The Concord Monitor's Strange Silence on County Commissioner Race

First, I’d like to thank my supporters who voted in the primary election, even though the final results of the Merrimack County commissioner race were personally disappointing. I also thank my constituents in Concord’s South End who elected me to three terms in the House of Representatives. It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve.

Whether we vote, and who we vote for, does matter. So does election coverage. On Monday the Concord Monitor wrote an editorial about voter apathy, bemoaning the 19 percent turnout in the primary. The editors might look in the mirror to see another factor for low turnout.

In their editorial they compare the gubernatorial race between Maggie Hassan and Walt Havenstein as “picking between two shades of beige.” Implying that there are little or no differences between candidates (even when such differences are obviously there) is likely to increase voter apathy, not decrease it.

For the primary the Monitor chose not to write one word about the county commissioner race, despite it being the only other contested race on the Democratic ballot aside from the state senate race. Not covering a race is another way to build voter apathy. (At least Patch had an article in June about the race.)

Three commissioners oversee Merrimack County and its $80 million budget. This race pitted myself—who the Monitor once dubbed “Watrous the Watchdog” because of my advocacy of governmental ethics—and a candidate who happens to be the mayor’s wife and who in 2012 resigned from her last public office, Commissioner of Employment Security, during a scandal involving, in the words of then Governor John Lynch, “nepotism, conflict of interest, and misuse of employment security funds.”

You’d think your local newspaper would write something about this interesting match-up. The Monitor published a 2-page primary overview this summer without mentioning this race. I called the editor to point out the omission and he said they might get to it and suggested I write something. Yet when I wrote an issue-oriented column about the race, the Monitor refused to publish it. At the polls on primary day a reporter told me she wanted to cover the race but the editors forbade her.

Also at the primary day polls you had the unusual photo op of the mayor and some of the city councilors campaigning for the mayor’s wife. (If she wins in November we’ll have the strange situation of a county commissioner managing a county where the largest city has her husband for its mayor.) Thanks to the Monitor’s total lack of coverage and different last names, some voters didn’t even realize the history or family connection of who they were voting for.

Maybe the vote would have turned out the same way if our local newspaper had provided some coverage of the race. But we’ll never know.

Voters need information to know and care about an election. For this race the Concord Monitor deliberately kept their readers in the dark.