I was glued to my television all day for President Trump’s second inaugural, from the time his motorcade left Blair House for the morning prayer service to the time he attended the last ball.  I adore the peaceful transfer of power and was happy to have it back. The body language of the day was remarkable.  And sometimes body language is all we get.  Sometimes it is subtle – President Biden and Vice President Harris both with their legs crossed in the direction pointing away from President Trump as he spoke.  Sometimes it is fascinating – President Clinton’s expression as he marveled, almost as if he was watching a sociology experiment, at the things Trump was saying and the crowd’s reaction.  Sometimes it is obvious – Secretary Clinton’s disdainful laughs and headshaking.  But every time, body language is telling – Vice President Vance, Speaker Johnson, and Leader Scalise figuratively looking for a place to hide while President Trump rambled to the crowd in the overflow room after the address. Unlike Vance, Johnson, and Scalise, I’m comfortable saying publicly that I’m a Republican who strongly dislikes Donald Trump.  But I’m rooting hard for him because as President George H.W. Bush so graciously wrote to the man who defeated him, President Clinton, “Your success now is our country’s success.  I am rooting hard for you.”  It’s hard to root for someone you find to be a small man, one with a bent toward autocracy, a too-casual understanding of the intricacies of policy, and an utter lack of appropriateness.  But here we are again and so I’ll try. Many of President Trump’s supporters have spoken about their genuine belief that God spared him for a reason.  Many insiders have spoken about finding him to be a changed man, for the better.  I genuinely hope both are the case, because I passionately believe in both divine intervention and redemption.  America’s march toward a more perfect union relies on them.  And all of us as flawed human beings rely on them. Seldom in life does the universe offer such an immediate and clear opportunity to make amends.  President Trump, by gift of fate and our electorate, has been given just that chance. Not a mandate - after all 50.2% of voters picked someone else - but rather an opportunity.  But one must decide what to do with an opportunity when it’s presented.  The President can choose to lead, unite, make good on useful promises around the costs of living and security, bypass any action on the things that keep our Democrat friends up at night, and show the history books that man can find his better angels.  Or he can divide, provoke, retaliate, govern without the requisite understanding of underlying policy or respect for institutions, and show history that a leopard is incapable of changing its spots.  Make no mistake, history, as it always does, will judge, even if some fellow Republicans refuse to. A very large part of the presidency is ceremonial.  It represents who we are.  It can inspire and elevate. Think of what it would have meant for a divided nation, if after taking the oath of office for the second time, President Trump could have found the grace, humanity, humility, and patriotism to thank President Biden for being there, apologize to him for not extending the same courtesy four years earlier, and lay out his vision without eviscerating his predecessor’s service.  It would have said country before person, past behind us, onward.  Yes, I know.  I’m naive.  But President Trump is small. Instead of inspiring, the President spent inauguration day setting a tone that frustrates many of us Republicans and scares many of our Democrat friends.  He continued to speak of a stolen election.  He had the temerity to call those who attacked our Capitol on January 6, hostages, while quite literally standing in front of a former hostage of Hamas and family members of others still in captivity in Gaza.  He mused on using his power to effectively extort a 50% ownership stake from Tiktok.  He mistook one of our NATO allies, Spain, for a BRICS nation and threatened to slap them with a 100% tariff.  And then as he so often does when speaking arrogantly out of the wrong end of his body said, “Do you know what a BRICS nation is? You’ll figure it out.”  Yes sir, I’m sure I’ll figure out that whole ingesting bleach thing too.  He then threw chum to the base, declaring two sexes and mandating all federal employees return to the office (a move that may actually cost taxpayers money).  And then before donning a tux and cutting cake, the leader of the party of law and order, pardoned the January 6th insurrectionists. History has given you a second chance, Mr. President...please be careful what you do with it.

There are three places on this Earth where I do my best thinking, well two on Earth and one above it.   The first is walking a beach…any beach. It makes me feel small in a good way, like no problem is insurmountable.  But even if it was, who cares. I’m small. The problem is small. The universe is immense, and it doesn’t need me or my solutions.   The second, and forgive me if this is too much information, is in the shower. Hot water is a blessing, and I quite literally thank God for it each time I get under it, for I know how many people on this planet have not the luxury of it. Writers block…shower. Long day…shower. Chilled to the bone…shower. Lost or listless…shower.   And the third place, well that is high above the earth in an airplane, losing myself in thought while staring out over the endless cloudscapes. The shapes, the textures, the peaks and valleys, the swirls, the possibilities.  Again, small in a good way.   But the cloudscape has died. No this isn’t a reflection on climate change; it’s one on human behavior. I write today as I sit on a plane, a three-hour flight with a first class upgrade. Five rows in the cabin and all the shades pulled down when we boarded and left down throughout the flight save one.  Nineteen people lost in screens…movies, podcasts, work. And one, me, staring out at the clouds but unable to think of anything other than the fact that nineteen people probably want me to close my shade. I take solace in the fact that when I fly during the day now, I purposely choose the side of the plane opposite the sun and its intrusive glare. But still, the guilt.   There’s another article in here somewhere, I suppose, on Catholic guilt and how I am wired, perhaps too tightly. But that’s for another day. Do I take the window seat and risk upsetting someone by leaving the shade up or getting up to use the lavatory? Or should I just take the aisle, stare at a screen like everyone else, so as never to disturb anyone? The thought of claustrophobia usually prevails, and I chance the window seat and an open shade.   We are immeasurably better off from the efficiency our devices bring us, but we are the poorer for them.  We are immeasurably more productive, but we are perhaps less interesting for it.   I’m not by nature the most artistic or imaginative person. I’m a spreadsheet geek, but under the right conditions a sliver of hopeless romanticism about the world can come out of me.  And at 33,000 feet, well there I have imagination. I’m childlike in my thought that those clouds below could somehow act as the greatest of trampolines. I’m an explorer wondering what is at the edge of that horizon. I’m a lyricist musing about the many paths my life’s journey could have taken, could still take, and I’m a prayerful soul hoping I choose the right one.   Final approach…3B starts talking on his cellphone that should be in airplane mode. 7D applies perfume that we all now wear.   The wheels touch down, the familiar bounce, the harshness of the deceleration. The complimentary bottled water slides forward on the armrest tray. Shades still down, the airline industry no longer caring whether we can see outside the fuselage if, God forbid, it all goes wrong. Back on terra firma, I am once again a spreadsheet geek, a policy wonk, no longer a dreamer.   But I wish we all could go back to raising the shades, staring out windows, dreaming, thinking, romanticizing, and feeling small in the good way. We could use it.

Why am I running for United States Congress?  That’s a good question, particularly given how the last few weeks have gone.  I’ve been told by a ranking GOP chair that my candidacy is a joke and I have zero chance of winning.  Ouch.  I have been told by a trusted advisor in my professional career that he just placed someone with half of my abilities as a Chief Financial Officer into a position earning $900,000 a year, and he’d like to place me.  Wow.  But yet I still want to go into public life…passionately so.   My party would like me to open by slamming Vice President Kamala Harris or Congressman Chris Pappas and certainly not show them the courtesy of using their official titles.  They would like me to throw around tropes like DEI-hire and get the word liberal in there as often as possible.  They would like me to conjure boogeymen and spew demagoguery.  But that isn’t me, isn’t worthy of civil discourse, and isn’t respectful of Granite State voters.   The answer begins with how sick I am of yelling at my TV (at partisans on both sides) and ends with how fervently I still believe, as Ronald Reagan did, that the United States is that “shining city on a hill”.  Not was, is.   But we are on dangerous ground.  Moderate politicians have been sent home.  The aisle between left and right that was held passable by moderates has now become a canyon, impassable.  Viewpoints have become more extreme.  We face a future not where compromise is possible, but where we simply have extreme conservative policy for 2, 4, or 8 years followed by extreme liberal policy when the majority changes.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, after all.  But that’s not progress.  It’s stagnation.  It’s unpredictability.  And it’s a true danger to civil society.   I’m a moderate Republican running in the most purple of districts in the most purple of states. Our electorate is 30% Republican, 30% Democrat, and 40% Undeclared.  Yet in the last three cycles, the Republican candidate for Congress in first district has never exceeded 46% of the vote, sending Chris Pappas to Washington each time.  We Republicans can do that for a fourth time if we would like by choosing a candidate on September 10th that is too conservative to be elected in the general election.  Or, we can respect our electorate, be smart, and choose a person like me whose firmly held conservative views on the economy, the border, national defense, and crime speak to the overwhelming majority of the electorate while my moderate views on social issues don’t scare the bejesus out of the rest.  We can choose fighting inflation and closing borders over telling a woman what to do with her own body.  We can choose national defense and energy independence over telling a doctor and parents how to treat minor children.   Senator JD Vance recently said he prays for and has sympathy for me as a childless person.  Thanks JD.  But this is the kind of unnecessary distraction that loses Republicans elections.  If we want to win in November, or ever, we need to start focusing on ending inflation, closing borders, and shutting the heck up about the culture wars.  Government doesn’t exist to legislate moral or religious beliefs.  It exists to keep us safe in our persons and property, and then to get out of the way to let us live our lives.   I’m running to give voice to the 80% of us that aren’t on the extremes. I’m running because I believe that good government is small government, leaving that which doesn’t belong under the purview of government to kitchen tables, houses of worship, and doctors’ offices. I’m running because I believe New Hampshire gets that balance right and Washington doesn’t.   Moderates are the kid in the schoolyard that breaks up the fight.  Moderates are the kid that picks someone for his team that isn’t the best athlete remaining, because inclusion and how that other kid feels about himself are more important than winning.  Moderates are the grownup that reaches out a hand without asking for a pledge of loyalty.  I am a moderate.   There is no greater threat to American elections, not even AI or malign state actors, than the primary process of nominating people with the most extreme views (firmly held or conveniently adopted recently) to represent their respective party in the general election.  It leads to a disinterested general electorate and bad government, government of partisan investigations and shouting over one another.  It fills the halls and the airwaves with those whose rhetoric has real and dangerous consequences.  “A Republic if you can keep it,” said Benjamin Franklin.  I’m running because I desperately want to keep it.

As we begin to live through the presidential rematch that pits a man who lacks the capacity against a man who lacks the character, I have spent much time thinking about the proper role of government.   A casual observer of late would think our federal government’s main roles are fundraising, partisan investigations, taxpayer-funded hearings that degenerate into childish name calling, and politicians racing to microphones to contort themselves in support of the indefensible.  But I am certain none of that is governing.   Our government was founded by flawed men, to be sure.  But unlike most of our leaders today, our key founders were intellectually curious and voracious readers.  They studied the past and thought critically about the future.  They understood human nature and tried to build a system that could withstand it.  They learned from philosophers like John Locke that free people only consent to be governed because they want to be kept safe in their persons and property.  That is the only reason.  If all people and nations were virtuous, we would not need government.  But they are not and so we consent to be governed with the expectation that government will keep us safe.   Two inherent corollaries follow from our consent.  The first is that we are consenting only to the smallest government possible to effectively fulfill its responsibility.  That does not necessarily mean small government, but it does mean the smallest possible.  The second is that we agree to cede some of our own personal freedoms so that our fellow citizens can feel safe as well.  That is the deal, and it has to be.  Otherwise, we have either ceded too much personal liberty or not enough to make this experiment work.   It goes without saying, then, that the purview of government must include strong national defense, secure borders, international diplomacy, the rule of law, and proper infrastructure for safe travel and free commerce.  And for the good of its citizenry and for its ability to levy appropriate taxes without undue burden, government should foster an environment conducive to the most robust economy possible.   But these cannot be the only functions of government.  Protecting us in our persons must also mean ensuring that water is safe to drink, air is safe to breathe, soil is safe enough to grow healthy food, medicines are safe, and we have access to healthcare.  Protecting us in our property must mean keeping our homes safe from severe weather events and our data safe from scammers.   Our government does not exist, though, to impose one person’s moral or religious beliefs on another.  In fact, our system is designed to separate civil and religious law.  There are countries on earth that do legislate a strict religious code.  But that is not who we are.  It is not freedom.  And their citizens are not consenting to be governed; they are coerced.   Who you love, so long as it is another consenting adult, does not impact the safety of anyone else’s person or property.  How you identify does not impact the safety of anyone else’s person or property.  Having an abortion before viability or ending your life with dignity does not impact the safety of anyone else’s person or property.  I am not saying these things are not important; they are.  I am not saying I do not have an opinion; I do.  I am saying these discussions belong at kitchen tables, in doctor’s offices, and in houses of worship.  They do not belong in the halls of government, neither federal nor state.   We as citizens need to do a better job of deciding what does and does not belong under the purview of government, if not for noble reasons, then because we understand that if we dictate, we can be dictated to.  Not all beliefs need to be legislated, no matter how inflamed our passions become.  And both parties overstep.  With dozens of armed conflicts around the globe, $35 trillion in debt, lingering inflation, a porous border, and more than one mass shooting per day, perhaps we can prioritize what we will and will not let consume our attention.   Most of us will plug our noses this November as we vote for a candidate for president, and then we will cling dearly to hope for 2028.  In a country of 336 million people, we can and will find better.  All will be flawed because they are human.  But let us find some flawed men and women that are intellectually curious, students of history, respect our institutions, understand the true role of government, inspire instead of frighten, appeal to our better angels not our base instincts, eschew partisan fealty in favor of fairly calling balls and strikes, and would neither give away the bank nor risk burning everything down just to win.