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The Green Bridge in Woodstock, N.H. is not an impressive sight. A small, insignificant structure — it’s only 30 feet wide and about half the length of a football field —  it isn’t economically vital or historically significant.

In other words, it was the perfect place for President Joe Biden.

New Hampshire Public Radio described the Woodstock bridge as “rickety,” and that’s a pretty good description of the Biden presidency at the moment as well. Everything about Biden’s visit to New Hampshire Tuesday, like the sad, little bridge where he gave his speech, felt patched together.

Unfortunately, the $1 trillion in infrastructure spending won’t fix that, either.

As a light snow fell around him, Biden stumbled over the names of the candidates he came to boost (“Amy Kuster”), stumbled through the facts he came to pitch and gave the sort of stumbling delivery we’ve come to expect from a president who turns 79 on Saturday — just three years younger than “red-listed” bridge he came to rescue.

About halfway through his speech, Biden acknowledged the modesty of his message.

“This isn’t esoteric. This isn’t some gigantic bill,” Biden said. “It’s about what happens to ordinary people, conversations around kitchen tables — as profound as they are ordinary.

“How do I cross the bridge in a snowstorm?” Biden asked. “No, really — think about it. What happens when the bridge collapses and there’s a fire on the other side? It’s going to take 10 miles longer to get to the fire. What does it mean if a school bus or logging truck can’t cross? I mean, this is real stuff, folks.”

Right.

If you’ve listened in to any “conversations around the kitchen table” in New Hampshire lately, it’s likely you haven’t heard much about ten-mile detours or rickety bridges. Instead, you’ve probably encountered table-pounding anger over rising prices. Over reports the cost of heating a home in New Hampshire could nearly double this winter. And over the general frustration of dealing with a COVID crisis that President Biden promised to end but instead has mishandled.

Last year, Joe Biden told America, “I’m not going to shut down the country. I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m going to shut down the virus.”

Today, Biden’s pushing mandates to get workers fired from their jobs, COVID restrictions are once again on the rise, and the virus isn’t close to being “shut down.” The president who embraced an FDR-style re-making of America is instead standing in a rural New Hampshire outpost promising a few, small repairs.

This national moment require far more. Inflation hitting 30-year highs is a huge problem that can endanger the entire economy. And while it’s not the Great Depression, the “Great Resignation” — Americans quitting their jobs in record numbers amid a worker shortage crisis and supply-chain crunch — is a massive economic threat as well.

But other than the price tag, there was nothing “massive” in Biden’s message. There is no obvious connection between the roads, bridges and broadband he was bragging about on the bridge, and the gas prices and empty shelves folks are worrying about back home.

WMUR asked Woodstock resident Guy Hoover about Biden’s message.

“I’m paying $4 a gallon for propane, which is $2 a gallon in most places, to heat my home. I’m on a fixed income, I’m on Social Security, and the way things are going right now, I’m going to have to go and get help to heat my home this winter.”

Sure, for a small state like New Hampshire, $2 billion in new federal funds is a lot of money. And Granite Staters stuck with lousy cell service will be happy for any improvements.

But nobody in New Hampshire will go to bed tonight worrying about potholes and bridge repairs. Not when inflation is rising faster than wages, and store shelves are as empty as Biden’s promises that another trillion or three in federal spending won’t send prices even higher. Not to mention 2 million illegal border crossings, the Afghanistan fiasco, the threat from China, etc. etc.

“When you see these projects starting,” Biden said as he stood on that small, rickety bridge, “I want you to feel what I feel: pride.”

Americans would like to feel that way when they see their president, too.

At the moment, alas, that appears to be a bridge too far.

Gov. Chris Sununu’s decision to ditch Washington and run for a fourth term in the Granite State has political Twitter buzzing. Some tweeters are trying to figure out why, some are looking at the impact of Sununu’s bow out, and others are looking at what could happen next.

The New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher said Sununu’s decision not to run could be one of the biggest stories for the upcoming mid-term elections.

The news did not seem to go over well in Sen. Mitch McConnell’s circle. The Senate minority leader heavily recruited Sununu for months. Here’s McConnell’s former campaign manager, Josh Holmes, shortly after Sununu’s announcement. (Holmes co-hosts the popular “Ruthless” podcast, and Sununu was a featured guest over the summer.)

Fox New’s Laura Ingraham said no one should have been shocked, and blamed McConnell and other establishment Republicans.

The liberal magazine, The New Republic, echoed Sununu’s views on life in the U.S. Senate.

Dave Weigel, a Washington Post reporter, seemed to like Sununu’s path.

Raw Story’s Matthew Chapman blamed McConnell for botching the recruit.

New Hampshire Bulletin’s Annmarie Timmins raised a possible presidential run.

CNN’s Dan Merica took note of how Sununu made the announcement: By going after Washington.

The decision is good for the state Republicans, according to Chaz Nuttycombe with CNalysis.

Kyle Kondik with Sabato’s Crystal Ball sees it ultimately helping Hassan.

Speculation as to who might jump into the race is getting heated up and Drew Nirenberg, the communications director for Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, threw out a new name.

“I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin,” quipped Oscar Levant. He could have been talking about New Hampshire Democrats and redistricting.

Press coverage of the proposed congressional redistricting map from the GOP majority is full of pearl-clutching over the fact that a map drawn by politicians that will impact the political balance of power is (you may want to sit down for this) political.

During a hearing on Thursday, state Rep. Bob Lynn (R-Windham) a former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, scandalized those in attendance by stating the obvious. “This is a political process, as the Supreme Court has said repeatedly, both the New Hampshire Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. This is a political process. That’s why it’s done by the legislature. So, was that something that was taken into account? Of course, it was.”

Democrats responded to this modest display of candor with outrage.

“Today’s presentation confirmed what we have known all along – that Republicans have no reason outside of partisan politics to justify the drastic redrawing of congressional districts they have proposed,” said Deputy House Democratic Leader and Ranking Redistricting Democrat David E. Cote (D-Nashua) in a statement. “Republicans clearly do not believe they can win congressional seats without rigging the districts in their favor as today’s presentations confirmed.”

In fact, based on conversations with New Hampshire Republicans, they feel particularly confident about being able to win at least one seat — and maybe two — with the current congressional maps. This year. It’s the years after that are at issue.

The most important math for the NHGOP is this: In the six New England states, there are three Republican governors. There are currently 31 New England members of Congress — House and Senate — and one Republican: Susan Collins.

Why? Ask Massachusetts, where about 35 percent of the state consistently votes Republican for president and where Republicans are regularly elected governor — and there isn’t a single competitive congressional district among the state’s nine seats. There’s only one district in the entire state, the 9th, with a Democratic advantage less than D +10, and the Democrat won it last year with more than 60 percent of the vote.

How does that happen? It doesn’t hurt to have districts that look like this:

Massachusetts 7th Congressional District

The same is true in New York, where Democrats are planning to ignore the recommendation of a nonpartisan redistricting commission and gerrymander out as many as five of the eight current GOP seats. And progressives at The Nation magazine are urging them to do it. (Read “N.Y.’s Redistricting Might Just Save Joe Biden’s Presidency.”)

In Maryland and Illinois, Democrats are planning “extreme gerrymandering” to make GOP victories all but impossible.

Granite State Democrats’ reply? “That’s New York, not New Hampshire!”

Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District

Which is where Doris Day makes her appearance.

From 2007 until 2011, Democrats controlled all of New Hampshire government. Gov. John Lynch was wildly popular and Democrats had votes to spare in the legislature. At any time, they could have passed a nonpartisan redistricting law — similar to the one they passed in 2019 and 2020 when they had a majority but Republicans controlled the governor’s office.

But when Democrats had the chance — they didn’t. In fact, a modest reform proposed in 2009 that would have had a seven-member, bipartisan commission draw up a map for the legislature’s consideration was voted down by the Democratic-controlled House in a voice vote.

Are New Hampshire Democrats being hypocritical? Of course, they are. Just like the Republicans of New York and Maryland, who would absolutely draw themselves as many GOP districts as possible if they could.

If New Hampshire Democrats were in power today, and they saw the coming 2022 GOP tidal wave, does anyone doubt they would draw maps to protect as many members as possible? Of course, they would.

It’s called “politics.” And in a democracy, it’s the only game in town.

Democrats can swoon and gasp and claim to be shocked, shocked! by the very notion. But like Doris Day, it’s all just an act.

As New Hampshire Democrats continue to deny that Critical Race Theory curriculum has made its way into Granite State classrooms, Republicans are targeting Sen. Maggie Hassan’s vote against banning funding of the radical, race-based content in classrooms.

“Critical Race Theory, and its destructive elements seeping into our public education system, has become a hot issue in school boards and statewide races across the country,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee said in a press release Thursday.

“In August of 2021, Democrats had the chance to join Republicans and vote for an amendment that would ‘prevent federal funds from being used to promote Critical Race Theory in prekindergarten, elementary, and secondary schools, and they all voted against it.”

The vote occurred during the so-called “vote-a-rama” as part of the budget reconciliation process allowing Democrats to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 spending plan without any negotiations across the aisle or any votes from the GOP.

New Hampshire Sens. Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen joined their fellow Democrats in voting down the CRT ban.

“Liberals have tried their best to say the controversy is fake, made up, a conspiracy theory, contrary to reality,” the NRSC said.

That’s certainly been the case in New Hampshire, where progressive state Rep. David Meuse (D-Portsmouth) attacked NHJournal for a news report on CRT-based content in classrooms from Manchester to Laconia to Litchfield.

“The partisan hackery of  @NewHampJournal needs to be called out,” Meuse tweeted. “It’s a GOP propaganda machine—not a legitimate news source. What should be called out is veiled racism of those who think teaching kids about racism has no place in NH schools.”

New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman Ray Buckley retweeted the attack.

(The news article in question, which includes links to CRT-based classroom materials and actual images of handouts for elementary school students, can be found here.)

The use of CRT-based content is not in dispute among serious education scholars or mainstream media outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post.

On Thursday, the Times’ Ross Douthat called out Democrats’ hollow claim that Critical Race Theory as an academic premise isn’t being taught in k-12 schools. “Yes, fourth graders in the Commonwealth of Virginia are presumably not being assigned the academic works of Derrick Bell,” he conceded.

But he argues this is no defense of the race-based, anti-White propaganda from CRT proponents like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi that has become common in classrooms.

For example, “the racial-equity reading list sent around in 2019 by one state educational superintendent which recommended both DiAngelo’s ‘White Fragility’ and an academic treatise titled ‘Foundations of Critical Race Theory in Education.’

‘That superintendent was responsible for Virginia’s public schools,” Douthat noted.

A national Rasmussen survey of 1,000 American adults found  57 percent said parents should be concerned about Critical Race Theory in classrooms, and 76 percent said they’re concerned that public schools may be promoting controversial beliefs and attitudes.

Just 27 percent called these concerns “phony” issues.

Hassan’s vote against a ban on funding CRT will almost certainly be used by her GOP opponent in 2022. If that opponent is Gov. Chris Sununu, he’ll be able to point to the anti-CRT language in the state budget.

Based on the reaction of Democrats and their allies in the media, it appears they’re afraid it will work.