Girard Supporter Disses Victoria Sullivan in Endorsement Statement
Former Asst. Majority Leader Has Far Less Experience than Rich Girard or Joyce Craig — OPINION
MANCHESTER, NH — Rich Girard’s campaign website announced on July 15th that former State Rep. Barbara Hagan is backing him for mayor. In her endorsement spiel, Hagan dissed 2019 mayoral election runner-up Victoria Sullivan, who was defeated in a landslide by incumbent Joyce Craig.
“To be an effective leader, you must be a problem solver…. Rich has demonstrated ‘experience’ and a good work ethic that he learned growing up in Manchester, and while working at Manchester’s City Hall under a former administration. We need someone with ‘experience’ … not another well-intentioned apprentice.”
Rich Girard served as chief of staff to Mayor Ray Wieczorek, until his position was defunded. A five-term mayor who was remains very popular and widely respected, “The Wiz” turned his back on Girard when he endorsed Victoria Sullivan for mayor.
Political Experience
As for Barbara Hagan’s veiled dig at Mayor Joyce Craig as being akin to Victoria Sullivan — a thinly experienced “well-intentioned apprentice” — it simply is not true.
By the time she was elected mayor in 2017, Craig had served three terms on the Board of Mayor and Aldermen from 2010 to 2016 representing Ward 1, and one term as Ward 1’s School Board member from 2008–2010.
Joyce Craig came within 64 votes of unseating the self-styled suzerain of the Queen City Ted Gatsas in 2015. Gatsas lost to Craig by 1,498 votes in their 2017 rematch, while — two years later — Craig trounced Victoria Sullivan by 2,610 votes.
Assistant Majority Leader
Victoria Sullivan has never been elected to a substantive municipal office int the Queen City, though she won in her sole try at Selectman in Ward 9 in 2011. In Manchester, the office of Selectman is a Election Day-only position, where the person helps run the polls and tally the vote.
After her single term as a Selectman, Sullivan served three terms as a State Rep from Ward 9 from 2014–2020.
After being defeated by Joyce Craig in 2019, Sullivan did not stand for reelection to the House. She served as one of the assistant majority leaders in the House in parts of her last two terms.
On her LinkedIn bio, Sullivan claims that she was an assistant minority leader in the New Hampshire House of Representatives for four years and one month (December 2014 through December 2019). In fact, she was not named an assistant majority leader until incoming Speaker Gene Chandler succeeded Shawn Jasper and appointed her to the post in December 2017 along with her fellow conservatives Al Baldassaro and Laurie Sanborn.
Assistant majority leaders in a Republican-led House have little power, unlike the whips. They serve the whims of the Speaker; effectively, they function as the Speaker of the House’s “fart-catchers,” to use the 18th Century British term for a footman or other servant.
According to Oxford Lexico, the term fart-catcher is an “allusion to the closeness with which such a servant was supposed to follow his master or mistress.”
Playing fart-catcher for 13 months up at the Concord Clown College has been the summit of Victoria Sullivan’s achievement in the political realm.
In contrast, former Alderman-at-Large Mike Lopez told this reporter that Joyce Craig started developing her expertise on city budgeting while he was serving as Chairman of the Board of Aldermen.
When Craig moved up from the School Board to the Board of Aldermen, she took an interest in preparing the alderman’s budget that is offered as an alternative to the mayor’s budget.
When Lopez was defeated by Joe Kelly Levasseur in 2011, Craig became the major force in developing the alderman’s budget, under new Board chair Danny O’Neil.
It was the Craig-Long 2015 budget that boosted funding for the police. That same year, on his Girard at Large website, Rich Girard credited Joyce Craig with being the “architect of the past four budgets.”
Far outdistancing his fellow Republican Sullivan, Girard has the practical experience to match Craig.
In addition to serving chief of staff to Ray Wieczorek, in which position he developed the mayor’s budget, Girard served one term as Alderman-at-Large and two terms as School Board Member-at-Large.
Sources say Girard didn’t run for reelection to the School Board in 2019, as he had financial problems. In addition to his job as regional vice president for Primerica, Girard works the “Sunshine Shift” loading trucks at U.P.S.
Girard’s trade union, the Teamsters, endorsed Joyce Craig for mayor.
See Also
Wieczorek Endorsement of Sullivan a Setback for Girard in Mayor Race
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#richgirard #victoriasullivan #joycecraig #tedgatsas #joekellylevasseur #mikelopez #genechandler #mht #manchesternh #manchestermayor #girardformayor #craigformayor
Photos by Jon Hopwood; all rights reserved
