Salem hosts a showcase for GOP hopefuls

Sep. 4—SALEM — It wasn't just a picnic, it was a chance for Republican presidential candidates — a record number of them — to make their pitch to voters on a hot and humid Labor Day afternoon.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Texas congressman Will Hurd and former Cranston, Rhode Island, Mayor Steve Laffey all spoke and mingled with attendees at the Salem Republican Town Committee's annual Labor Day picnic, making brief campaign speeches and hoping to capture interest from voters.

The picnic is a popular tradition among Rockingham County Republicans, held annually for over two decades.

Steven Goddu, the committee's chairman, said having five presidential candidates at the event was a first.

"We've never had this many candidates," said Goddu. "More than double the size that it usually is. Each year we push it and try to make it a little bit better. I saw the opportunity to attract all the candidates that want to come and make an impression on voters, and apparently it worked.

"Rockingham County is probably the most Republican county in all of New Hampshire, so if someone's doing it by the numbers, they should pay attention to this event — at least don't ignore it."

Goddu said his committee hopes to raise more than $10,000 from the picnic, with the funds being used to cover printing costs for postcards and signs supporting Republican candidates running in future elections.

Gov. Chris Sununu, a Salem native, attended and addressed the crowd.

"This place is absolutely packed," said Sununu, who has attended the picnic every year but one, when he was hospitalized. "You've got great presidential candidates here, you've got great state reps here, even school board members here. At the end of the day it's all about winning.

"We are the place people want to be — we are the diamond in the rough, the only state in the entire Northeast growing in population."

Pence addressed the crowd while a man sitting directly in front of him in the first row of picnic tables held up a T-shirt with former President Donald Trump's mugshot and the phrase "Never Surrender."

"I believe we need new leadership in the White House, but I also believe we need new leadership in the Republican Party," Pence said. "I'm running because I truly believe I am the most qualified. If there ever was a time that we needed the people in the First in the Nation state to step up and shape leadership in this party, it's now."

Ramaswamy spoke to attendees about the "American dream."

"I am genuinely worried that the American dream will not exist for my two sons and their generation unless we all do something about it," Ramaswamy said.

"There's a real choice we face in this GOP primary. Do you want incremental reform, or do you want revolution? I stand on the side of an American revolution, stand on the side of a revival of those 1776 ideals, the idea that we the people create a government that is accountable to us."

Hurd told the crowd, "it's easy talkin' to y'all."

"We agree on 75, 80 percent of stuff," Hurd said. "But we've got to take a conservative message to places that haven't heard it in order to win in November."

Hutchinson talked about watching candidates stump in New Hampshire from afar.

"I remember back when I was serving in the Republican Party in Arkansas, Bill Clinton was campaigning here in New Hampshire," Hutchinson said. "He called himself the Comeback Kid and recognized that a lot of things can happen in New Hampshire. I watched it from afar and it is an honor to be here."

Laffey talked about his home state of Rhode Island, calling it a "very corrupt place."

"You have a good governor here, you have a good system here," Laffey said. "The most amount of people in government that go to jail live in Rhode Island."

pfeely@unionleader.com