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This is pretty speculative. What is it based on? Was there a straw vote or something? I don't think anyone really knows which state is going to win, or who's in the lead. I see more articles about Montana and Wyoming than New Hampshire. Wyoming is by far the best state, IMHO, from the political point of view because it has far fewer citizens, and thus voters, than even other sparsely populated states like Montana. This makes the 20,000 newbies that much more influential.

Also, face it, the East Coast is full of statists. Freedom has always been in the West. And while NH is a nice anomoly amongst the other Socialist states around it, it is still surrounded. Hell Boston is an hour away from some parts. That's way to close to Teddie for me.

I remember a story about about someone who moved to Vermont and was introduced as "Dave, who lives in the old Miller place". At that point he said he had lived in the house in question for 20 some years, sent three kids through the local schools from kindergarden to high school and run a business thereabouts. It is a tradition bound area, which can be good, but maybe doesn't line up with a giant social and political experiment.

Wyoming is by far the best state, IMHO, from the political point of view because it has far fewer citizens, and thus voters, than even other sparsely populated states like Montana. This makes the 20,000 newbies that much more influential.

Concur, and since I was willed my granddad's post-WWI Homestead Act tract in Wyoming, that's pritnear my favoured pick, too, though there's a great deal to be said in favour of Montana as well. Several counties in Montana are particularly ripe for FSP organizing, and wyoming offers but a single US Representative district...the entire state.

But employment is a major issue in most of the western possibilities, particularly for families. And the weather in Wyoming and Montana can be brutal- there are some houses in Weston County with doors on the second floor as one means of dealing with winter's snowdrifts.

I expect it'll take a good while longer for the move to be made if the choice is out west, though if Wyoming is the choice, I can personally be resettled there within 30 days and have *Radio Porcupine* up and running nearly as quickly. My move easternly would take a while longer, but is still do-able.

For a couple of other reasons I also favour the western choices, but it can be made to work on the Eastern Seaboard too, I believe, though with more difficulty and likely obstacles in our path. But the idea is to eventually reform other states as well, possibly within a geographic region or bloc [wisdom: do not carry all eggs in one basket!] so an initial move may not be the absolute final one.

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One clue is the number of Porcupine participants in the candidate states' discussion groups, usually run as *Yahoo groups* discussion boards. New Hampshire is indeed well-represented, but so too are Montana and Wyoming. It's interesting to note the numbers of those already resident in the proposed states, who are going to be a particularly helpful asset as the *Porcupine Welcome Wagon* once the moves start taking place. Too, quite a few of the western region porcupines would happily settle in any of the state's in that region [Idaho/Wyoming/North Dakota/South Dakota/Wyoming/Alaska] though the Eastern region proponents are more frequently locked into their own particular state.

The Wyoming's discussion group may be limited to some extent by the particularly dense moderator/founder there, who bears a remarkable resemblance to me, so that may not be a really accurate means of assessing that state's popularity; most of the western proponents hang out on the Montana Yahoo board. But if you'd care to check it out, *Right here it is.*

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