New Hampshire Republicans want Democrats to join them in the effort to preserve the First in the Nation presidential primary, and on Thursday, they offered an idea:
“Write In Bozo!”
At a State House press conference, Rep. Joe Sweeney (R-Salem) made his case that the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s decision to help President Joe Biden in the very primary he is trying to kill is a self-destructive mistake. Instead, they should send the Democratic National Committee (DNC) a message.
“I find myself compelled to ask our Democrat counterparts a straightforward question: What the hell are you doing?” Sweeney asked.
“Under this president, prices on everyday goods have risen over 17 percent. Homicides are up over 13 percent. Aggravated assaults are up over 33 percent. All while more than 6.2 million illegal border crossings have taken place.
“Only a clown with a record like that chooses to disrespect our sacred New Hampshire primary, so we’re urging New Hampshire Democrat primary voters to send a message to Washington elites. If you’re going to write in a clown, we would encourage you to write in Bozo,” Sweeney said.
“When someone spits in your face, you don’t write them in for president,” added Rep. Ross Berry (R-Manchester), House Election Law Committee chairman. “What New Hampshire Democrats have done is put ‘DNC’ ahead of ‘NH.’”
House Republicans have created a website, WriteInBozo.com, to promote their idea.
Rep. Joe Sweeney (R-Salem) holds a press conference in Concord, N.H., on Democrats’ efforts to write in Joe Biden on the #FITN ballot.
Biden has made no secret of his disdain for New Hampshire’s First in the Nation primary and its voters, declaring the state’s Democrats are too White to hold the party’s first contest. For years, national Democratic leaders like former DNC chairs Howard Dean and Tom Perez attacked Granite State Democrats as racially suspect or lacking in diversity.
And for years, state party leaders like Chairman Ray Buckley, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, and U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster have refused repeated requests to address those arguments or defend the state’s primary voters.
As a result, Biden and the DNC met little resistance when they pushed through a calendar earlier this year, stripping the Granite State of its place at the front of the line.
“This situation is truly unbelievable,” Sweeney said, calling for a “thorough reassessment of our political decisions” that led to the loss of the primary.
Democratic state party chairman Ray Buckley has refused to respond to dozens of requests for comment to explain his failure to do what his GOP counterparts successfully accomplished and preserve the First in the Nation primary.
Now the state party and Democratic leaders are compounding the mistakes, critics say, by boosting Biden with their write-in effort, led by former state chair Kathy Sullivan. As part of the effort, Sullivan has created Granite for America PAC that can accept unlimited amounts of so-called dark money — given anonymously — to fund voter education.
A new NHJournal/co-efficient poll of Democratic primary voters found just 38 percent currently plan to write in Biden. While that was lower than the 50 percent in a recent St. Anselm College Survey Center poll, both numbers are bad signs for an incumbent president among members of his own party.
Berry noted another problem created by the Democrats’ write-in campaign: It will slow down the reporting of results on election night next month.
“What Joe Biden has done by not putting his name on the ballot is he’s going to cause chaos on primary night,” Berry said. “Republican results will be delayed because [poll workers] will be counting all these write-in ballots.”
Granite State Democrats insist their write-in strategy is a winner and deny spending time and money working on behalf of a candidate who has rejected their own primary is humiliating.
The write-in offers a “really great opportunity for Democrats,” party strategist Lucas Meyer told the Los Angeles Times. “To use the write-in as an opportunity to get party activists and local committees trained on how to talk about the campaign — I think that’s the best way to stick it to the DNC.”
Sweeney rejected that argument.
“The New Hampshire primary should not…be disrespected, disregarded, or skipped by anyone. Don’t be fooled: Writing in the president’s name to reward him for fleeing our primary will not undo the blatant contempt Washington Democrats have for our New Hampshire primary. But sending a message by writing in ‘Bozo’ will.”
