From the Hippo Press

First time on the trail
Grant Bosse says he’d fix government
By Alec O'Meara aomeara@hippopress.com

After spending five years on Sen. John Sununu’s staff as a specialist in environmental and energy policy in Washington, Hillsboro native Grant Bosse has moved back to the state and recently announced his candidacy for New Hampshire’s Second District seat in Congress. The election will be held Nov. 4. Bosse was formerly a news anchor for WGIR and was press secretary for Craig Benson’s campaign for governor.

Q: Why do you want to run?
Congress is broken, and I’d like to help fix it. ... As a reporter here in Manchester and up in Lebanon, I worked with local boards ... and saw community members get involved .... At the state level, I worked for some remarkable men and women at the Statehouse who were serving their communities for $100 a year. And, at the federal level, I spent five years working with Senator Sununu, and I’ve seen a Republican Congress lose its way in the need for earmarks and back-room deals, and a Democratic congress take over and adopt all the same bad habits and invent some new ones. Just yesterday they passed an ethics bill in Congress and they had to break House rules to pass the ethics bill because the more stringent version that Republicans wanted had the votes to pass. In fact it had passed, and they would have banged the gavel and let it pass, but Nancy Pelosi didn’t like how the bill turned out so she held the vote open so she could change the results of that vote and get her own watered-down ethics bill through. If you have to change the rules to get the ethics bill passed, I think it’s time to change who we send to Washington.

Much was made in the 2006 elections about the shift in political ideology within the state. A lot of Republicans were voted out, a lot of Democrats voted in. Why do you feel that happened?
Well, 2006 was obviously a high-tide year for the Democrats. They did very well, and I congratulate them. I don’t think they’ve governed particularly well since, either at the federal level or at the state level. In 2006, we saw Republican voters and independents who normally vote for Republicans frustrated in the direction of the party, and a lot of them didn’t show up to vote. … but I don’t think the state has changed fundamentally. I’ve seen a lot of elections in this state and we have wide swings in our mid-term elections. Huge Republican years in 1994 and 2002 and huge Democratic years in ’98 and 2006. Republicans didn’t show up to the polls.

Why didn’t they show?
They were discouraged with the party. They felt that things hadn’t changed. And based on the way the Democrats have run things in the past year, there isn’t much of a difference. They are still abusing power, they are still shutting down debate, making their own rules and not addressing their core priorities, which I see as a strong national defense, securing our borders, and freeing the economy from taxes, mandates and regulations.

Have you held an elected office before?
No. I’ve been a delegate to the state convention, but no major elected office.

Does that help or hurt you?
I don’t think either. I think all the candidates bring a range of experience. ... One of my opponents has been a talk show host and a columnist. Another was an attorney and an active-duty officer. … We each bring a range of experiences, but while I haven’t held office before, I actually have more experience in Congress than all of my opponents combined, including Paul Hodes. So I’ve seen how they do things, I see what’s gone wrong, and I know how to fix it.

What will you be fighting for?
My top priority is to reform the earmark process. Actually, I don’t want to reform the earmark process, I want to abolish it. ... We’ve seen rapid economic growth over the last six or seven years, but the only thing stronger than the American economy’s ability to generate growth is Congress’s appetite to spend our money, and the economy is bucking under the weight of taxes, mandates and over-regulation. I think part of that process is the corrupt earmark system that allows Congress to spend money on their pet projects without accountability or oversight, without the ability to amend them in the light of day, and even though some good projects get through, it’s at the price of many more bad projects. If a project is worth funding, if it is worth our federal government spending our money on it, then it is worth doing so publicly.

What would you be bringing to the table, as far as discussions on foreign policy go?
I think we need a strong national defense that is aggressive in our struggle against Islamo-fascism. This is a global ideology that wants to bring a dark age upon the world.
— Alec O’Meara