Jon Kiper: 0:00

The worst part about running for governor is that whenever you mess anything up, it's like it's like how is anyone gonna ever trust me to run for governor if I can't keep my phone charged? Very relatable. I mean, I I closed my restaurant down, but it was so bad when um when the restaurant was open, because anytime we would screw anything up, I would literally just think, I'm like, if I can't get this order of, you know, this quesadilla right, like how is everyone gonna trust me to remember governor?

Liz Canada: 0:27

I don't know how many quesadillas a governor makes, but you know what, that's a good question though. How many quesadillas does a governor need to make? You're listening to New Hampshire Has It News. And I am your host, Liz Canada from the future, to say I was really excited to interview John Kuyper. He ran as a Democratic candidate in the 2024 gubernatorial primary, and he has announced that he's running again for 2026. The governor's race is every two years on the even numbered years in New Hampshire. This whole podcast, New Hampshire Has Issues, uh, kind of begs the question who would want to be the governor of the state? And John Kuiper says he would. If you would like to support the show, you can visit patreon.com slash nh hasissues. Uh and for those who are my first Patreons, I am going to send you a little gift this winter. A special thanks to Seacoast Soils who generously sponsors this podcast. If you have an idea for an episode, uh send me an email. New Hampshire has Issues at gmail.com. If you know someone who you're like, Liz, you definitely need to interview this person, send me an email. One topic that I really want to cover, and I haven't found a guest yet, is about the cost of tuition in New Hampshire. If you or someone you love is someone I should talk to, send me an email. New Hampshire has Issues at gmail.com. Thank you so much for listening. Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the podcast that dares to ask who would want to be governor of New Hampshire? All right, how about you? Do you have a tagline for me?

Jon Kiper: 2:13

Sure. I'm John Kuyper, and um I want to be governor to put community first.

Liz Canada: 2:18

Community first. Okay, let's talk community. I love that. So I am your host, Liz Canada. And joining me today is someone who ran for governor in the Democratic primary last time and is running for governor again this time in the Democratic primary, John Kuyper. John, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here.

Jon Kiper: 2:38

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Liz Canada: 2:40

I've seen your TikToks, I've seen the social media. I'm excited to uh get to have a one-on-one with you. So, a little bit of background. Republicans have been in charge of New Hampshire for a while now. They have been the party in control since 2021. And since then, they have eliminated the wealth tax, given taxpayer dollars to wealthy individuals whose kids are in private school, cut funding for higher education for colleges and universities when our state already has some of the highest tuition rates in the country. They banned abortion for the first time in New Hampshire's modern history. They made it more difficult to register to vote. They passed a so-called parental bill of rights the same year as banning parents from getting the health care for their transgender teenagers. They defunded energy efficiency, electric assistance, renewable energy. They removed tenant protections and made it easier to evict people. They cut funding for the Arts Council and they added monthly costs for those on the Grant Advantage program who just want health insurance. So I like to start with a simple question, John Kuiper. Why do you want to be governor with all of those things that have happened that will probably require some changes? So why do you want to do this?

Jon Kiper: 3:48

You know, it's really just a matter of frustration and just, you know, really want wanting to live in New Hampshire and wanting to be, frankly, proud of my state. You know, when I first started sort of thinking about this, which was probably, I don't know, mid-2000s, there was a story about, and it was on the Colbert rapport. It was a story about this really young person, I was a state rep, they're Republican. They put in this bill that was just totally wacky. I can't remember what the bill was. But the funny part was that it was a son and his mother that were both state reps and they lived together. And like, so he didn't have to, you know, work because he's living with his mom. And so that was when I started to realize that New Hampshire has got these systemic problems, you know, such as the lack of pay for the legislature, that were preventing uh a lot of people from succeeding in the state. And it was holding back not just me and my business, but holding back my whole community. And that the education funding in that formula was really at the core of that problem. And I'm just one of those people that I just can't um like when I see the bigger picture, I can't just accept it. I can't just like relax. I have to feel like I'm fixing it. And and that's kind of what happened where um it started with I I opened my business. Um, I I have owned a restaurant for about the last 10 years, uh, since 2015. And what happened was I bought the building in 2016. And the building that I'm in does not have any parking really nearby. And when we opened, everyone said, You're never gonna make it. There's no parking down there. Like you're never gonna make it, no business ever lasts there. So when I bought the building, and I looked about moving to Exeter or somewhere with more with more parking, but it just made more sense financially for me to buy the building and to stay here. And so I thought, I'm gonna get involved and I'm gonna get more parking bill in New Market. And it started out with I just I got on the first board that I sort of could get on, which was the ZBA zoning board of adjustment. The very first uh meeting that I went to for the ZBA, we had a young guy who comes up there and he says, I want to put an apartment in my dad's barn. He's getting old, I want to take care of him. Seems reasonable. And the ZBA says, Well, your barn's not attached to the house. And according to the ordinance, you can't put an apartment in there. And so I was sitting there going, okay, this must be just like an error in the way that they wrote the code. Like, surely it shouldn't matter if the building is attached or not, right? And so me and one other guy voted to let him do it. The other people on the board voted to not let him do it, so he ultimately was not allowed to do it. And I just assumed, naively as I was, that the people in the ZBA would call at the town council and say, hey, we've got this issue with the zoning code. Like you should be able to do attached, you know, or unattached ADUs. It shouldn't matter. Low, you know, as naive as I was. And then it turned out that this was intentional and that they didn't want what they thought would be excessive growth in the town by having these unattached ADUs. So that kind of led me down this housing um rabbit hole where I realized that the lack of housing was fully intentional. There was no, there, there was no mistakes in why we didn't have enough housing, why I, as a renter, or not a renter, I do own the building. I was a renter, but I live in an apartment. It's 740 square foot. So I learned that my housing was being limited by people who own houses. And if you have the planning board or the zoning board and it's all people that own houses, and renters aren't represented because they're just not around as much, then you know, renters are kind of being uh, you know, we're at the whim of the of the homeowners who are protecting their investment. So I sort of started to realize that the government itself was in many ways an obstacle to my economic success. So not only was it this we didn't have parking, but I realizing this housing is kind of being caused by the planning and zoning board's reluctance to allow more housing. And then as I got into the parking issue more, I realized, hey, we're spending, you know, at the time our tax rate was $26. 20 of those dollars went to the school, $6 went to the town for the fire department and pleas and stuff. So most of our money is going to the school. And I realized there's no money for parking. You know, there's just no money. And my business is struggling. And not only that, but you know, my property taxes are really high in Newmarket. I mean, it's almost $8,000 a year that I'm paying at my building. And so it was like every year I feel like I'm making money, and then I get the property tax bill in the mail. I'm like, oh yeah, I didn't make any money, you know? And so just feeling like there's these systemic things that are holding the small businesses back, and that basically we have this fractured economy where the rich get richer in these richer towns where they have lower property taxes and the wealth kind of accumulates, and the rest of us in these poorer towns are just sort of left to scramble. And the attitude is like, so I went from the ZBA, it was on another board called Energy Environment, and eventually on the town council. And it just seemed like when I was on the town council, that we were sort of just picking up scraps, you know, in terms of how we were funding the town. This is what a lot of people think. They think their town is being mismanaged because the taxes are high. And then you look at the budget, you're like, everything's really underfunded. And the issue is that the Republicans in Concord are cutting taxes for the rich, cutting taxes for corporations, and no services get cut. Um, I mean, initially, no services get cut. They don't tell you who's going to get cut. So what happens is either your property taxes go up, or your town road doesn't get paved, or the water pipes don't get you know replaced that are from 1890, or your teachers don't get raises, or the firefighters can't buy new radios or whatever. So there's like this trickle-down effect of the lack of funding. And fundamentally, and this is what I just I want everyone to take away from my campaign. And it's it's a pretty basic idea. The state of New Hampshire does not is not raising enough money to fund a state. It's not. And the people that are getting hurt are the most vulnerable people in our community, you know, elderly people that end up homeless, uh, you know, children that are in uh YDC facilities, um, you know, children in the foster care system, just the the most vulnerable people, you know, people that are on Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP benefits, you know, all these things are really struggling. And it's it's gonna get so much worse with the cuts that Trump um is putting through in the next couple of years.

Liz Canada: 9:54

So you were on the zoning board. Yeah. You were on the energy board. It's energy and environment committee. Energy environment, yep. And you were on the town council. Yeah. So why town council to running for governor? Why not something in between?

Jon Kiper: 10:10

The the number one reason is because the state reps don't get paid and the senators also do not get paid.

Liz Canada: 10:16

Now, wait a minute, John Kuper, they do get paid $100 a year. So they do get paid a little bit. So we can't say they don't get paid. They got $800 a year.

Jon Kiper: 10:24

The town council, I got paid $1,500, which is not a lot of money. But to me, it's like a bit of it's about the principle of the thing. Where the principle in economics, I mean, I just could not afford to drive to Concord three or four days a week to represent my town in an effective way for no money. I just couldn't do it. So that's really where uh I was like, and again, going back to systemic issues, you know, that's such a big one. When you live in a state that 80% of our reps are rich or retired, you know, we're the only state that doesn't pay and that doesn't pay very much, you know, that's really why I'm I I literally was I was so frustrated. I went to the Secretary of State's website, and I mean, I knew that the state reps didn't get paid, but I thought maybe the senators get paid. And I'm looking through, I'm like, they don't get paid, and I'm going down the line.

Liz Canada: 11:09

$100 a year for the senators as well. Yeah.

Jon Kiper: 11:11

Right. And then the governor, I'm like, well, he gets paid, and or she gets paid, and and it's only $150 to get on the ballot. So basically, my first intention in 2024 was I'm gonna raise awareness about this issue because people are gonna say, they're gonna say, Why are you running for governor? And I'm gonna say I just said that because the state reps don't get paid. And so a big part of that first run was getting people to think about this. And I, and this again is how naive I am. I was certain that the Democrats would would hear my message and go, light bulb moment, like, oh, if we focus on paying the reps, we can get young and working class people in Concord, and then all of our issues, all the things that you listed will be easier to pass. Because even the younger Republicans want housing, even the younger Republicans want cannabis. And it and so I I assume that everyone would hear this message, they'd go, you know, because when I would tell people in in my restaurant, I'd say, you know, they'd say, Why don't we have legal cannabis? Why don't we have enough housing? Why don't we have good schools? And I'm like, because rich and retired people aren't concerned about those things. And even a lot of the Democrats that are are great people, if you're like several steps removed from an issue, you know, if you're not the renter or if you're retired, your mortgage is paid off, you know, your kids aren't in the school system, you just are it's it's just impossible to have the same emotional need to solve the problem as when you're living it, you know? Like I heard a state rep say the other day, you know, we're I was talking about free school lunch. Yeah. And this state rep said, Oh, well, you know, it's very expensive. It's very expensive to for free school lunch. And this person makes a lot of, you know, is is very wealthy. I know. And and I mean, not rich, but well off. And I'm like, what's the cost of not doing free school lunch? You know, like how many kids are going to school hungry? So they're doing poorly in school, you know, they're they're home lives are a mess, and and just not being able to be fed at a place that you're mandatory, legally forced to go to, and how does that hurt their future? And what does it cost us as a society? Just a little bit of money on food, you know?

Liz Canada: 13:12

Free school lunch has such a significant impact on students being able to learn, being able to focus, families not having to stress about that. Sometimes if kids are not able to eat, you know, other times of the day, like that could be their meal for the day. And so that is a policy that would actually cause that's a policy that would bring significant benefits to a lot of people, not just the one kiddo either, like the whole classroom, their families, their communities. And yeah, that's been tried. They've tried to pass something like that, and it has not gone through.

Jon Kiper: 13:50

Like people just make these kind of assumptions about what we can pay for based on the current budget. And you look at Maine, Maine does free school lunch, like they are not as wealthy as a state as New Hampshire. Like, we're richer than them. And people forget this. New Hampshire is in the top five wealthiest states in the country. Like, there's no reason for us to not be um feeding the kids. And and I also think that when they do the projections, and this is just a little side note. When they do the projections for free school lunch, because I'm thinking about this a lot, I think that they're assuming that more kids will eat school lunch than actually would. And I say this just because of talking. My son's nine, he's in the in the public school system. He loves school lunch, and so it's great because it's like two bucks.

Liz Canada: 14:29

And I'm like, it's I don't have to pack a lunch in the morning. Fantastic. Eat hot lunch every day. That's great.

Jon Kiper: 14:34

Totally. And he and he loves it. But it's funny because I talked to some of the other parents, and a lot of them will say, Oh, yeah, my kid's really picky, like he won't eat it. Like my sisters will say, you know, like she'll have to go through and pick a couple days a month, but her my nephew just will not eat it all the time. It's just one of those issues that I think, again, when if the people that are making are in the committee, if none of them have kids in the public school system, no one would be able to say, like, hey, you're doing the math based on 60% of the kids eating school lunch. And I think if you surveyed the kids, you'd find it's only gonna be like 40 or something, you know? Because like imagine all these wealthy, you know, yoga moms are probably not gonna have their kids eat free school lunch, even if it's free. They're gonna want to pack their organic salad. Here's the thing.

Liz Canada: 15:12

Maybe they will kids are great at swapping. They get at school and they're like, Do you want this fancy lunch that my mom packed? Because I want the chips. Like, that's just what happens. That's how kids are. They're they're great negotiators, the kids. This is true. You said the first time you ran last year, you wanted to get the word out about how little people get paid when they're a state rep or a state senator. So, what about this time? Why are you running this time? Do you want to win? I guess is my question. Are you in it to win it?

Jon Kiper: 15:38

Oh, definitely. Yes. I'm running to win, and I think this is what I learned in the last run is after the primary, a lot of people in my town who were Republicans said, Hey, I wish I could have voted for you, but I I'm a registered Republican. And and I even had people that wanted to vote for me, but didn't switch their ballot early enough because you have to do it like in June, and they just didn't think of it. And I even had a guy who's who was a Democrat, but he switched his ballot to vote for Nikki Haley in the in the the presidential primary and then forgot to switch back and then was like, Oh, sorry, I couldn't vote for you. And and and the Republicans were telling me this was even, I was at a meet at a one uh fundraiser, I think it was in Epping, and there were two Republicans younger, they're under the age of 40, that were state reps. And they came up to me and they said, We hope that you win the primary because we want to vote for you, because we don't want to vote for Chuck or Kelly, because they just don't really care about our issues. They're not gonna do anything about housing. Kelly's made it clear she's not gonna like sign cannabis in. We we want those two issues addressed. And if if you're gonna do it, we'll vote for you. And so I think I can, I think I can win, frankly. I think that I am particularly positioned to win because I'm an outsider, because I um have been running a business, because I I think I understand Republicans. My parents were Republicans until Obama. They switched ships around George Bush Jr. second term. But I understand Republicans because I grew up with them, you know, and I and and and I understand the evangelical Christian side because I grew up in that world. So I too I totally could swap stories. Yeah. Well, and I think once you once you've done it, you kind of can see through the the veil, if you will, and you can see like how to get through to these people in a way that I think lifetime Republicans or Democrats can't. You know, even just basic things like when I would talk to a lot of Republicans that would come into my restaurant, they're not as radical as the free staters that are in the state house. And many of them, their issues were the same as ours housing, property taxes, education, you know? And so I'm running to win and I'm running because I think that um Kelly Acht is tied to Trump very clearly, and I think that people are going to that we are gonna be in a position where they're gonna really want uh change. So basically, I think that Kelly Acht is vulnerable um because I think the economy's not gonna be doing great by September 2026. And I think that I think it's having problems now.

Liz Canada: 18:02

I don't think we need it to even wait that long. Yeah, I think it's having a problem.

Jon Kiper: 18:05

Yes, exactly. And I think it's gonna continue to get worse and worse and worse. And I think people are just basically gonna stop trusting Republicans um on the economics. And I think they're gonna be ready for a new uh uh a new economic agenda and a new plan, and that's what I plan to bring.

Liz Canada: 18:22

So I wanna give a quick story to you because you did run last time.

Jon Kiper: 18:26

Yeah.

Liz Canada: 18:27

My wife Molly, uh, she took the boys to the candidate forum down in Exeter Town Hall, and it was last May, so it's almost a year and a half ago. Yeah. And so she took the boys, the boys at the time they must have been 12 and 11. And afterwards, we asked them, What did you think? You saw these three candidates talk and they said, We liked John Kiper. That's who we liked. And so, like, we chatted and they told, you know, what they what they liked. And so, you know, of course, a lot has happened since then. It's been almost a year and a half later. But I told them this week that I was interviewing you for my podcast. And I said, What do you remember from when you saw him talk? And they said he wanted to stop homelessness. I remember he wanted to make sure everybody had housing. And they said he was he seemed really relatable. He seemed like uh like a relatable guy. And then they also said he seemed old. We think he might be 40. So uh question one is 40 old or what's happening here? My serious question for you though is like when I'm parenting these kiddos, like these are young men, they're gonna grow up to be men in New Hampshire wherever they go. How do you view yourself as, you know, like a like a role model or a figure for these young men who, you know, thinking of themselves as Democrats or thinking of themselves as people who care about these same issues? Like, how do you see your responsibility in sort of leading the way for these young men?

Jon Kiper: 20:00

Yeah, I think it's I think it's really important. You know, I think when last time on the campaign trail, I started talking about the it was, it was like the the roadblocks to Joe Rogan to Alex Jones pipeline, right? And my campaign manager was like, what are you talking about? And I was like, you don't understand. There's this thing where young boys start watching YouTube and it starts with Mr. Beast and it ends with white supremacy. And we need to be very careful because we are losing young men to the right because they are being offered it's snake oil, but they're being offered, you know, something. You know, people are talking to them directly and saying you're important and you matter, and you know, and come with us. There was a point where it was hard to be, frankly, a man or a boy, I think, in some leftist circles where there was this feeling like if you're a man, you're partially responsible for everything that men have ever done, you know, and this attitude that like men have caused a lot of problems and that the solution will be somewhere else. And and I've I felt that with the Democratic Party at times, you know, and and felt like that they were making it that it mattered whether or not, you know, that my gender mattered. And and that, you know, people brought this up. This has been kind of an issue where I've been trying to get the Democrats to realize. And I had men come up to me and they would say, Do these candidates realize that they're gonna need men to vote? I think people don't realize how bad, um, how toxic masculinity hurts men too, you know, and and men have got this ideal like I've got to be the breadwinner and I've got to go buy a house and have a family. And when that's not economically possible, it's very hard to be proud, you know, and to feel like you're you're working towards something. And a lot, I've met a lot of guys under the age of 30 in their 20s and stuff, who are just literally living at their parents' house. They have no motivation, no drive, because they just feel like there's no hope and that there's nothing that they can do. And like, and my son, you know, I'm trying really hard to instill in him a sense that we uh we have to fight for the future and that we need to craft the world that we want, and that is an inclusive world that includes, you know, uh everyone being equal and working together to fight for that sense of equality that we should all have. And um, I mean, I think it's it's important to me that boys see me and that, you know, I am offering them an alternative to the Republicans and like in a world that we respect women.

Liz Canada: 22:31

Imagine, imagine this world where we can respect women.

Jon Kiper: 22:34

Yeah, and that you know, that we respect women. One of the reasons that I had my restaurant was so that his mother and I could not well, this wasn't it this indirectly was one of the benefits was that we didn't have to have child care because one of us would be watching him and we would just take turns working. And it was really great. I spent like, I I mean, that was probably the best part about owning a restaurant. I spent intensely significantly more time than any of my uh many of my friends with my son. I mean, like, just so much more time I was able to spend with him. And that was so crucial. And it's something that I want other men to want, you know, to when they have kids, to spend time with their sons and build like better relationships than I think I had with my dad. And now it's funny because me and my dad get along really well, and my dad gets along really well with my son, and it's just like we have a much better bond um than I that the three of us do than I ever had with my grandfather and my dad. And I and I think that that's really important. And um, and I hope that that young people will see me running for governor and saying, like, look, I don't care that I'm not rich. I don't care that I'm not politically connected. Um, I I'm gonna fight for this thing that I think is worth fighting for.

Liz Canada: 23:43

So how are you so I've like I said earlier, um I've watched some of your TikToks, right? Like I see you on social media, the boys and Molly obviously saw you at the candidate forum. How are you gonna get your message out further? Like, how are you gonna reach across New Hampshire? Because, you know, if you're running against Governor Ayot, she's the governor, so she already has like that sort of platform. She raises a lot of money to be able to get her message out there. Yeah. How are you going to get your message out to the far reaches of the state?

Jon Kiper: 24:16

Social media is pretty much the best way that I have found bang for the buck to get message out there. And and the hard part is that you have to sort of be everywhere. You have to be on the YouTube, the TikTok, the Meta, Facebook, Instagram, even LinkedIn. And then the other thing is just going to people. We went up to Claremont for one of their school board meetings. And so just, I mean, honestly, it's a lot of driving. It's it's a lot of driving. I was in Keene on uh Monday or Tuesday. Uh, you know, I was in Manchester today for some campaign stuff. So it's just, you just got to go to the people. And we live in a really fractured media environment where you've got people getting stuff from social media, you've got a small group still getting stuff from WMUR, you've got um some people totally checked out. And it's hard. It's it's harder now than I think ever has been. So there's not a one size fits all solution for how you get the message out there. But I I'm pretty confident that what we did last time worked pretty well with the social media because you know we did decently in the primary, and I think that the momentum will carry on, you know. Uh, we're gonna need to raise money for sure. We're gonna need to raise a ton of money, we're gonna have to do TV ads and all that stuff. But like, um, I was talking to I actually just got off the phone with Chris Pappis a little while ago, and uh he called me just to check see how things were going. And I didn't know this, but in his first primary, he got outspent four to one. So the money's important, but it's not everything. And I firmly believe, and I believed this last night, but I firmly believe like if I could get a postcard or something, or or somehow get in the brain of every single person, get my message in front of every single person in New Hampshire, I would win in a landslide. And obviously, that's the hardest part. So, you know, I had a great story on this girl put on a comment in TikTok where she said she was waiting to get her oil changed. Uh, she's way up in Berlin, and this old man's kind of complaining about, you know, taxes and the price of the oil change. He's like, I got no money. And she started telling them about me. And she was like, Yeah, this guy's even talking about like taxing the rich. He's talking about, you know, all this stuff. And this guy was like, you know, very republican. He was like, you know, maybe it's time we start taxing the rich. Like, I want to learn more about this guy, John Cyber. So it's it's kind of funny because um that's how we win. It's just like little stories in cafes of people talking to each other, these little conversations, you know, in cafes and bars and restaurants. And and I and I try on social media to get people to understand that they have a lot of power and they can actually save me a ton of money rather than me having to pay for text messaging and social media ads. If you just text five of your friends or you just reshare this video, you just save me a couple bucks, you know. So, and and you can do that instead of donating if you got no money. I think that's just the the most important thing is for people to realize that right now, because of social media, you cannot just help me, but you can help any of your favorite candidates in your state. And and and everyone should be doing that. Like commit a little bit of time to just reposting and just intentionally sharing messages with people, I think would go really far.

Liz Canada: 27:06

I really want to have an episode about the algorithm, because the algorithm on the social medias is actively working against folks who are trying to make change to what's the current sort of status quo, what's happening by our state government, by our federal government. Like the algorithm is actively working against. So I I feel like I tell this to people all the time. Like, if you see something that you like, you should like it and share it. Because just like laughing to yourself, it's not it's not helping anything. So like you have to actually engage with the good stuff. Avoid the bad stuff, engage with the good stuff. One of the reasons I was really excited for you to come on the show is because I've had episodes about the different parts of the government. So I'm hoping you can explain to the listener what does a governor even do? What's unique about the New Hampshire governor specifically?

Jon Kiper: 28:01

So, you know what's really unique about it is that we have what's called a weak governor, which is kind of funny. Zing is also true, right? Yes. Yeah. The the governor doesn't have a lot of power. Yeah. Which is um, which is kind of a wild thing. You know, you think, why do people want a job where you don't have a lot of power? Um, but and the reason is because the governor can veto legislation that uh the governor doesn't like, and but besides that, a lot of what the governor does is working with the executive council, you know, and and getting, and so I'm sure you guys covered this, but you know, they do all the contracts and um appointments and all that stuff. So the governor is really working right with the executive council to get a lot of the uh you know, the stuff happened in the background that keeps the state functioning. Um, that a lot of it's not sexy stuff. It's like, you know, approving a new highway contract or you're saying highway contracts aren't sexy, John Kuper.

Liz Canada: 29:00

Is that the stance? Is that the position you're taking on highway contracts? That is that is my stance.

Jon Kiper: 29:05

Um and so, you know, it's it's kind of funny because like the the governor, the governor does have like a huge role in terms of uh how do I say this, but the um the vibes that the governor is bringing to the state and what you know what their party, how their party is gonna sort of function, you know. And I plan to work really closely with my friends that are state reps that we can get good legislation written and um and work with them to to uh address the things that I'm campaigning on, you know. And we're pretty much all the the Democrats are really trying to have a unified message, and this was not actually intentional. I just was like, hey, we got to focus on property taxes. And it turns out other people are thinking the same thing. So that's becoming a really big issue.

Liz Canada: 29:49

That's the thing. That's what's on everyone's mind is property taxes and how much property taxes have gone up, how much health insurance is going up, like all of these costs are. Are definitely going up. And yes, like the executive council is a part of the equation of working with or against the governor. Like they can work together or they can work not together. And that's yeah, that's how it can be. Talk to me about the working, you know, the united message of Democrats. I'm interested to hear that. Like, what's what is the message? I think people want to know that about Democrats. What's the message that Democrats are bringing?

Jon Kiper: 30:25

Yeah, so I definitely don't want to speak for everybody. I think where we have gotten sidetracked before is not having a unified message. So I think that the if I was going to say there's one unifying goal for the Democrats this time, it's going to be focusing on economic issues and realizing that the independent voters that we need that voted for Trump and Kelly Aug last time, their biggest concern was economics and how their you know their wallet and and and those kitchen table issues. And when you look at that, the the big ones are property taxes, housing, and education funding. And so the way that I've And child care. Well, there are there are you know, there's a ton of issues. Um that's the whole podcast. New Hampshire does have it. There's sort of an infinite number of things that you can campaign on. That's true. But we really, in my mind, I have to focus on three things because that's really people's attention span. You know, that's how many things that they can remember. And last time I sort of made the mistake of focusing on too many things. And I'm like, I want people to just be able to walk away after hearing me speak and know what I'm doing and and how I'm gonna do it. And so this is what we're our campaign is based on this idea of community-first economics. And it's basically the opposite of Ronald Reagan's trickle-down economics, which was we're gonna cut taxes for the rich people, we're gonna cut taxes for corporations, cut, you know, regulation for corporations, and then the money will magically trickle down to poor and middle class people. We now know that was BS. That never happened, it was never going to happen. There's not like a quirk of the system that was intentional. So we need to do the exact opposite of that and invest in our local community and ensure that, you know, a single mom doesn't have to work 60 hours to just pay her bills, and that, you know, elderly people aren't getting evicted from a mobile home park because the property taxes went up, or that some kid who's 25 and living in his parents' basement has hope of getting a good job and someday buying a house and starting a family of his own. And and focusing on these issues that like Republicans have these same issues. You know, Republicans have housing issues and uh especially property taxes, property tax issues and education funding. You know, they they generally most people with kids want their schools well funded. Uh, and the thing about it is number two, the Republicans have absolutely no good answer for the question of why are my property taxes so high and what are you going to do to lower them? If you ask a Republican in Concord right now that question, they will say, it's your local budget committee's fault, it's your local town's fault, it's your school board has probably got 50 admin. You know, that's it's just it's BS. So they so we need to project an attitude that not only are we going to help the middle class and the working class, you know, tell them how we're gonna do it in a simple enough way that it's not super convoluted, but also um make sure that they understand that the messenger is trustworthy. And I think people will trust me simply because I'm a poor person trying to solve poor and middle class people's issues, you know? And so this is what happens, I think, is we elect these rich people, right? And they they hear our issues and they, you know, they they give lip service to them and then they get in there and they go, Oh, shucks, another two years, and we couldn't solve any problems for poor people. Like that stinks, but whatever, and then they move on. When I'm gonna be driven to solve all of these problems because they are my problems, you know, and they will be my problems after I'm governor. They will be, you know, so the drive for me and the the accountability is is internal. Like, I need housing to be lower, to be more affordable, to have a business that functions, or to literally move out of this 740 square foot apartment. Like, like these issues are are just like I'm living the the the struggle. I I'm suffering with every single one of these problems. And I think that um the solution is pretty simple. It's tax the rich, you know, and we used to tax the rich in this state pretty well, and when we did, our our finances were actually doing pretty pretty well, you know. Uh we're we're not an extravagant state. I'm not looking to add billions of dollars to the uh you know to the budget right now. I uh we just need we just do not have enough money and we need to increase that, you know, a little bit. You know, we don't need a ton of money. I don't want to live in a Massachusetts style state with massive, you know, government spending because it has downsides too. You know, I talk to restaurant owners in Massachusetts and they'll tell me like the permitting is annoying, you know, the the way they do the liquor licenses is expensive, their insurance is higher, uh, the regulations on, you know, um on the on the restaurants are much more annoying. Like I don't want to live in that world. Like I actually like a lot of the way that New Hampshire does things. Um, I want to maintain New Hampshire's sort of character and and the things that we like. Like we're we're Yankees, we're cheap, you know, and and and I'm okay with that. You know, one thing in new in New Market that's interesting is as I was saying before, our our departments are all underfunded. And our water treatment plant, the guys that run it are are really great because they actually um because they didn't have enough employees, because the budget was so low, they started using cameras and stuff to check the sewer pipes, and it was actually much more efficient than having humans do it. And they uh they got an award because of how innovative their their use of cameras and technology was. And like that's great, but we are at this point where we we, you know, Yankee ingenuity will only get us so far, and we need more money to function as a state. And and what they're doing right now is the Republicans are being penny wise and pound foolish, they're cutting taxes in the short term in ways that cost us money in the long term, if not just in property taxes, but also, you know, you look at the the YDC lawsuits, and um, you know, because we didn't spend 10 or 20 million dollars over the course of the last 30 or 40 years in in human resources, as in the people running the YDC centers, we're now gonna pay half a billion dollars in lawsuits. It just doesn't make any it's not fiscally conservative, even what the Republicans are doing. It's just like foolish. It just doesn't, you know, like it's just it's it's there's no logic there when it costs more money in the long term, but they know like it's a two-year term, I might not even be around in 20 years when this comes home to roost. But it it it is coming home. The the fiscal doom loop is is real in New Hampshire.

Liz Canada: 36:39

I want to pivot a little bit because when I think about the governor's seat, yeah, of course I think about the policies and the issues and the things that I care about. But I also care about how someone is as a leader. Yeah. And so how would you describe yourself as a leader? Like outside of the policies, outside of the issues, like who are you as a leader?

Jon Kiper: 37:06

Yeah, you know, with my restaurant, um, I really tried to set people up to succeed um kind of on their own terms. I don't like to micromanage people, I like to set expectations and say to someone, you know, how you get from here to there, I I'm not that worried about it. I'm worried about the final product. And one thing that I that I really like to do is explain to people why every step in the process is happening. You know, and when you're training people to say, um, you know, here's why I've learned to do this a way that's different than I was doing it before or whatever, so that people understand what they're doing, what you're trying to achieve, and then but then have some autonomous uh autonomy to achieve that goal um without being um totally micromanaged. And and like I am a big fan of, hey, if you've got an idea that's better than mine, bring it up. Like if you like in my restaurant all the time, I'd say, hey, if you have more experience in in this world than in if you've worked at other another restaurant nicer than what, tell me how to do this. Like I'm not, I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. You know what I mean? I want to be surrounded by people that are smarter than me on all these issues. And the biggest, I think one of my biggest uh or what I try to, you know, try to maintain is a sense of I'm gonna make mistakes. I'm not a perfect person. I'm gonna own up to those mistakes when I make them and try to learn. You know, you can't really make you can't really learn without making mistakes. It's it's really important. And but also with the people that I'm working with um have a sense of accountability and that they're you know willing to, you know, like I it's just it's really important that when somebody messes up, they're willing to come to you and say, hey, we just screwed this up, we screwed up this thing, but we're gonna fix it. You know, um, that was a lesson I learned at one of my first jobs. I was working with this carpenter and he said, you know, the difference between a professional and an amateur is that the professional, when he screws up, he fixes it, even if it means tearing a whole wall down that you just built. You know, the amateur will say, Oh, we're off by a couple inches, let's just jam up some, you know, jam a little board in there and we'll we'll cover it up. And that's just something that I've always held in in the way that I ran my business. And um, you know, in terms of like the way the government functions, I think it's really important that we don't get so obsessed with the process that we fail to see if it get if it is it giving us the outcome that we want.

Liz Canada: 39:32

You're the you're the first person on the podcast who's uh actively running for an elected seat, right? The first one. I've had elected officials on, but you're the first one who's like, I'm running. So I thought I would test something out.

Jon Kiper: 39:45

Sure.

Liz Canada: 39:45

And I asked a non-political person, someone who does not follow politics, what would you ask someone who's running for governor? Like, what's the question that you would ask? And so shout out to Julie who gave me this question.

Jon Kiper: 39:58

Thank you, Julie.

Liz Canada: 39:59

If you're eating at a restaurant and it's packed, it's busy, you've been waiting on your food, it's been a while, the server's very friendly, but like forgot to give you your ranch dressing, forgot some things. How much do you tip the server?

Jon Kiper: 40:15

I always tip 20%. I I never have made my tipping about the service because it's not the rest. I mean, I just know enough to know it's not the server's like fault if the kitchen is messing up. And um, I always tip 20%. Uh, the only thing I will say, like, if I go to a restaurant, I have a bad experience, I just won't go back. I'm not gonna leave a bad review. I'm not gonna bad be a bad tipper. I'm just not gonna go back, you know. And I think that more people should just do that rather than leaving these long negative reviews. I mean, sometimes, you know, uh when I was running my restaurant, um, we occasionally did have reviews that were helpful, you know, negative ones that would that would that would say, like, um, you know, I mean, sometimes there's nothing you can do. Oh, you used to have this item on the menu, now you don't. Um, you know, I mean, one time we got a bad review about like a piece of art last somebody thought was satanic. He was like, this it's satanic art. And I'm like, that could be a positive for some people. Hello. Yes, yeah. Um, right. So I I I wish more people would uh have a little bit more grace.

Liz Canada: 41:17

All right, so the answer is 20% always. If you don't like it, you don't go back. Love to hear it. My uh other question for you is Halloween is coming up. Yes, and so at the Kuiper households, what are you giving out at the door? Are you a full-size candy bar person? Are you little packs? Are you a bucket outside with a sign?

Jon Kiper: 41:36

Uh we usually do the big bowl um with you know assorted uh assorted candies. Um, it's kind of funny because normally I do it like through the restaurant and I don't know. We didn't sign up. Like normally the rec department just goes around because we're like, you know, and they they put a little flag out. And I didn't even really think about it this year. So I don't know if I'll be doing it. I guess I I probably should.

Liz Canada: 42:03

Yeah, that's it's uh that's the question we want to know. What will be at the Kuiper household for for hunger?

Jon Kiper: 42:09

I I usually buy, I try to buy a few uh as many like mixed bags of like, you know, I try to get like a couple of the good ones, you know, the the the Reese's and the you know peanut butter cups, and then you know, also throw in a few of the ones that are like the sweeties and like the little sugary, you know, the ones that people don't like as much. I don't know. I try to mix it up a little bit so that there's some options. Something for everyone. Yeah, you put in two money options and little kids. I mean, some of them it's like a deer in headlights, they're trying to pick out their candy. Yeah, and mom's like, hey, we gotta go. There's like 30 other places to go.

Liz Canada: 42:44

We've got other places to be.

Jon Kiper: 42:46

It's one of my favorite days in town because everyone's just psyched, you know, like they're going to all the businesses and getting candy, and the kids are all so cute and um pumped up on sugar out in their costumes. Totally. Yeah, it's it's a good time. So I probably should. I should probably I probably should sign up to to do that because um people love camping.

Liz Canada: 43:06

All right, well, that's your homework, John Kuyper. You gotta go and uh figure out your Halloween situation. It feels weird calling you John. I feel like in my mind you're John Kuyper. You have one of those superhero names. Have you gotten that before where it's like John Kuper? Really?

Jon Kiper: 43:27

When I had the restaurant open, it was sort of annoying because everyone thought my last name was Boston, because my restaurant's called Johnny Boston, right? I didn't realize how many people like literally thought my last name was Boston. So I had to go through this whole process of being like, No, I'm John Kuper.

Liz Canada: 43:40

And I have the name of Canada, so I get that a lot anyway.