For the 2004 election, New Hampshire was alternatively referred to as a swing state or a battleground state.  The latter is the more appropriate term because New Hampshire is actually the next, and perhaps the final, battleground in the fight between conservative and liberal principles.

For me personally, the most distressing and frustrating election results to watch on Tuesday night were the results coming out of my home state of New Hampshire.  As the results trickled in, Democratic Senator John Kerry jumped to an early and decisive lead while incumbent Republican President George W. Bush consistently trailed.  At the end of the night, the result was a Kerry victory by approximately 10,000 votes.

The result of the presidential election in New Hampshire is a reflection of the Granite State’s fluctuating demographic status.  Once New Hampshire was a state filled with reliable Republicans and core conservative values; a citizenry who believed that a limited government was best.  That New Hampshire, however, is slowly fading into history.

The reason for this is pretty simple to understand.  To the east of New Hampshire is Maine, a state with a sales tax set at 5% and an income tax as high as 8.5%.  To the west is Vermont, a state represented by the only socialist in Congress and who won his reelection handily, and also a state with a sales tax set at 5% and an income tax that ranges to a national high of 9.5%.  To the south is Massachusetts, home of Kerry and Kennedy, and a state with a sales tax of 5% and an 5.3% income tax.  When surrounded by these states and the tremendous tax burdens placed on their people, it is little wonder that their citizens have moved to sales and income tax free New Hampshire.

Particularly, the phenomenon of the Massachusetts liberal emigrating to New Hampshire is one that most southern Granite Staters have known about for some time.  After all, the people living in the southern tier of the state see the Massachusetts plates moving into the house next door.  The problem is the mentality of these tax refugees follows them from one state to the next.  They don’t seem capable of understanding that New Hampshire cannot create, and certainly can’t sustain, the entitlement programs found in Massachusetts, Vermont, or Maine without taxing its citizens at the same rates that the three neighboring states do.  These people want the programs they had in their states of origin, but they don’t want to have to pay for them with income taxes or sales taxes.  They don’t realize that they can’t have it both ways, and New Hampshire is starting to buckle under the unreasonable demands of these incompetent refugees.

Another indicator of the slide of New Hampshire’s conservative values and the increase in liberal activism comes from the results of a ballot measure that asked voters whether or not the legislature should be allowed to pass laws overruling court decisions.  The measure passed by only 65,000 votes.  That may seem like a substantial margin, but it is a substantially smaller margin than it would have been a decade ago when such a measure would never have been necessary.  The legislature would have simply done its constitutionally-granted duty.

The liberals who have descended into the state want their social programs and their activist government, , and they are suing the state and using the courts to earn the programs they want, regardless of the cost to the state.  As a result of the increase in spending, New Hampshire property taxes have skyrocketed, and there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight.

New Hampshire’s ability to remain the “Live Free or Die” state is in jeopardy, and its four electoral votes being cast for Kerry demonstrate the terrible state of affairs in a state that once prided itself on its ability to keep government small and out of people’s personal lives.  In the forthcoming decade, New Hampshire will be the battleground state as the conservative forces seeking limited, smaller government go head-to-head against the liberal forces seeking intrusive government and the requisite taxes.

Unfortunately, the tax-oppressed citizens to the east, west, and south vastly outnumber New Hampshire’s conservative citizens.  Despite the odds, though, something must be done before the Granite State turns into “North Taxachusetts, ” a development that simply cannot be allowed to happen.

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