Lamontagne Ready to Move NH Forward

In Ovide Lamontagne's final stop on his Seacoast swing Wednesday, he told Portsmouth Republicans he is running on a "pro-business, prosperity agenda" that will create create jobs by supporting New Hampshire businesses.

That statement and many others that echoed Lamontagne's conservative values drew hearty cheers from Portsmouth Republican Committee members during their monthly meeting at the Rusty Hammer.

Above all else, Lamontagne said "New Hampshire needs a governor who wants to be a leader for a change."

If elected governor, Lamontagne said he would push for a return to New Hampshire values like giving communities local control, reducing the size of the education system's bureaucracy so there would not be as many superintendents and reducing the size of state government with a zero-based budget approach.

"New Hampshire needs to be the best place to run a business, the best place to raise a family and the best place to live free or die," Lamontagne said.

Some of the changes Lamontagne said he would make as governor would be to create a statewide economic development office that would promote the state's business climate. He said it is amazing to him that New Hampshire does not have such an agency and the one that it does have, the Department of Resources and Economic Development, has the acronym that spells "DRED."

"We need to be smart about what we are doing in New Hampshire as far as branding our state," he said.

One way to unleash businesses in New Hampshire is to push for less rules and regulation through deregulation and to push back against Washington mandates like the Affordable Care Act, Lamontagne said.

Lamontagne said the culture of the executive branch has to become one that is more about "sales and service" and state agencies have to want to work with businesses as clients to help them grow.

"We need to bring about the end of the era of the king of the dump," Lamontagne said. "Our state employees want to serve."

He also said the state should join the Seacoast cities and towns who are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over mandates to improve their water and sewer treatment facilities to meet new federal standards that will cost millions of dollars.

As far as Obamacare is concerned, Lamontagne said the state could craft a better solution that would expand coverage to the state's citizens and lower costs without being told by Washington what to do. "I'm going to resist every step of the way to Washington's attempt to take over our healthcare," he said.

Lamontagne even resurrected a slogan used by former New Hampshire Gov. Meldrim Thompson in the 1970s of "people above politics." Lamontagne said as governor, he would work to make that happen.

Earlier in the day, Lamontagne participated in two business roundtables in Newington and Barrington where he talked about his plan to create more jobs in New Hampshire. He also told Portsmouth Republicans that as of mid-June, his campaign has raised more than $900,000, which is $300,000 more that what John Stephen raised at that time in 2010 when he mounted his unsuccessful bid against Gov. John Lynch.