If a group of Republican state senators have their way, NH will no longer have public education listed in our state constitution as something we must cherish.  As a bit of background, NH funds education through property taxes, and all attempts to find a way to do this in the past 10 years have been declared unconstituional by our courts, because we are not funding adequately and equally.  
So the solution is to take public education off the list of things we have to do fairly, and to let the state legislature decide how much and how we shall spend our education dollars, not the towns.  
http://www.unionleader.com/...
Have to be off to work, will check comments when I get home tonight.

I got a fund-raising call from NARAL this afternoon.  After introducing himself, the gentleman went into the spiel.  I interrupted him and told him that until they stopped asking me to thank Lieberman and Chafee for making Alito a Supreme Court justice they would get no money from me (I was a supporter until sometime last year).  The gentleman attempted to make some sort of personal apology, but I interrupted again and said, "Call me when you guys get your act together.  I blame you for not holding those Senators' feet to the fire over the filibuster.  I will support NOW."

Today our town Democrats met for a second organizational meeting for this election cycle at my house.  Most of us were Deaniacs last time around, and we got pretty organized and made a difference in our town vote.  Town has around 2800 voters, maybe 450 registered Democrats, typical small rural NH town.  
Joining us today was a young man sent by the NH Democratic Party.  What really amazed us was that he told us he would be in NH until Nov. 2008!  He was being funded by the DNC and he was here to help us at the grassroots!  Last time we had real grassroots help here was during the Dean campaign, up until the Primary in Jan. 2004.  Then we were on our own.
I don't know how this is going to pan out, but I was pretty upbeat when folks left my house this afternoon.  We planned our caucus, so we could be official and go to the state convention and we talked about some events we might plan for the summer months.  I feel encouraged and empowered.  And I feel like we are doing something!

I attended this rally today with a friend.  I have posted my pictures from the event here: http://homepage.mac.com/lcedwards/Politics/PhotoAlbum29.html.  I think there were about 120 people there, maybe more, not huge, but lots of cars going by honking and waving.  

It was nice to be among like minded folk, the signs were interesting, and I got a chance to catch up with my friend, we worked on the Dean and Kerry campaigns together, and are working on our town's Master Plan as well.

Today I attended my NH town's School District Meeting.  For those of you who do not know how this New England form of government works, here is a primer and how it went this morning.
We have three governmental entities in our town: the actual town government, with a board of selectmen, a planning board, a conservation commission and other boards and committees that run the town side; the school district, with a school board, that runs the schools in town; and a water district, because we had some severe MTBE contamination and had to set up a water supply for those whose wells were polluted.
Each of these entities meets and votes on their budget yearly, and on any other business that needs to be considered.

I have already faxed the letter to Kerry, and I am hoping to get a fax number for Democracy for America to send that letter and the cover to Dean today.
I hope many of us will contact Senator Kerry and Governor Dean and let them know that we need them to help us make the Democratic Party work for us.
Letters below:

Could someone help me find a quote I heard on CNN this morning around 6 am EDT?  It was in a news segment and said that there would be no more attempts to take back areas from insurgents until after the election because the casualty figures might affect the election results.  I want to write LTEs.

Benson's lack of ethics again.  The Republican Governors Assoc. is funding campaign ads for Benson which the Atty. General's office has declared illegal.  The story is at
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBZKRX330E.html

We had a blast here last evening from 5-6, holding signs at our major intersection on the main E-W highway between Portsmouth and Concord.  Couple of townsfolk I had not met, the organizer of the weekly event had to go to Parents Weekend at his child's college, so he passed his signs on to us.  Mostly homemade peace signs, but I took my Women For Kerry that I got when he came into Pease last week.

My husband and I got to see Kerry up close last night when he came into Pease Tradeport in NH.  We got tickets from the local Dem. office and went really early, so we were in the second row, having let some shorter people get in front, and right in front of the stage, about 15 feet max.  We waited 4 hours, it was chilly, but happy crowd.  After brief remarks, Kerry jumped down from the stage and began to work the crowd.  My husband got to shake his hand, I didn't try, not my thing.  The Secret Service was going nuts, especially when he climbed on the railing to lean over the crowd and reach back to shake more hands!  It was worth the wait, a boost for the final lap of campaigning.

Yesterday I bought some magnetic sheets you can print on with an ink jet printer.  I made one small KIA (killed in action) piece and then some numbers.  Today I went off to work with KIA 1034 on the back of my RAV 4.  I can change the numbers daily, unfortunately, and remind those who follow me or pass my parked car of at least one statistic of the Iraq debacle.  If someone swipes them I can make more, all it takes is the printer and the sheets.  I paid about $12 for 4 8x11 sheets, which may be a bit pricey, but it is worth it for me.  I need to say my bit.
And I told my husband I would make him any bumpersticker he wanted, so he is thinking.

I am home briefly from manning the polls for the NH Primary today to take my cat to the vet.  I have a question.  On NHPR this morning I heard that there was a large attack on the northern pipeline in Iraq and that it would take at least 3 days to get the oil flowing again.  I also saw it scrolling on the bottom of the screen on Channel 5 from Boston this morning.  But I don't see that news anywhere on the front pages of Yahoo News, CNN or MSNBC.  I did find it by doing a search in Yahoo,  haven't had time to look at CNN or MSNBC.  Is this not news anymore since the car bomb?
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040914/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_oil_6

I copied this headline and first paragraph since I know it will disappear:

Bush Visits Russia, Offers Condolences

 1 minute ago

Add White House - AP to My Yahoo!

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON -  President Bush (news - web sites) made an unexpected visit to the Russian Embassy on Sunday where he signed a book of condolence for victims of the school hostage seizure and expressed outrage at the actions of "evil terrorists."  

Our town Democratic Committee spent the morning at the Transfer Station with a couple of local candidates, handing out flyers and being very visible.  It was a lovely day, and people were mostly friendly.  (Town is under 4000 in the winter, 9-10,000 in the summer.)  Our primary for governor and other local races is Tuesday.  
Also interesting accompaniment to the visit by the fabled first lady:  new group in NH, Republican Women for Kerry.
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/kerry/articles/2004/09/10/gop_women_back_kerry/

Friday evening when I came home from work, my REDEFEAT BUSH sign was at the end of my 300 foot driveway, as it has been since the end of the Dean campaign.  When we left later for our Friday dinner out, the sign had been ripped off the frame.  Now, I have been quite mellow since I got involved in the Dean campaign and found an outlet for my anger in work for candidates of my choice, and I haven't had that horrible, sick, hole-in-the-stomach rage in a long time.  I had it Friday night. I wanted to kill somebody, whoever had done that to my sign.  
Blessedly, my husband and I went to Maine for the weekend, and spent time with daughter and son-in-law and another couple, all liberal Democrats, and with a visit from my brother, also a liberal, and I feel better.  I have to decide if I want to tape the sign back together and put it back up, or replace it with a Kerry/Edwards sign, or do both.  

The Republicans are at it again, accusing John Kerry of flip-flopping.  In case you haven't noticed, Bush has changed his mind a couple of times in the past few years, too.  (Honest people call it "changing my mind."  Dishonest people edit their websites so you think they are "staying the course.")  You can find much more information at this site : http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=42263.

Here is the latest example: Bush, having told us on July 30, 2004, "We have a clear vision on how to win the war on terror and bring peace to the world," now tells us "I don't think you can win [the war on terror]. But I think you can create conditions so that the -- those who use terror as a tool are -- less acceptable in parts of the world."  There were quick corrections by the staff to make sure we knew that he didn't mean what came out of his mouth, but I am going to count it as a flip-flop.

I know that this won't change any minds. Unfortunately, for too many people, if you stamp Republican on a damaged piece of goods and promise a tax cut rebate (that turns out to be a fraud for most of us) some people will snap it up every time.  Read the truth in labeling labels while you have them.  We may lose even that protection if we elect this flip-flopper to another term.

Here's what's going on for the election in my small town in NH.  Most exciting is upcoming PATRIOTS VOTE visibility for all our wonderful local Democratic candidates on 9/11 at the Transfer Station (as a Selectman I am constrained to call it that, everyone else calls it the "dump").  This is put on by the Town Democratic Committee which has been in existence since April and is, of course, an offshoot of the Dean campaign.  There are about 4-5 active members.  
We are working hard to get signs out on our main drag for Democrat John Lynch for Governor.  Our main drag is the current governor Benson's main route to work in Concord.  We have a number of state employees here, and state employees hate Benson with a passion, almost to the woman/man.  And the Republican party, I hear, won't let Benson introduce Bush at any of the events when Bush visits.  So much for the man who promised to run NH like a business.  Or maybe he did, his own business, Cabletron, went into a death spiral after he took his money and ran.
More from NH later.