40 Under 40 list ...

The New Hampshire Union Leader has its 40 Under 40 list out and I wanted to note two significant finds in the list this year [the list actually came out in January and I'm just getting to looking at it this morning].
First, hats off to WASR's Joe Collie who is on the list this year: ["Joe Collie's voice wins accolades for excellence and involvement"]. Joe is a good guy and deserves the honor for all the hard work he has put in over the years in New Hampshire radio.
Second, and a bit more on the critical side, is this one: ["GOP's Kelly Hurst has found life better on this side of the border"]. Oh, I thought when I first read it, an immigrant is acknowledged this year. How cool. Coming to America for a better life ... Well, not quite. You see, Kelly's from Massachusetts:

Kelly Hurst was living in Massachusetts, working for then-Gov. Mitt Romney when that state's Supreme Court deemed that gays and lesbians should be able to marry.

For the conservative Republican, it was a blow to democracy - a far-reaching decision made by judges rather than elected officials. She called then-Gov. Craig Benson in New Hampshire, asked for a job and joined the decades-long exodus of Bay State residents northward.

She can recite the date - March 6, 2004 - when she crossed the border, a decision reinforced every time she's caught in a traffic jam staring ahead at license plates.

"I love the whole Live-Free-or-Die mentality: low taxes, minimum government intrusion, neighborliness," said Hurst, who is 27. "Mostly I love the culture here, the common-sense, no-nonsense Yankee spirit."

Now, I don't know this person. Maybe she is a nice woman. Obviously, to make the list, she has had to have done some good things in her life. And while I mean no disrespect, I find it funny that her first inclination after the gay marriage bill passed was to call another Republican governor out of state and beg for a job. A Massachusetts hack called up begging to become a New Hampshire hack.
Why was she immediately looking for a safe passage, potentially taking the job away from a qualified, possibly less-connected New Hampshire resident? Is that the "conservative" thing to do? Why was her first instinct to go looking for a handout in another state instead of shakin' it in the dreaded private sector? A true conservative would not have relied on the state for employment but instead, gone out on their own to find their own way. You know, that "Yankee spirit" ... to pull yourself up by your bootstraps ... or, in this case, pull yourself up by your bootstraps with a politically-connected state job! Wasn't then-Gov. Benson supposed to clean up this kind of corruption?
To be honest though, we know why she didn't even bother to look for private sector work ... there is little to no work here which is why so many of us who aren't politically-connected have to drive to Massachusetts in order to survive!