Bruce MacMahon for State Representative
Rockingham District 10 - Brentwood
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Help
me work to keep New Hampshire prosperous and free by bringing back common
sense ideas and solutions that work in the best interest of The People. |
About Bruce (click here to return to the Home Page)
“Please allow me to introduce myself…” I am a 43 year-old
father to two beautiful daughters, Anna and Tess, and husband to Muriel, my wife
of eleven years. We moved up from Boston, into our house on Lyford Lane in
December of 2006. The following year, I started MacMahon Renovation Solutions, LLC,
a small remodeling business focusing on kitchen makeovers and renovations. Business was good for a
while. But with the recent downturn in the economy, it hasn’t exactly come as
a surprise to find that people have started to revise their household
spending priorities and cut back on such expenditures (now, if we can just
get our state government to adopt the same attitude). Last year, I began to
chart a new career path and started the process of obtaining my state
teaching certification for high school and middle school math. It’s a tough
job market out there, so I remain self-employed and am also managing some
rental property in Manchester, New Hampshire that we purchased last year. My family and I have
grown very much attached to our community here, having built wonderful
relationships with many of our neighbors over the last few years. It was a
long road that brought us here - to a place we can finally call home – and
it’s a journey I will be ever grateful for having taken. In the beginning…
I was born in Brunswick,
Maine, where my father was stationed at the Brunswick Naval Air Station. When
I was just a few months old, our family moved down the coast to Falmouth,
where I grew up with my sister and two brothers. During that time, I attended
church at Trinity Episcopal Church in Portland and graduated from Falmouth
High School – home of the Yachtsmen - in 1984. My college years were
spent at Tufts University just outside of Boston, where I graduated in 1989
with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, and soon thereafter was hired
to work on the Central Artery/Tunnel Project in Boston as an inspector and
engineer with the joint venture of Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff. In the spring of 1999,
Muriel and I were married in Christ Church in Cambridge, where my
grandparents were long-time parishioners prior to their passing a few years
earlier. A few months later, we bought a two-family home in the Roslindale
neighborhood of Boston. Frustrated with the
mismanagement and utter lack of anything resembling fiscal accountability on
the Big Dig, I left the project in 2001 for more rewarding employment with
other smaller general contractors in and around the Boston Area. One thing that people
find surprising, when I tell them, is that during this time, I was a
registered Massachusetts Democrat. I voted for Mike Dukakis for president in
1988, and for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. In 1994, I voted to send Ted
Kennedy back to the United States Senate. I believed that the government was
on the side of the People, and that it existed to protect and serve the
citizenry from whom its power was derived. I believed my government “cared”
about me. Then, on that September
morning in 2001, it became clear to me, that not only was the government - at
the local, state, and federal levels - incapable of keeping the citizenry
safe from harm, but that the responsibility for my own safety and well-being rested
solely on my shoulders and not those of a roomful of career politicians,
whether they sit in a corner office across town or a thousand miles away
behind alabaster walls and stone columns. When I became a father in
2002, this realization became even more apparent to me. I was now the
provider for, and protector of two innocent and fragile lives. As such, I
swore, as most husbands and fathers do, that I would do everything in my
power to keep my wife and children safe from harm. I quickly learned that
there were many people in positions of power who find the concept of a
self-reliant individual offensive, and consider such a person a detriment to
the common good. I saw first-hand the faces of those would rather keep the
People beholden to the government for their very existence. I was told by
those in charge that I did not, in fact, have an inherent right to protect my
family from harm and that it fell under the purview of the government to do
so, or bestow such a privilege upon me - at its discretion and at my expense. And, the more I looked,
the more I saw. I saw arrogance,
corruption, and an authoritarian attitude toward the governance of the
People. I saw a state
legislature that had grown attached to the people’s back pockets in the same
way a parasite clings to its host organism. I saw a political system
that had been over taken by well-heeled special interest groups and corporate
campaign financiers. And, when it came time
put the education and well being of my children in the hands of this
political machine and its public education system, I realized the time had
come to relocate to New Hampshire. It is the recognition
of, and respect for individual rights and liberties that brought me to New
Hampshire. It is the existence of a truly representative state government
that carried me over the state line. It is the quality of life found here in
the Granite State that got me to pull up the tent stakes and make the move.
And, it is this cherished New Hampshire way of life that I will fight for
with every ounce of my being as your elected state representative. The residents and
businesses of Brentwood deserve a representative voice in Concord that will
truly speak for them and stand up for their best interests. With your help, I
plan on being that voice. Some have asked me why I
chose to register, and run as a Republican – a valid question, given how so
many in the Republican Party have adopted the tenets of big government, and
have taken to acting like “tax, borrow, and spend” Democrats as of late. I
had changed my enrollment status to Independent, while living in Boston and
had since contemplated a switch to either the Libertarian or
Constitutionalist Party. But, rather than give up
on the Republican Party, and the values and principles for which it once
stood, I made the decision to work within the system and help to reform and
restore the party and its reputation from the inside out. In the pages that
follow, I will lay out my positions on the issues of the day for all to see,
in as honest and forthright a manner as I possibly can. I have nothing to
hide and no reason to misrepresent myself. For only through open and honest
communication can we have any meaningful debate or discussion. If you disagree with me,
that’s fine. I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with everything I
have to say, and I will do my best to try to understand, and empathize with
those whose visions and ideology run contrary to mine. ~ Bruce |
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