With New Hampshire’s incumbent Democratic governor John Lynch announcing that he won’t seek another term in 2012, the only person currently seeking the office is Republican Ovide Lamontagne.

Lamontagne came within 1,100 votes of upsetting Kelly Ayotte in last year’s GOP Senate primary. Back in June, when Republican presidential candidates came to the Granite State for a debate, Lamontagne offered them advice:

My advice to them is this: speak honestly and forcefully about the Obama administration’s failed economic policies and their job-killing impact on American employers. Under our federalist system, every state has a right to make its own decisions about its economic future. Under our free market system, private companies also have a right to make important strategic decisions, such as where to build a manufacturing facility. Allowing the private sector to determine when, where and how to create jobs is the key to true economic recovery. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration’s big government economic policies violate both the principles of federalism and democratic capitalism.
. . . The federal government cannot be allowed to determine where U.S. companies build or expand their businesses. Boeing’s plant in South Carolina is slated to create around 1,000 new jobs. The federal government’s involvement in this issue not only threatens those Boeing jobs, but countless others. When a rogue federal agency is allowed to pursue a political agenda by restricting the freedom and mobility of capital, causing significant harm to the overall economy, we know it’s time for new leadership. Several of the Republican candidates for president have spoken out about this issue, but I believe this is representative of the President’s failed command and control policies on the economy, as exemplified by his NLRB appointees.
Using as an example the NLRB’s attacks on job creators, free markets and states that have enacted right-to-work laws, this is something that must be communicated to each and every voter. Few Americans are better positioned to make the case against the Obama Administration’s damaging economic policies and usurpation of state sovereignty than the candidates who are seeking the GOP nomination.

No one has polled Obama’s job-approval rating in New Hampshire recently, but back in June, it looked pretty lousy. Public Policy Polling put Obama underwater at a 46 percent/49 percent job approval/disapproval split; the Granite State Poll found the same split, and American Research Group put Obama at a 39 percent/54 percent split.