Wayne Semprini of New Castle, who works at Wright Medical Technology, was named the new chairman of the state Republican Party last month. He has not sat and idly enjoyed his title.
Semprini already has blasted Gov. John Lynch and state Democrats on several occasions and is working to reinvigorate the party, which is still suffering the fallout from the phone jamming scandal, Gov. Craig Benson’s meltdown, the downfall of former House Speaker Gene Chandler and the overthrow of former Senate President Tom Eaton.
Semprini has his work cut out for him, but despite the heavy workload he still finds time to read for pleasure. Here’s what he’s reading now:
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don’t, by Jim Collins. “This is a must read for anyone in business or managing an organization,” Semprini says. “Gives a great comparison of why some companies flourish while others, similarly situated, simply flounder. Involves knowing where your strengths are, then capitalizing on those strengths. At the same time remembering we can’t be all things to all people. We all have a ‘flywheel’; the most important thing is to getting it working for you and not against you.”
Spin Selling, by Neil Rackham. “Very interesting sales method based on a scientific analysis of over 40,000 sales presentations. We have been looking for a new process to help our younger reps get up and running faster in the very competitive orthopedic implant and supply business. This method focuses on situational selling and problem solving in a way that I believe suits itself quite nicely to selling highly technical niche products to a very knowledgeable and often demanding customer — the orthopedic surgeon. The true test will be in our ability to incorporate this program with our current salesforce.”
Speaking My Mind, by Ronald Reagan. “This is a re-read while recouperating from my hip (surgery). Insightful and timely as I prepare to lead his Grand Old Party in New Hampshire.”
Shadow Warriors, by Tom Clancy and Gen. Carl Stiner. “Interesting book about fighting unconventional wars and the importance and amazement of our Special Ops folks. This book is non-fiction that reads like fiction.”
The first business-oriented list we’ve had in the Book Corner, and it comes from a state party chairman. I haven’t read a Tom Clancy book in more than a decade, but I might have to pick up Shadow Warriors; it sounds very good.
The Union Leader and the Concord Monitor take opposite positions on the deadly force bill today. Interesting to read the two perspectives on the bill. Ours is here, theres is here.
California Assemblyman Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat, has a bill that would require California’s secretary of state to schedule California’s Presidential primary on the same day as the first primary held by any other state, if not earlier.
New Hampshire’s law requires our primary to be a week before any similar contest. If Umberg’s bill passes, which law would win out?
In the California Assembly, at least one member understands the value of New Hampshire’s primary. Mark Wyland, a Republican from Del Mar, said candidates who did not start with a lot of money would be unable to compete in a huge state like California.
Right on.
For some reason, The Post & Courier of Charleston, S.C., has editorialized on our state highway signs.
The paper suggests that putting “Live free or die” on the highway signs could encourage people to disobey the rules of the road. How preposterous. The paper then jokingly suggests that we meld the motto with the vacuous slogan “You’re going to love it here” and put “New Hampshire: Live free or don’t” on the highway signs.
Ah, no thanks.
The paper did call our motto “probably the most inspiring state motto in the nation.” What, the writer didn’t have time to look up the other mottoes? Anyway, that is true, we do have the most inspirational motto in the nation. It must seem even more inspirational coming from a state that has two official mottoes, both lame.
UPDATE: The Onion rips on our welcome sign argument today. Pretty funny graphic.
In Bill Clinton’s official Presidential portrait, he isn’t wearing his wedding ring. Beautiful.
If you haven’t read Sen. John Kerry’s excellent defense of the New Hampshire primary, you should. It’s one of the best I’ve read.
There are many good arguments for keeping New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status. Few are as persuasive, though, as when made by a nominee who learned the value of New Hampshire’s system on his way to the nomination. Kerry says he would not have been as well-equipped to debate a sitting President had he not been tested by New Hampshire first.
One of the things Kerry and Iowa caucus winner Howard Dean used to agree on was the value of the New Hampshire primary. When Dean was a party outsider, he loved the primary because it was not under the control of the party establishment. Now that he’s the DNC chairman, he no longer thinks leaving the nominating to the rabble is such a good idea. Pity.
A cynical way to look at Kerry’s endorsement would be to assume that Hillary is the insider candidate and Kerry needs a place like New Hampshire, a place not controlled by the party establishment and less susceptible to big-money, soundbite campaigning, if he hopes to beat her. That might be true, but Kerry has supported the primary before.
He’s taking a big risk backing it now, as it makes him susceptible (unfairly) to the charge of racial insensitivity at least, racism at best, and puts him at odds with party leaders. State Democrats need to work on getting more high-profile support from other contenders, as well as other well-known Democrats and liberals. I wonder what Jimmy Carter thinks about it?
Today’s guest is of a species even rarer than a Karner Blue Butterfly. He is a conservative professor at Harvard.
Harvey Mansfield is the William Kenan Jr. professor of government at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he teaches political philosophy. He has taught at Harvard since 1962, and been the bane of the campus left all that time.
His new book, Manliness, attempts to answer the question, “what is manliness?” and defend that trait against its femenine attackers. It’s selling very well for a little academic tome. Last night he spoke at St. Anselm College, and earlier in the week he shared his current reading list with the Book Corner.
“Right now I am reading four biographies that I recommend to your readers,” he said via e-mail from Harvard on Tuesday.
“The first is Father Abraham: Lincoln’s Relentless Struggle to End Slavery, by Richard Striner. It shows that Lincoln all along intended to abolish slavery in America but did it by stages he cleverly managed. He was not a moderate and he was not the puppet of historical forces, as some have claimed.
“Also I am reading two books about 20th Century tyrants: Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar, by Simon Sebag Montefiore, and Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Both present these boastful ideologues as tyrants of the old sort, living it up with women and sumptuous banquets while millions of their subjects were starving.
Last is Washington’s God, by Michael Novak and Jana Novak. Here is a study of George Washington’s own religion and how it guided his wonderful political sense.
“So I have the two greatest American Presidents and their opposites on my bedside table.”
No light reading there. And fittingly, all books about manly men.
If each of those books suddenly came to life in the miniaturized form of its subject, I wonder who would win a fight: Lincoln and Washington or Mao and Stalin? I’d bet on Washington/Lincoln.
Jeanne Shaheen defends straightforward politicians in this column by CBS News columnist Dotty Lynch.
Reader Bob Jean writes, “In your editorial, “Fight Poverty: Pass Tax Cuts For the Homeless,” you advocate making the Bush tax cuts permenent, and claim they have stimulated the economy.
“What evidence do you have that the tax cuts have stimulated the economy? How are you quatifying that these huge deficit initiatives have created more economic growth than what would have occured, anyway, has we done nothing, or had we used fically responsible policy?
“Do you really see a positive effect on the economy because we have not raised enough revenue to keep pace with our spending line, and materially contributed to the debt?”
There is no question that the tax cuts stimulated the economy. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post have reported that the tax cuts were a significant factor in turning the economy around and stimulating growth. The question is not whether, but by how much. Economists are still debating. And we never said the deficit stimulated the economy. The tax cuts could have come without such irresponsible deficit spending.
The tax cuts were passed in May of 2003, so we should expect that federal revenues have declined steadily since, right? Wrong. Federal revenues were up 15 percent in 2005 and are up about 10 percent so far this year. The deficits were not caused by the Bush tax cuts. They were caused by a shocking increase in federal spending since 2001. USA Today reported earlier this month that federal spending has increased faster under President Bush than under any President since FDR. Spending on social programs has grown faster than at any time since LBJ was in office.
President Bush and the Republican Congress have been fiscally reckless and have grossly ballooned the federal deficit and the national debt. But not because they passed tax cuts.
The Boston Herald gets really snippy today about the newly renamed Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. They have a sophomoric list denigrating Manchester and a snide little story about the name change.
Funny how touchy they are about it. However, columnist Brett Arends, who used to live in New Hampshire, actually visits Manchester and gives the city and the airport name a positive review.
The Boston Globe does a fair story, complete with a Boston advertising executive calling the name change “a brilliant marketing move.” The Globe also quotes Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta tweaking Boston’s angry public officials. “Is Boston going to survive this crisis?” he asks.
Is the pic beside this Mic Jagger story just a coincidence? I wonder.
Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post writes today that Nevada is considered the front-runner among the states that have applied to the DNC to hold a primary or caucus after Iowa and before New Hampshire in 2008.
Supposedly Nevada’s strong points, besides being Harry Reid’s home state, are that it is rural and has no big TV market so campaigning can be done closer to the people. But Nevada is huge. At 110,567 square miles, it is the seventh-largest state. New Hampshire occupies only 9,351 square miles, making it the 46th largest state. Nevada has only 1 million more residents than New Hampshire, but they are spread among 100,000 additional square miles. No way campaigning in Nevada would be easier and cheaper than campaigning in New Hampshire.
However, Nevada is 23 percent Hispanic, which means it can play the race card. Yet it’s not as if the state is really representative of the country, which is only 14 percent Hispanic. Nevada is only 7 percent black; America is 12 percent black. Once you start counting the races and trying to find a state that “looks like America,” you get into all sorts of trouble.
