Original article published on WMUR by Siobhan Lopez (wmur.com) available here
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Four presidential candidates took the stage in Manchester on Sunday to talk about how they would reach across the aisle.
The four candidates – Democrats John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard and Marianne Williamson, and Republican Bill Weld – spoke at the No Labels Problem Solver Convention, an event aimed at bipartisan politics.
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According to the secretary of state’s office, about 42 percent voters in New Hampshire are currently registered as undeclared.
“You are the new silent majority of American voters who can determine the future of our country,” former U.S. Sen Joe Lieberman, No Labels’ national leader, told attendees.
Sunday’s convention drew hundreds to the DoubleTree in downtown Manchester.
“When I think of the center, I think of someone who is economically responsible, a fiscal conservative but socially totally open and supportive of everybody, and that’s the duty of the president of the United States,” Weld said
Gabbard discussed her bipartisan efforts in Congress.
“I passed the very first bill that I introduced into law, the Helping Heroes Fly Act, within my first year in office — a bill that serves severely wounded warriors and veterans,” she said.
If elected, Delaney pledged to put forth several big ideas on issues ranging from climate change to immigration in the first 100 days.
“Every one of these proposals will be based on an existing bipartisan bill in the Congress of the United States,” he said. “I won’t change a word of them, because I want to look at the American people and say, ‘Your good-minded representatives, Democrats and Republicans, have found common ground.’”
Williamson said the division in the country is not left and right.
“The real opponent of our democracy is not conservative and it is not liberal. It is an authoritarian corporatism, which has corrupted the United States government and has turned our government into little more than a handmaiden to huge multinational corporate forces,” she said.
Organizers held a straw poll and announced the top four vote-getters. Weld placed fourth, Delaney third, Gabbard second, and Pete Buttigieg, who was not in attendance, placed first.
