From the News and Sentinel

U.S. Congressional Candidate Grant Bosse Pays Visit to Coos

By Alan Farnsworth

Republican Congressional candidate Grant Bosse visited Colebrook last Tuesday afternoon, March 4, as part of a two-day introductory campaign swing through the North Country. Starting the previous day, he toured Littleton, Lancaster, Berlin, and Gorham before visiting Colebrook.

A lifelong Republican, this is the Hillsboro native’s first run for political office, although he comes with plenty of political experience. After graduation from the Hillsboro-Deering school system, he attended Dartmouth College, where he was active in both the campus radio station and newspaper.

Mr. Bosse then began a successful career in radio, starting at WGIR-AM in Manchester and continuing at WTSL in Lebanon. In 1999, he left radio to become the Senior Legislative Assistant to the New Hampshire House Majority Office, where he could observe and learn the workings of the legislative system. After a year as press secretary and political director for Craig Benson’s gubernatorial campaign, he worked for five years on staff for Senator John Sununu, focusing on environmental and energy policies.

Mr. Bosse said he finally decided to run for office when the Republican party, and especially New Hampshire’s congressional delegation, seemed to lose its way and adopt some Democratic traits. “Both parties have shown a great disrespect for the taxpayers,” he said.

He went on to say that there has been a noticeable lack of growth nationally and when the nation slows down that affects the North Country. This is part of Mr. Bosse’s three pronged platform for his candidacy: free the economy, secure the borders, and win the war.

Mr. Bosse proposes more of a hands-off approach to the economy. The North Country has a rising elderly population combined with the falling school age and worker population, he said, making it harder to retain local students and workers. Efforts have to be made to free up local resources to make more jobs locally, but he dislikes Congress making market-based solutions which benefit only a few. Not enough candidate, he said, are willing to stand up for market capitalism.

Congress is not really serious about the illegal immigration problem, Mr. Bosse said. He supports the use of a fence as the “first real step toward the immigration solution,” because is has proved to work where it has been tried. A major effort had to made to make it easier to come to the U.S. legally rather than illegally, he said, and right now that is not the case.

Mr. Bosse supports “winning the war,” but to do that the Congress has to stop making the effort to fund the troops into a political game. He cited Rep. Hodes’ vote for an emergency defense appropriation complete with “pork barrel” provisions. When the Senate stripped it down to a “clean bill” with no extras, he said, Hodes refused to vote for it when reintroduced in the House.

He cautions that the war is not just the localized fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, but a global campaign against radical Islam. This is a war for very high stakes, he said, which the U.S. should win.

Mr. Bosse has already logged 2,000 miles over the past two weeks, including the two-day circuit in Coos County. He hopes to return to the North Country next month.