Posted on 09/25/2002 7:48:49 AM PDT by GraniteStateConservative
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
LONDONDERRY -- Craig Benson's handlers said they expected a few dozen die-hard backers to attend last night's campaign strategy session.
Instead, 300 people showed up, packing a conference room at the Executive Court.
If this is a harbinger of how voters react to the multimillionaire Republican gubernatorial candidate, Benson says he'll crush his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Mark Fernald, D-Sharon.
"It's going to be so easy to win if we stick to the issues. These people pretend that they're smarter than the rest of us," Benson said of Fernald's supporters.
Those in attendance agreed that this election is largely another statewide referendum on an income tax.
"I want to deliver the earliest victory speech in state history," Benson told the crowd last night. "We don't want to win in November, we want to romp in November."
He then paused a moment and tempered his message, calling on supporters, including those who backed GOP gubernatorial also-rans Gordon Humphrey and Bruce Keough, to work harder than they ever have.
"I've heard many people already calling me 'Mr. Governor' and everything else," Benson said. "But I'm not going to take anything for granted."
Later, supporters in the audience wouldn't debate whether Benson would win, but rather, the margin of his victory.
"Definitely by 65 percent," state Rep. Anne Priestley, R-Salem, declared.
"No, no, Anne. Seventy percent," countered state Rep. Mary Griffin, R-Windham, waving her index finger.
A Microsoft Power Point slide presentation, projected onto a large, white screen, told the supporters the story of what campaign elements Benson considers fundamental to winning: continue to grow grassroots support, fund raising, display Benson for governor signs throughout the state, recruit "poll standers" who hold Benson signs outside polling stations.
The next slide he entitled, "The Winning Formula."
In it, Campaign Manager Mike Dennehy explained that Benson will cruise to victory if 150,000 Republicans, 88,400 independents and 15,000 "conservative Democrats" vote for Benson, for a total of 239,900 votes.
"This is a doable goal," Dennehy told the crowd.
But the campaign's cornerstone is convincing citizens that any income tax plan -- Fernald is basing his campaign around the tenet that an income tax will, in part, solve the state's ever-present education funding woes -- is merely "snake oil."
Benson himself has not detailed his education funding plan as Fernald has.
Fernald says a statewide income tax, coupled with cuts in the statewide property tax and other state taxes, would save poor and middle-class citizens hundreds, if not thousands of dollars each year.
Benson says he'll reject a statewide sales tax, statewide income tax and casino-style gambling while reducing the statewide property tax by an unspecified amount.
Restrained state spending and efficiency will help balance the budget and likewise fund a Supreme Court mandate that the Legislature fund an "adequate" education for all public school children.
It remains a "devastating fact," Benson said, that Fernald's income tax plan would cost every man, woman and child statewide an average of $19,000 in taxes over 20 years.
"It's a fraud and a lie" that creating new taxes lowers one's tax burden, Benson said.
No. Fernald has only been in politics since 1998. He beat an incumbent GOP state senator then. He ran against Shaheen in the gubernatorial primary two years later and nearly won 40% of the vote against an incumbent Democrat governor.
Draft-dodging Jeb Bradley may have the greater problem; he still hasn't figured out what he stands for.
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