New Hampshire: Wicked Awesome or Wicked Weird?

Recently ranked by CNBC as “America’s Best State to Live in 2012,” the Granite State has a lot going for it—low crime rates, relatively healthy people, and some of the coolest recreation and sightseeing spots in the country. Moreover, New Hampshire is one of five states in the Union not to have a general sales tax and the only state with a motto fashionable enough to be transformed into a popular Twitter hashtag: #LFOD. Besides the occasional complaint from angsty teens that the 603 is boring as hell or the Freshman Dean’s Office’s snide suggestion to go visit “a long-neglected great aunt in New Hampshire” during Thanksgiving Break, New Hampshire seems like a wicked awesome place, right?
Wicked awesome? Maybe. But just as facts alone can never tell the whole story, the dry statistics that constitute CNBC’s rankings cannot even begin to describe the realities of day-to-day life in the Granite State. And while #LFOD continues to capitalize off the success of the #YOLO fad, most Americans remain unaware of the fact that to many New Hampshirites, their state motto is nothing to joke about. My experiences in this state, along with the stories of many others, have made it increasingly clear to me: Awesome or not, the Granite State is wicked weird.
Surrounded by three solidly Democratic states and a province that may be considered even too left-wing for Canada, New Hampshire remains unique in that its current State Legislature is more Republican than that of Texas. The fact alone that the Granite State has a more conservative reputation does not make it strange, but considering it has been shaped by similar political forces as have been its more liberal neighbors, it is odd that New Hampshire has remained a purple toss-up state amidst a sea of blue. Forget the hanging chads in Florida; had New Hampshire gone for Gore, Bush would not have emerged victorious in 2000. It seems these days New Hampshire’s voting pattern is more in sync with that of the Virginias and Carolinas than it is with that of New England. Perhaps it’s not surprising to find that Franklin Pierce, the only U.S. President from New Hampshire, was known for having southern sympathies.
However, while New Hampshire may have some southern political tendencies, it is hardly in lockstep with Dixie. Given that the Granite State is consistently ranked as one of the most irreligious and most secular states in the union, it is clear that the kind of conservatism that broods here is hardly “Christian.” It is, rather, libertarian. New Hampshire is similar to the South in that it fears taxes more than guns, but unlike in the South, the average Granite Stater is not God-fearing. Maybe my junior year English teacher was right when she said that “New Hampshire is sort of like Texas” —that is, without the Bible Belt.
The more one explores of New Hampshire, the more contradictions one may find. For example, although being one the few progressive states in the Union to have legalized same-sex marriage, New Hampshire oddly cannot seem to shake off the backwoods stereotype. (The student parking lot at my high school may have been home to two or three flatbed trucks fashioning the Confederate flag throughout the year.) But perhaps that is New Hampshire’s greatest asset: its political diversity despite  a relatively homogenous population.
Fiery conservatives and newly-arrived Free Staters often shift the state to the right, while Massachusetts liberals, having moved here to escape the high cost-of-living below the southern border, pull the state to the center. New Hampshire’s aging population often makes raising taxes a Herculean task in many communities, whereas the vibrant student populations on college campuses help keep the political scene fresh. And of course, there are those classic New Hampshire moderates, best embodied by the most popular governor in the state’s history, Democrat John Lynch. (He managed to get reelected for a fourth-term despite the Tea Party fervor of 2010.)
Now before I wrap up this quaint introduction to all that is New Hampshire, I must explain why I’m taking the time to write all of this. Why should you give a damn about New Hampshire?
Besides the fact that the Granite State may very well be pivotal to the final outcome of the upcoming Presidential election, there is something about New Hampshire that is also quintessential to the American experience. Pardon my sappiness, but there is something about this live-free-or-die conservatism that rings uniquely on this continent. This curious libertarianism can be found in numerous pockets throughout this strange but awesome country. As Gram Slattery of the HPR writes in “Welcome to Nowhere, USA,” especially in rural northern New Hampshire, “distrust of government is a societal dogma” and “regulation has become poison.” In a time when distrust of government in America has reached new highs, New Hampshire provides a great lens into understanding the origins and developmental effects of such attitudes.
Moreover, the ridiculous number of state representatives in the General Court truly makes New Hampshire an experiment in hyper-democracy. Given a stipend of a hundred dollars a year, the Granite State’s representatives are an eclectic bunch, ranging in age from early twenties to mid-nineties. When it’s a matter of going door-to-door trying to get your neighbors to vote for you, local elections are more about personal prejudices rather than good public policy. New Hampshire’s state reps are anything but refined, and pardon the generalization, they’re often very weird. These past few years have convinced me that over-democratization is indeed a very real problem in this neck of the woods. What is said in New Hampshire’s 424-member General Court is far more entertaining than anything that goes on in Congress, and that’s saying something.
Stay tuned for stories about living free or dying, Granite-style.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons