Being a Democrat in NH

I was at the supermarket today and was approached by a fellow townsperson who has kids in elementary school.  She informed me that “we” needed to get hold of people and let them know that a couple of the candidates for school board would be very bad for the school and that they should vote for other candidates.  I told her that I was very busy trying to do something about the NH legislature, and that I was afraid that no matter who we elected to the local school board, if we couldn’t stop the legislative agenda our schools would be in big trouble.
After I left the store and headed home, I starting thinking back to last fall, when I was running for state representative, as well as being still employed full time and trying to get ready to retire (think switching from employer insurance to Medicare, etc., for both me and my husband, Social Security, etc.).  Neither this woman, nor 90% of the people in town who knew me and all the work I did for the community over the past decades, wrote a letter in support of my candidacy, donated money to my campaign, or even contacted me to let me know they would vote for me and tell their friends to do the same.
I am not even sure they voted.  One thing that became clear after the election was that there were a lot of Democrats who had voted in 2006 and 2008 who did not bother to come out and vote in 2010.  I heard a lot about disappointment in Obama (and that is a whole other subject that drives me nuts, because I believe it was the Republicans who were to blame for what didn’t get done, and racism also played a part, yes, in NH), and of course it was an off-year election.
In 2010 we lost Carol Shea Porter, one of the best legislators ever and the first woman ever elected to Congress (in 2006) from NH.  We elected a puppet of the big money, Kelly Ayotte, instead of Paul Hodes, a star as a freshman congressman in 2006, as Senator.  We elected Charlie Bass, who is great at enriching himself and his family in government service, instead of Annie Kuster, a grass-roots champion.  And we got this excuse for a legislature.
And if a few more Democrats had only just voted, none of this would have happened.  Or at least not all of it.  But NH Democrats are still gun-shy (probably a bad description at the moment, with all the pro-guns-everywhere legislation pending) and coming out of the closet, so to speak.  Some of us got active when Howard Dean came to town, and have been working without rest, it seems, since then.  Others are still very scared to reveal themselves, for fear of being targeted in these tough economic times.