What Happened to New Hampshire?

Ken O’Brien

Years ago I spent a couple of years living in New Hampshire. This was while I was attending graduate school.

Now, I’ll quickly concede that Hanover is not typical of most of New Hampshire. However, while I went to school in Hanover, I lived in West Lebanon which was a little closer to the grass roots of life in rural New Hampshire.

While there has always been a fundamentally conservative and libertarian streak in the state, the last few years have seen the emergence, some would say predominance, of extremist fringe elements in New Hampshire politics.

With the New Hampshire Presidential Primary scheduled for this Tuesday, January 10, I thought the following synopsis of what has been going on in the state over the last two years would help to put that event in perspective.