On the day after Election Day, it’s traditional for malcontent liberals to claim that they are going to move to Canada. But with President Obama back in the White House, a lesbian and a disabled woman elected to Congress, and gay marriage and marijuana ballot measures passing with nearly Scandinavian levels of sanity, it’s simply hard to muster up the disgust necessary to threaten, even emptily, emigration. This year, I recommend threatening to move to our much nearer neighbor to the north, this taxes-for-none, guns-for-all feminist utopia I know called New Hampshire.
Last night, the Granite State elected a female governor and the first all-female congressional delegation, according to the Boston Globe. Former New Hampshire state senator Maggie Hassan beat out tea-party candidate Ovide Lamontagne to become the only female governor currently in office who is also a pro-choice Democrat. In House races, former representative Carol Shea-Porter and Ann McLane Kuster, both Democrats, won rematches of 2010 races they lost to Republican men. They join New Hampshire’s two female senators, Republican Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, on Capitol Hill, which, I remind myself, is but a step toward gender parity and not a reason to get matching bracelets.
But what, besides democratically elected matriarchy, does the libertarian-streaked swing state (it went for Bush in 2000) have to offer women?
First of all, the state insect is the ladybug. Can’t make this stuff up. It’s the birthplace of the free public library and the alarm clock. State pastimes include foliage-admiring, maple sugaring, skiing, and all-female roller derby. (Call it the Austin, Texas, of the north?) On the downside, it’s also the birthplace of the lottery and home to Dartmouth, the last Ivy League school to admit women; it’s reportedly hostile toward them to this day. And even though you can marry your girlfriend in New Hampshire, the state’s biggest newspaper probably won’t print your wedding announcements.
Maybe let’s just check back in two years?
