House Dems Look to Lead

Democrats have emerged with 237 seats out of the 400-member House.

The party picked up 84 seats, defeating 57 Republican incumbents.

Assistant Democratic Leader Representative Dan Eaton says they won in races that no one ever expected.

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:48 Seacoast area, Southern tier, in Amherst, in the Upper Valley, Paul Mirski got taken out, Phyllis Woods....CHicchester which is long time Republican turf. Stretch Kennedy has been here forever. There are some real surprises.

Republican Representative Steve Vaillancourt was possibly the only person in the House talking about a Democratic takeover before the election.

Heading into the election he noticed Democrats had more uncontested races than the GOP.

That meant Dems were walking in with 51 seats, while Republicans could count on only 30.

After looking at the results, he says things only got worse.

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4:26 where Dems seems to make pick-ups was the Seacoast area....Hampton it looks like there was a big move in that area, even up into Carroll County. So what this shows is this is really bad news for Republicans, b/c if this starts to spread down into Hillsboro and Merrimack Counties, where they didn't make gains, you could be looking at a total disaster next time.

Whether Democrats make further gains in 2008 could depend on how the party handles its sweep of the Legislature, the Executive Council and the Governor's Office.

The last time that happened was 1874.

And four Democrats interested in becoming Speaker have already met.

The goal was to find some common ground on the issue that has long divided the Democratic party- the income tax.

Deputy Democratic Leader Representative Jane Clemons.

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6:45 I think there are some that would prefer an income tax. Now I am not saying they are going to push that agenda...I think everyone realizes that is not what the voters want. So hopefully we can talk about solving the problems in a manner that is responsible.

Clemons and other top Democrats believe they must tread lightly on any question of income tax.

To many in the party, it is clear that state Representatives were ushered into office on the popularity of Governor Lynch and his no broad-based tax promise.

Representative Eaton says House Democrats can't forget that.

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15:31 I think pushing an income tax agenda, particularly with a guarantee of a gubernatorial veto that we are in majority for two years and not for 20. I think it is suicide.

Republicans like Representative Fran Wendelboe have already begun speculating that Democrats will find their power too intoxicating.

TAPE: I think that within the next six months there will be a lot of voters in NH saying what in the world did we do? But that is something in a crystal ball right now, and we won't know until the end of June.

The first test for how Democrats really feel on the tax question may be how they handle the Speaker's Race.

Likely speaker candidate Portsmouth Representative Terie Norelli has long been an advocate of an income tax.

But when pressed whether she believes an income tax should be on the table when discussing education funding, she didn't say yes.

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:32 at this moment in time I don't think there should be any revenue sources on the table, b/c we don't even know what it is we are going to fund. One thing I won't do is start with the end and work backwards. I think it's time...we figure out what we need to do and move forward.

Democrats are holding a forum for Speaker and majority leader candidates on the 15th.

The party has scheduled elections for the two positions on the 18th.

For NHPR News, I'm DG.