Ovide Lamontagne hints at a run for governor of New Hampshire

  Ovide Lamontagne first gained a statewide name during the last election when he ran as a little known dark horse candidate for the vacant New Hampshire Senate seat against Kelly Ayotte. He had very little money in addition to little name recognition, but his conservative message resonated with the people of New Hampshire–and within the Tea Party–and in the last week leading up to the primary Ovide Lamontagne made a serious push and came within 1,500 votes of defeating the well funded Republican “establishment” candidate, Kelly Ayotte. Kelly Ayotte went on the trounce the Democrat–Paul Hodes–and has done a wonderful job since winning the senate seat, but it was in defeat when Ovide Lamontagne showed the people of New Hampshire the type of standup guy he was.

  The margin of defeat was so close that most candidates would have asked for a recount and would have been justified in doing so, but Ovide Lamontagne–in an effort to unite the party–declared that he would accept the verdict of the people and would fully support Kelly Ayotte for United States Senate, going so far as to show up in his moment of defeat at Kelly Ayotte’s victory party.

I believe that in our American republic, the people are the sovereign. That means the people are the king, and we are their subjects” Lamontagne said. “Well, the people of Hew Hampshire have spoken and they have ruled. While I’m disappointed with the result, I humbly accept their verdict

  This is when I knew that I had supported a great candidate that most people hadn’t heard of and this is the moment that I decided I would support Ovide Lamontagne moving forward in whatever he decided to do. Since his defeat Ovide Lamontagne has remained politically active in the state and has set up a PAC to push his conservative agenda forward, and will be hosting several events with GOP presidential hopefulls.

  But since his quick rise in the New Hampshire Republican party there has been a lingering question; would Ovide Lamontagne make a run for governor? A grassroots effort quickly began to draft Ovide to run for governor but he remained non-committal stating that he would have to have the approval of his family and stated that he was focused on the presidential primary and defeating Barack Obama.

  But with this story today it appears as if Ovide Lamontagne will shortly announce that he will indeed run for governor of New Hampshire.

I said it at the end of April… God willing and Betty (his wife) approving, I hope to be part of the conversation. I can tell you tonight, Betty approves

  Here is some of what he had to say:

During his talk, Lamontagne spoke often about the need for strong leadership and big changes at the state level as well as in Washington.

“It is about time we have leaders who say we are ready to wean ourselves off of the federal dependency, which we’ve allowed to happen,” Lamontagne said.

He said there is no room for the federal government in education and health care policies for individual states.

“The principle of subsidiary says we should let the government closest to the delivery site, closest to the people, handle those issues. We should not centralize but decentralize, it is what the reformation is all about, getting power from Washington to the states and to the people,” he said.

   He also stated that he would be running on his ideas and not simply running against another candidate:

Lamontagne said if he runs, it will not be “against” any candidate.

“You run for office because of what you think you can do… if you are not willing to run and lose, you are not running for the right reason,”

Lamontagne said. “There will be clear choices, so I think we need to not focus on Gov. Lynch, but on what we can do.”

   This is not surprising to me because this is exactly how he ran in the senate race; he never once went negative against the more well funded candidates; he didn’t run against another candidate, he ran on his positions and tried to show why he held the proper positions, and why he was the right person for the job instead of pointing out why the other person was the wrong person for the job.

  If he runs for governor–and I think all the indicators tell us he will–he will run on his positions and he will explain to the people of New Hampshire why his positions are good for the state, instead of trying to convince the people of New Hampshire why John Lynch is bad for the state. The people of New Hampshire will have a clear choice next November and I honestly feel that Ovide Lamontagne is finally the right candidate who can unseat Governor John Lynch.

  If Ovide Lamontagne runs for governor he can already count on my vote.