkley did not keep us waiting. He arrived on time and with no pomp or posse. He was not what I was expecting based on the typical member of Congress, either from the House or Senate, that I have met on my trips to Washington. He is a tall, quiet man who exudes trustworthiness, integrity, and intelligence. He looks like a man who has spent a lot of time outdoors. I read later that he has completed a couple of “Ironman” Triathlons since going to the Senate in 2009. Perhaps that is why he had the stamina to speak for 15 hours straight against the elevation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court after Merrick Garland never got a hearing.
Senator Merkley was dressed in boots, jeans, and a barn jacket. He wore a green baseball cap that said “Make Earth Cool Again” on the front and Stonyfield Yogurt on the back. I have already ordered my own, but the hat let me know that he was serious about the environment before he said a word. You might remember that it was Jeff Merkley who went to the border in Texas with his iPhone and posted on YouTube what he saw despite the administration’s attempts to exclude him from the detention facility while ignoring the fact that he is a United States Senator.
Obviously, I am attracted to Senator Merkley because no one worked harder in the Senate for the passage of the ACA, and no one has worked harder to defend it in the Trump era. You may not know that he added lines to the ACA to protect nursing mothers at work or know that he has been a stalwart in the fight for LGBTQ rights while in the Oregon legislature, or in the US Senate. Merkley was the only senator to support Bernie Sanders.
Merkley’s personal story is antithetical to Trump’s. He was the first member of his blue collar family to go to college. After getting his bachelor’s degree at Stanford, he earned a Masters Degree in Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. He worked in Washington for a while before coming home to Oregon where he directed the efforts of Habitat for Humanity in Portland before running for the legislature. His resume demonstrates a lifetime of working to build a better community, a better state, and a better nation.
The future of America is dependent upon the Democrats effectively organizing behind an articulate candidate who can challenge this administration sooner rather than later. I was eager to see if he was an effective communicator. He had seemed a little shy, although affable while meeting the campaign workers before he spoke. Then he stepped in front of the fireplace between a couch and a few chairs in the crowded living room of the house where we were meeting and began to speak in a conversational tone. He used concise sentences to succinctly state in less than ten minutes a positive position on every one of the key issues of our day.
He left no doubts about the fact that healthcare is an entitlement of every American. I was convinced that he believed in universal healthcare as a founding principle of social justice. I was also convinced that he was willing to lead the work, and to work as hard as anyone, to make that belief a reality for all of us. He told us of his experience in state government and emphasized how important it was to do everything we could could get people to the polls. If it had been a locker room pep talk we would have charged out the door eager for the big game. He had told us why what we were doing was important in a way that convinced us that victory was a possibility. Our cause was on the right side of the future because it was about social justice, better communities, a healthier planet, and a better world for everyone.
The picture that is today’s header shows Senator Merkley with me and another campaign worker who was just as delighted as I was with what he had to say. My wife and I were energized, and headed out with our assignment for three hours of knocking on doors. We will be back knocking on doors this weekend.
The awful events of this last week are yet another reminder of how far our nation has drifted from where we need to be. After Newtown, Orlando, Charleston, Las Vegas, Parkland, the little country church in Texas and ….the list goes on and on… need I say more? The Tree of Life Synagogue tragedy reminds me of the key lines of Pete Seeger’s anthem “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” The words rattle around in my head:
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
We don’t have many ways to respond, other than to vote for what we believe. We must be patient with our neighbors as we continuously try to lead them toward a positive view of what is the best defense against what they say they fear. I believe in the importance of leadership. We need to counter the negative leadership style of President Trump, the voice of fear. Jeff Merkley certainly deserves consideration for the role as our next leader in the long march toward what America should be about. For the moment we are working hard to get Democrats elected in New Hampshire.
