MEETING A CANDIDATE

By Dave Buhlman
I had the honor of meeting Republican presidential candidate, Albert Howard, last week. Mr. Howard only got a small number of votes in the New Hampshire primary, but he did have standing, as a candidate, to request a recount of votes in the New Hampshire Republican primary. Congressman Dennis K. had already gotten the Democrat recount started.
Mr. Howard had given the Secretary of State's office a check for $2,000., and filled out the forms to start the recount process. But the remaining cost of the recount was $55,600 which this small campaign did not have. But money for the recount came in from a fine fellow in Massachusetts who will be reimbursed by a collection being made by the Granny Warriors from all over the country. I accompanied Mr. Howard to deliver the check to the Secretary of State's office and the Secretary of State was good enough to accept the check even after the deadline he set had passed. This was clearly the right thing to do.
Those of us in New Hampshire know that Secretary of State Bill Gardner is a man of the highest integrity who would never allow anything untoward to transpire in our primaries. It was noticed that there were several anomalies between voting patterns in municipalities that had all hand counts with no machines, and those that used machines and this was part of the reason for the recount. Further, there has been suspicion for years among many in the country that some election results have been flat out rigged using various computer software to, say, shift votes from one candidate to another. Just paranoids on parade? Remember "Remember the Maine" and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. That is, things are sometimes not as they appear, and government actually does engage in some manipulative behavior to get what they and their handlers want.
As an aside, the handlers and several of their pantry men in government will be in Davos, Switzerland soon for the annual meeting where these higher-level beings discuss the fate they have planned for the rest of the world. On the other hand, Bono has been invited, so how serious can it be? If it were Congressman Sonny Bono, who was a true conservative who asked some impertinent questions about how things really work in the world system, that would be interesting. However, those who ask impertinent questions are not invited; only true believers allowed. Congressman Bono, an expert skier, was killed in a ski accident a few years ago, but, hey, accidents happen.
In New Hampshire, we have paper ballots so these are now being counted and compared with the results produced by the machines, so there is some accountability in the process. This is better than South Carolina ,where bubbas galore lined up for their Republican primary this past Saturday. They have only touch screen computers with no paper trail whatsoever. So a programmer or hacker could change these election results with ease. These same touch screens were outlawed in California, so imagine how bad they must be if even the nuttiest state in the union (with all due apologies to Massachusetts) got rid of them.
It will be very interesting to see the results of the recounts, and may they happen with all due deliberate speed.
In Nevada, Congressman Ron Paul came in second in the caucuses on Saturday. If you watched Fox (Faux) News, you might have missed this because, although they had the Congressman's picture and number of votes right below winner Mitt's, they managed to never mention Ron Paul's name and the fact that he finished second, ahead of McCain and the other candidates Faux talking heads have been ordered by their bosses to love so.

Elsewhere, in the Sunshine State, whose primary is January 29, they are hiring helpers to assist all voters in the voting process.

Dave Buhlman is a former New Hampshire State Representative and published author.