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Hearing about Kelly Ayotte's decision to leave the position of New Hampshire Attorney General to explore a run for United States Senate, I began thinking about her positives and negatives. Here I offer some:
Positives:
1. She is a personable candidate. She's easy to talk with, and according to staff members I've talked with she's been good to work with.
2. She will benefit from the record she has amassed as Attorney General. That includes her prosecution of two death penalty cases. Many voters ARE for law-and-order, and like politics, all law and order is local in that it hits home.
3. "Attorney General" is a mighty good title to precede every description of her in the news media. "Former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte..." will sound good to the majority of people who don't know her.
4. She has a "blank slate" on most issues, meaning she can define who she is as she wishes.
5. She already has a ready network of potential supporters -- much of the law enforcement community knows her personally, and she can outreach personally to them. Same is true with House and Senate members from throughout the state who have worked with her.
Negatives:
1. Her positions on choice and the death penalty will make her a tough sell among those large percentages of voters throughout New Hampshire who are pro-choice and/or opposed to the death penalty. She is solid and enthusiastic in her position on both matters, leaving little room for her to moderate, as some successful Republicans have done in the past.
2. She is breaking her promise to serve out her term as Attorney General. While that might be more of an "insider's issue" where the public won't be so concerned, it will play in with the recent copout of another fellow quitter, Sarah Palin. I can see the television advertisement in my mind right now.
3. As just Attorney General -- not to downgrade the importance of that position -- she has done nothing and said little if anything on issues like foreign affairs, the economy, or "Washington, D.C. matters." That blank slate could play to her advantage since she can also define her views in her terms with no baggage to go with it, but that also allows her eventual Democratic opponent -- and between now and then her Republican opponents -- to define her in their terms.
4. She is not yet known as a great public speaker. That doesn't mean she can't become one, and I'm convinced through the years that even more important than public speaking is a candidate with substance and she could develop that. But she does need some help for speaking on the political stump. There is time for her to do that, however. We saw Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton become much better on the stump as their own primary campaigns evolved.
5. She is going to face a New Hampshire Democratic Party on the rise, just off of two successful elections in 2006 and 2008. Even if there is a primary on the Democratic side, it's more than likely that a unified NH Democratic Party will be stronger than the NH Republican Party in November, 2010.
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