Posted on 02/17/2015 5:21:57 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Yvonne Dean-Bailey
A 19-year-old freshman at a Massachusetts college is hoping to become one of the youngest female state representatives in New Hampshire’s history as she enters a special election that will be decided this spring.
Yvonne Dean-Bailey of Northwood, a Republican who graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy last year, said she is hoping to bring the voice of young, conservative women to the State House.
Dean-Bailey is a veteran of two prominent lawmakers’ offices, having worked as an intern doing legislative research for U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and as a field organizer in Cheshire County on Marilinda Garcia’s campaign for U.S. representative.
She’s studying politics and history at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., but she said she’ll probably transfer to the University of New Hampshire or another more local college next year.
She said she took an interest in politics at 12 years old during the 2008 presidential election, intrigued as Barack Obama and Sarah Palin each sought to make history, Obama as the first black president and Palin as the first female vice president. Now, she said, she’s looking to add diversity the homogeneous State House.
If elected, she said she’ll focus on creating jobs and expanding the economy, helping business owners and ensuring local control of education. Asked whether there are any specific changes she would enact to achieve those goals, she said she was “more of a principles person.”
“If I’m elected, I’m going to focus on fiscally responsible principles and conservative principles,” she said, adding that past lawmakers have been “writing blank checks.”
“Unfortunately, for many years in Concord, some of the legislators have been thinking about tax dollars as just a number, when in actuality this is people’s money. . . . Being a taxpayer myself, I would like more transparency about how our tax dollars are being spent.”
She also said it was important for residents to have options in health care. She said the Affordable Care Act caused her to lose her insurance, though she was “not 100 percent sure of the details.”
Garcia urged her supporters to back Dean-Bailey on her Facebook page, saying, “She’s great and I know this for a fact because she worked for me!”
Dean-Bailey, who referred to this newspaper as the “Communist Monitor,” is also a writer for CampusReform.org, where she “works to expose liberal bias and abuse at colleges and universities in Massachusetts,” according to her bio. She later apologized for the quip about the Monitor after she realized she’d said it to a reporter.
Dean-Bailey will face Brian Stone of Northwood in a March 31 primary for the seat representing Candia, Deerfield, Northwood and Nottingham. Stone sought to represent the Northwood-specific district in the November election, but was defeated in the primary.
The seat was resigned as soon as it was accepted after its winner, Brian Dobson of Nottingham, left to take a position handling veterans’ affairs for U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta. Dobson defeated Maureen Mann of Deerfield, the incumbent Democrat, in November.
The winner of the Republican primary will face Mann, a three-term state representative, in a May 19 general election.
Mann is a retired high school teacher and owner of asmall real estate business, she said. She previously won a special election in 2007 and was re-elected in 2008 and 2012.
She said the accomplishment during her term as a lawmaker that she was most proud of was getting a traffic light installed at the corner of routes 107 and 4 in Epsom, which she said was a dangerous intersection that high school-age children in Deerfield were required to traverse on their way to school. She said she’s sponsored successful legislation at the request of select boards and residents in each of the four towns she represents.
She said her focus would be on solving problems for her individual communities. That’s not what gets the headlines, but it is what runs the state, she said.
“Being a legislator is a lot more than being a Democrat or a Republican. It’s being a person who serves the members of your community,” she said. “A lot of being a state rep isn’t, ‘This is my political philosophy,’ it’s, ‘Hey, fix this for me, please.’ I’m good at that.”
“I look back at when I first graduated high school,” she said. “You have a lot of theories about cut taxes, cut spending, et cetera, but you really don’t understand how things work.”
She said she would use her experience and contacts to continue serving her constituents and would focus on improving the state’s infrastructure.
Stone agreed to an interview via email, then didn’t respond to several emails and phone calls over the course of the past week.
Note: An earlier version of this story asserted that Dean-Bailey could become the youngest state rep in N.H. history. Elected in 1980, Maureen Manning was only 19 years, 2 months old.
I’d buy her maple syrup, if she markets it for political reasons....
I’d hit that and vote for her twice, on Wednesday. ..
I was going to say she is rough for 19, but then saw she was a Republican and decided she is not guilty but perfect. lol.
She’s no Sexylinda, but good for her. NH GOP needs all the young blood it can get.
Pretty uncool that the Republican that won this seat just a few months ago has bolted.
FRANK...RIZZO...?
She comes off as an airhead in the article. I’d like to know more about her Republican primary opponent.
The hyphenated last name is always troubling, but I wish her well. I suppose in New England that’s actually a plus.
Hyphenated name. Pass.
You might attribute that to the paper the article appears in...the Concord Monitor is way out on the fringe left. The Red Hampshire capitol is filthy with SEIU members, and the Monitor writes to their audience...they HATE anyone that even has a whiff of conservatism.
Her connection to Phillips-Exeter is also troubling...the institution is run by the husband of radical left governor Maggie Hassan.
Hard to see how unless they're deliberately misquoting her.
I’m sure they did what they could to make her look bad thru the editing process...notice she has referred to the paper as the ‘Communist Monitor’ (just like the other dozen or so conservatives in Red Hampshire).
You mean like deleting her specific ideas and just including the line about her being a "principles person?" Or not including where she said she remembered the details on how Obamacare cost her her health insurance?
Look we have enough idiots in office, from both sides of the aisle. We don't need to seek out more.
It’s Red Hampshire...idiots are all they have to choose from...
she’ll focus on creating jobs
Why do politicians always say they want to create jobs? It is not a function of government to create jobs. That is for businesses to do. They can of course influence the job creation by deregulating businesses.
Red Hair.
+1
Yeah, waaaaay back about 8 months ago? Pass.
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