The Wild Reed: Campaigning for Marianne Williamson in New Hampshire

Sunday, January 21, 2024

Campaigning for Marianne Williamson in New Hampshire – Day 2

My friend Kate and I are in New Hampshire, campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson (pictured with us last night at right).

It was our second day in the Granite State and we started it by placing “Marianne Williamson for President” yard signs by major roadways and at busy intersections in both Nashua and Salem, NH (above and below).

Later we attended a talk and Q&A session by Marianne at Soel Sistas, a catering and meal prep service in Nashua, NH that is all about “simply offering edible love.”

Joining Marianne at this event was Rep. Jonah Wheeler, a Democrat who serves Hillsborough County District 33, which encompasses Peterborough and Sharon, NH. Jonah assumed office in December of 2022. He was just 19-years-old when he was sworn in, making him one of the youngest state legislators in the United States.

A month ago, on December 20, 2023, Jonah endorsed Marianne in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Then on January 6, 2024, he was selected as a New Hampshire’s 2nd congressional district primary delegate for the Marianne Williamson 2024 presidential campaign. Since then, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), taking its lead from President Biden, has declared the New Hampshire Primary “meaningless” and stripped the state of its delegates.

In a recent piece in the Portsmouth Herald, New Hampshire resident David Fines said the following about what many are calling an undemocratic move on the part of the Democratic party establishment.

The New Hampshire Primary is important this year because we as Democrats have vilified the Republicans for being sleazy and corrupt, but then [Joe Biden] the candidate running on saving the soul of America, saving democracy, got involved in rigging the primaries. . . . [I]t’s a state law that we have to set [our] primary to be the first. The DNC put pressure on us to no longer be first. We waited for South Carolina to set theirs, and we set ours before that primary. The DNC was pissed off and said New Hampshire will have no delegates at the convention. America needs to know we can’t be throwing stones at the GOP when we (the Democrats) are doing the same thing.

On commenting on the shenanigans of the DNC in a January 21 Fox News Sunday piece, Marianne Williamson said, “Shame on [the DNC]. You don’t protect democracy by suppressing democracy.”

This evening Kate and I attended a second event featuring both Marianne Williamson and Rep. Jonah Wheeler. This one was at the library in Peterborough, NH.

At one point in her remarks, Marianne said the following.

Since the moment our nation was founded, there has been duality; there was a great darkness within the light. Here were 56 people signing the Bill of Rights and writing the Constitution, and 41 of them owned other human beings. There have always been, in every generation, people who have intention of following the ideals of democracy. Today it is our turn to fight for our democratic principles. Corporate profits now supersede the rights of American people, and those corporations own Washington. The only way to change it is to wage a political revolution at the ballot box.

Following is an excerpt from Michaela Towfighi’s January 20 Concord Monitor article, “Without Biden in New Hampshire, Williamson and Phillips Make Final Push.”

Lucille Ketchum had never heard of Marianne Williamson. But as a registered Democrat looking for an alternative to President Joe Biden, she may have found her candidate at the Puritan Backroom in Manchester while having lunch with her husband on Friday afternoon.

It’s the chance encounter, and the type of one-on-one conversation between voter and candidate that’s at the core of the New Hampshire presidential primary. When Williamson took a seat next to Ketchum, 82, she had her ear.

William’s pitch is straightforward and doesn’t involve other Democrats who may or may not be on the state’s primary – she is running to beat former President Donald Trump, she said. So is Dean Phillips, a U.S. Congressman from Minnesota, who has self-funded millions to support his campaign for the Democratic nomination, which he launched in October.

“I don’t come here with animus towards Joe Biden,” Phillips said to a packed house at the Brother’s Cortado coffee shop in Concord on Friday. “I do come here with animus towards Donald Trump.”

Ahead of primary voting Tuesday, Williamson and Phillips made their final pitch to voters across the Granite State. As the primary parade descended on the state this weekend, Biden remained nowhere to be found.

Biden will not appear on Tuesday’s ballot, after a year-long standoff with state and party leaders over the primary order. By DNC orders, South Carolina, which Biden won in 2020, will hold the first party-sanctioned primary next month. And while some Democrats are encouraging voters to participate in a grassroots write-in campaign to make sure the president still wins New Hampshire, Ketchum, who is a lifelong Democrat and voted for Biden previously, said she would not write in his name.

“I want to know more,” Ketchum said about Williamson. “It’s time for new blood.”

. . . Still, Biden’s the first name that comes to mind for longtime voters like Valerie Hardy, 76, a lifelong Democrat from Litchfield. After working on Democratic campaigns for three decades – and never missing an election day while doing so – there’s no hesitation when she said she will write in Biden’s name on Tuesday.

But as Williamson went table to table in Manchester on Friday afternoon, it reminded Hardy of her favorite part of living in the state during an election cycle. At a table across the restaurant, she’d met Caroline Kennedy. Long before Barack Obama was the Democratic nominee and became president, she met him and Michelle Obama at a New Hampshire house party.

Williamson, a popular author who was once the “spiritual advisor” to Oprah Winfrey, handed out flyers and asked restaurant-goers to visit her weekend events. She may have convinced Hardy’s husband, Tim, 74, to consider an alternative.

After Biden decided to skip New Hampshire, it’s harder for Tim Hardy to consider a vote for him. Instead, he wishes Biden would pass the torch to someone younger – like California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Beto O’Rourke from Texas.

“I think Biden could have said no,” he said.

Even if they are unsuccessful on Tuesday, Williamson and Phillips have engaged with voters about the future of the Democratic Party.