Former cable-equipment executive Craig Benson won the Republican nomination
for New Hampshire governor Tuesday in a high-spending, three-way race that
include retired U.S. Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.).
Benson -- a 47-year-old multimillionaire who spent a reported $9 million on
the primary -- was founder of Cabletron Systems Inc., now Enterasys Networks
Inc. He faces Democrat Mark Fernald in November.
According to the Concord (N.H.) Monitor newspaper, Benson's
cost per vote beat New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's national record of $100 by
a considerable amount.
Benson promised to improve the state's fiscal picture and to resist a state
income tax favored by Fernald.
'[Benson] knows how to run the state as a business. That's basically what
voters bought into,' said Maura Weston, finance chairman of the New Hampshire
GOP and government-relations counsel for the New England Cable &
Telecommunications Association.In another New Hampshire race, state
representative Jeb Bradley won the Republican primary for an open House
seat.
Bradley played an important role in defeating a state bill aimed at requiring
cable operators to provide access to unaffiliated Internet-service providers,
Weston said.
