Granted, Nadeau got killed almost everywhere, but is it a coincidence that he didn't include two of the biggest cities in District 1: Portsmouth(a Democratic stronghold) and Manchester(an up and coming Democratic stronghold) on his tour? I don't think so.

It's been several months since the President rolled out the basic framework of his Social Security plan, and Jeb Bradley has yet to come up with a coherent position.

Evidently, Rep. Bradley believes that political analysis is an acceptable substitute for an honest answer. Simply stating that the Bush plan hasn't made political headway is a task for the Sunday morning pundits. We want to know whether or not Mr. Bradley will vote for this misguided scheme.

This habit of dodging the question isn't cute, and it isn't clever. It's insulting to the people of the First District.

Hey Syd,

I wanted to make it to his town hall on my home turf, Merrimack, but it happened under my nose so I wanted to make up for it by going to Londonderry.

As expected, the big topic was social security, but he provided the Pros and Cons on what he called the "Three Options"
1.Reducing benefits/raising retirement ages
2.Raising taxes/restructuring payment structure
3.Increasing revenue into the fund

3, by the way was privatization, and he and asked the crowd of 25 to 30 whether they thought privatization was a good idea or a bad idea, and 8 or 9 people immediately yelled out "bad idea!" while one guy reacted to that outpour and tried to defend the idea, which nobody really listened to.

Bradley was quick to say several times that "Bush's privatization plan hasn't really made any headway" and that "all three options have pros and cons." I suppose he got the message from Bass'es visits.

And there were other topics...
-Truck weight limits on Rtes. 93 and 89(bad apparently, because then frieght trucks go through the middle of towns)
-Alternative energy/energy conservation(he liked this, but he didn't like ethanol because he thought it'd still cost too much, and he told us how he had just bought a hybrid car. No talk about ANWR though)
-The Federal Deficit(he tried to bring 9/11 into it saying that the deficits really got bad because of that and that Bush should be applauded for getting the deficit down from 500 billion to 411 billion dollars, despite the woman in the crowd's concern)
-Veteran's Issues(the people in the crowd basically said the past 20 years sucked, especially under Clinton, and Bradley wanted to get rid of the loophole that didn't give disability benefits AND retirement benefits to veterans if they were eligible for both)
-The Portsmouth Shipyard(how the NH, Maine and parts of the Mass Congressional Delegation, including Senator Kennedy were fighting for it)
-The cost of road maintence in winters
-Deportation of Foriegn Nationals, and especially the case of one Syrian who had to go back to Syria and was tortured when he got there.