What happened to Criag Benson? Why did he lose?

[bluestateguy]

Did he have corruption problems? I never paid any attention to this race, but was of course, pleasantly surprised. I just assumed Benson would win in a walk.

[Redneck Socialist]

1. He alienated the republican good ol' boys that pretty much

run the show around here, so he didn't have much support even among his own party. The Dem, Lynch, is nothing to get excited about. He pretty much just road the anti-Benson sentiment to victory.

Benson was pretty much a libertarian in repubs clothing and he had more than a few shady goings on with some of his underlings.

I a nutshell, nobody at all much liked him.

He won't be missed.

[maxanne]

2. Benson was naughty

His own party hated him - as Redneck Socialist pointed out, he was a Libertarian masquerading as a Republican. He didn't work well with the legislature at all. He appointed a number of "volunteers" to various positions - the volunteers weren't paid by the state, but were frequently paid by Benson's corporate buddies - and all were cronies from his corporate days. There were a number of ethics scandals around the volunteers. Benson steadily refused to even list all the volunteers names. He decided NH needed a CIO, and appointed an unqualified crony to the job - which paid $150,000 a year - the highest paid state employee ever, and one of the highest paid CIO's in the nation - for NH, with a 1.3 million population. The guy did nothing for year, and stepped down just before he was about to be held accountable.

On the personal side - he was the subject of much mirth and levity for driving his Humvee around, till the "Governor Hummer is a Bummer" stickers cropped up on Concord bumpers. He made the state buy a new Tahoe to drive him around in. He was having an extramarital affair (while claiming family values) and was caught in the act - the list goes on and on.

He was arrogant, obnoxious - and did a piss poor job.

Lynch won on the ABB platform - anyone but Benson.