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Man. Frank Guinta is fast losing control of the narrative that he is the anointed one:
"With Rich Ashooh's decision to join the race, some think that having two conventional conservatives from Manchester could create a path for a fiscally conservative, socially inclusive candidate with ties to the Lakes Region and Seacoast," he writes in an e-mail obtained by NHPoliticalReport.com. "I am giving it thought."
The following Op-Ed from Executive Director Mike Brunelle was published in Fosters Daily Democrat on Saturday. I thought the BH folks might appreciate it:
Former state party chair is too late; GOP has already been overrun by the fringe
Fergus Cullen, the former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, published an Op-Ed last week denouncing the hateful remarks made by right wing political activist and radio show host Doug Lambert. Enough has been said about Mr. Lambert's shocking comments that I won't recount them here.
But in the piece, Cullen also warned the state Republican Party of the political perils of pandering to its most fringe members. While I applaud his efforts, they are too little, too late.
Recently we have seen all the Republican candidates for higher office clamoring to get endorsements from the far right wing of the party. For example, they have been actively courting the radical conservative group, Club for Growth, and seeking endorsements from the extremist Republican Senator Jim DeMint.
In fact, the New Hampshire Republican Party has effectively purged its ranks of middle-of-the-road Republicans. Over the last decades, they have "purified" their party, driving out moderates like Hillary Cleveland, Lou D'Allesandro, Ralph Hough, Dave Nixon, Frank Davis, Jim Mackay, the late Susan and Malcolm McLane and hundreds of other former top NH Republicans.
And recently, the state party has taken the final step - ousting Cullen as chairman and replacing him with failed former Governor John H. Sununu. Now, Chairman Sununu is doing everything he can to spread anger and hate to rile up the base.
Sununu recently outlined exactly this strategy in an interview with Foster's Daily Democrat. His goal: to make the Republican Party as angry possible.
Over the summer, we saw this strategy in action. The New Hampshire Tea Party Coalition, a group of local Republicans and radical activists, used scare tactics to try to stop progress on providing affordable, quality health insurance to all Americans. This was not a peaceful protest - they regularly used threats and intimidation tactics that were reprehensible.
And there is no line between the leadership of the New Hampshire Republican Party and the "Tea Party" crowd. Jack Kimball, currently the Republican candidate for governor, is one of the movement's lead organizers.
Kimball is so out of touch with New Hampshire values he declared that there had been a "communist and socialist" takeover of America. In order to protect himself from the "serious things coming," he then purchased large amounts of ammunition for his assault weapons. He even started a new group aimed at "keeping an eye on the president." And in response to the government's efforts to help struggling homeowners, Kimball actually urged individuals to stop paying their mortgages.
Chairman Sununu and the state Republican Party should be ashamed. Their strategy of inciting anger and spreading hate - instead of offering ideas - is bad for our state, and the people of New Hampshire deserve better.
Cullen is right when he says that campaigning to the fringe of the Republican Party is no way to win elections. Unfortunately, his colleagues beg to differ. This type of mentality runs counter to New Hampshire values, and ultimately is the reason why the GOP will remain the minority party in 2010.
Mike Brunelle is a former state representative and the current executive director of the New Hampshire Democratic Party
(Posted by Derek Richer, Press Secretary of the New Hampshire Democratic Party)
Doug Lambert of Gilford is a conservative blogger who broadcasts a low-wattage AM radio show on Saturday mornings - think "Wayne's World" with a web cam. Lambert closed his show with a virulently anti-gay rant aimed at state Democratic chairman Ray Buckley. Lambert called Buckley a "faggot" and, lest one be tempted to give the benefit of the doubt for a slip of the tongue, Lambert added, "That's right. I said it and I meant it." Saturday was Buckley's birthday, and Lambert closed with, "Other than that, happy birthday Ray and many more - not."
There is no place for such language or such views in today's Republican Party, and as a leader in the party, it is part of my responsibility to condemn Lambert's comments publicly. That is the first purpose of this article.
Where in the world is NHGOP Chair John H. Sununu?
Dear former Governor: You are the Ray Buckley of your party.
Not yet behind the pay wall is a column by former NH-GOP chair Fergus Cullen, where he compares the state of the NH GOP to that of the internecine struggle taking place in the race for US Rep in NY-23. There, GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava is being challenged to her right by Doug Hoffman, who is running on the Conservative line. Sarah "Barracuda" Palin has come out in favor of Hoffman, while Newt Gingrich and Michael Steele are supporting Scozzafava.
Cullen sees a similar dynamic here in the Granite State.
The situation has similarities to a special election for state representative that will take place in Concord next week. Jim MacKay was a rarity: a Republican who could win in Concord. He served five terms as a moderate before being swept out in the Obama tide last fall. MacKay was prepared to run for the seat again, but after learning a splinter group of disaffected conservatives would oppose him in a primary he probably could not win MacKay changed parties and is running as a Democrat.
I disagree with Cullen about MacKay's being swept out in an Obama tide. If we had had straight ticket voting still, maybe. But as I recall, there was a Republican primary whereby long time moderate Republican Liz Hager lost to some "free staters". Liz would also have been re-elected as a Republican, IMO, adding another seat to their caucus. Her defeat and the specter of "free staters" instead of the more moderate Republicans Concord was used to sending to the State House hurt MacKay. I believe he was the highest Republican vote getter in a race that turned Concord's State Rep delegation totally blue.
The 2010 election will be a moment of truth for the NH GOP and the GOP in general. Will Jennifer Horn beat Charlie Bass in a primary by running to his right? Will a more conservative candidate than Kelly Ayotte beat her in a primary for US Senate? Will we ever find out exactly where Ayotte is on that continuum?
Update:we now can see where Ayotte lands: squarely with Sarah "Barracuda".
Pindell
"As I travel across our state on the campaign trail, I have said we must stand up for fiscal sanity in Washington, we must have pro-growth economic policies that will create jobs," Ayotte said in a statement to NHPoliticalReport.com. "Because of that, I endorse Doug Hoffman."
Nationally, the GOP is doing badly:
the GOP's brand is still a mess. According to the poll, just 25% have a positive opinion of the party (compared with 42% for the Dem Party), which ties the GOP's low-water mark in the survey and which is a worse score than it ever had during the Bush presidency.
More on this at DKos.
If you're in the Concord district having the special election Tuesday, please go out and vote for Jim MacKay. He's a great legislator, an advocate for the mentally ill (who really need one about now) and will do a great job for Concord and the state. He's a welcome addition to the Democratic Party in NH.
In a column in today's UL, Katrina Swett responds to Fergus Cullen's "advice" that she run as an independent. Swett, who is exploring a run in the CD-02 Democratic primary, counters with the conviction that the Democratic Party has a large enough tent to hold moderates as well as more liberal and progressive outlooks.
The Democratic Party has truly become the big tent party of this country, where the passion of the progressives is linked to the pragmatism of the moderates to achieve real solutions. Indeed, the most effective moderates bring deep passion to their work, and the most inspiring progressives leaven their advocacy with a healthy measure of pragmatism.
Instead of working toward consensus, the opposition has chosen to demonize reform with phony accusations of "death panels" and "government takeovers." But at the end of the day, I believe we will enact significant reforms that will make health care more accessible and affordable without compromising quality, innovation or choice. These solutions will command the strong support of the American people if they are built on the terra firma of common ground.
Looking at the primary, it seems Swett is positioning herself as a "centrist" Democrat, the only party to claim that territory.
The Republican Party has become the party of extremism and unhinged behavior, as evidenced by the disruptions at Town Hall meetings on health care reform. Tim C's photo essay of anti health care demonstrators in Portsmouth bears this out. Remember people were removed from Bush's events by police for wearing t-shirts his handlers found offensive. But people carrying sidearms are allowed to roam at Obama's events with signs that signal a call to violence.
Notice that no Republican leader, at the state or federal level, has condemned the violent and anti-American nature of the protests. None. Their silence is complicity. It means they are in agreement. It means they believe the lies and distortions being put forward by industry shills and radio/teevee demagogues. I remember all too well how anyone criticizing Bush for the least little thing, such as creating torture chambers, was branded a traitor and unpatriotic. Now people say Obama isn't a citizen, hold signs with him as Hitler (the ahistorical and ignorant nature of this is mind boggling), and that's somehow okay.
I hope voters realize this as we move forward toward the 2010 elections.
It was nice of Fergus Cullen to point out that the Hodes and Shea-Porter congressional offices are under-budget.
Additionally, his praise for the new Democratic congressional majority also caught my eye:
Previously, reports disclosing how members of Congress spend their personal office budgets have been available to the public only in Washington, D.C., or select libraries, and then only in thick paperbacks released months after the expenditures were made. It's enough to make one think our representatives don't want us to see how they spend their personal budgets.
Thus, when Fergus does his next investigative report on what Bass and Bradley did on our dime, it'll be a lot harder for him, because they and the Republican majority they were part of, according to Fergus, were less transparent about how they spent our money. (It's enough to make you think that Republicans don't want you to know how they spend their personal budgets.)
It does appear that all is not rosy between Cullen and his successor. I asked Sununu whether he agreed with Cullen about the meeting's danger. Sununu responded tartly: "I don't agree with anything my predecessor says."
This just adds to my hunch that the only reason the elder is the NHGOP Chair is because he was upset over how Junior lost.
Which in turn tells me that Junior will be installed as the nominee in due course. Sorry, Charlie.
Landrigan has a different take, claiming that the other Sununus' (not named John) new moneymaking venture shows he isn't running.
Foster's Daily Democrat reported today that the NHGOP's former chairman, Fergus Cullen, is disappointed with John H. Sununu's leadership of the party. According to Foster's, while attending a RNC convention in Maryland, the elder Sununu made a concerted effort to divide the already weakened Republican Party by failing to show up and vote on resolutions.
Fergus Cullen, the former NHGOP Chairman said of Sununu's flagrant disrespect for the GOP:
"It is unfortunate that New Hampshire is one of the states undermining the chairman of the RNC and challenging his authority," he said. "Some members prefer to act like a college debating society and argue about silly resolutions than to build a majority coalition that can win elections."
Cullen went on to say Sununu's behavior could jeopardize the Granite State's first-in-the-nation primary:
Cullen said national committee members should mostly worry about protecting the state's kick-off primary since getting "into fights with other members ... risks making enemies our state doesn't need."
"At a time when Republican voter registration has reached a 25-year low and national polls continue to show Democratic leaders enjoy widespread support, the GOP remains splintered because its party leaders, like John H. Sununu, have alienated moderates and moved their party dramatically to the right. Between the rise in GOP defectors and John H. Sununu's blatant absenteeism, it's clear that the Republican Party has a long way to go before it is out of the woods," said NHDP Communications Director Victoria Bonney.
(Posted by Victoria Bonney, Communications Director for the New Hampshire Democratic Party)
UPDATE: Fergus wrote to let me know he hasn't gone anywhere. His work with Yankee is part of his "consulting business."
Looks like we won't have Fergus Cullen to kick around anymore.
NH Political Grapevine noticed he wrote an editorial advocating the slaughter of cows as a way to wean those lazy socialist dairy farmers off their gummit welfare checks subsidies. No seriously, I'm not making that up.
In the Hartford Courant. As in, Hartford, Connecticut.
Turns out he's the new director of the Yankee Institute. This in turn, I imagine, would make residency requirements for running for office here a little tricky.
The special election triggered by William Denley's resignation is taking shape:
Several possible candidates emerged yesterday. Former state GOP chairman Fergus Cullen said he's considering a run. And a spokeswoman for Democrat Bud Martin, who lost to Denley by 500 votes last year, said Martin is "definitely running."
I suspect the path will be quickly cleared for Bud on our side, given how close he came during the general election to swinging that seat. For the elephants, though, the path is less clear. According to the article, Fergus doesn't sound too interested if there's going to be a primary, and other names are being tossed around: Joe Kenney, Sam Cataldo (who lost in the primary), even Jeb Bradley.
The special election is likely to be set by the EC on April 21, or else that will be the date of a primary if need be, with the election then on May 26.
I met Bud Martin once and thought he was a decent, nice guy. Apparently he was a lifelong Republican from Center Sandwich who changed parties only recently. This is fascinating to me because I know some other Granite Staters from that town who did exactly that as well. So to me, he perfectly fits the trend I've been noticing in northern parts of the state of the natives no longer recognizing what the modern Republicans made of their once Grand Party.
(But the myth-makers should feel free to keep blaming it on Taxachussetts.)
At the Republican state committee meeting last Saturday, outgoing chairman Fergus Cullen reflected back on some of the brighter moments of the past political season.
His wife, he said, is due with her second child in June. "Anyone who can do the math can see that there was some involvement back in September, which was right after our Republican national convention. We all expressed our enthusiasm for the nomination of Sarah Palin," Cullen joked.
But seriously: congrats, former chairman. Though I will say that all the people I know born in June, me included, are left-handed :-)
On his way out the door, Chairman Cullen invites voters to consider... the issues that define the Democratic party:
"we have to be talking about issues that centrist votes care about. I suggest that we talk less about taxes and less about social issues and more about education, health care and conservation, as three examples."
Thank goodness John H. Sununu is taking the helm instead. We all know how his son felt about health care.
(He's really going to be insufferable, isn't he? - promoted by Dean Barker)
When the inaugaration ended today, I wandered out of Representatives Hall to see John H. Sununu holding a little press conference. As he stood surrounded by the NH political press, Fergus Cullen was standing off to the side, by himself. I found myself offended on his behalf.
Fergus Cullen had the misfortune of being the chair of the losing party in a really bad year. I've been there; it isn't fun. He wanted to run again and give it another go, but John H. decided to stage his coup. Fergus didn't whine or complain, which he could have done. After all, John H. Sununu never gave two cents about the NH Republican Party while he was governor or after he left office. When you look up John H. Sununu on opensecrets, he has given a total of $6,850 the the NHGOP - and $6,400 of that was before the year 2000. Of that, $5,000 was in 1996, when little John E. ran for congress the first time - and was probably steering donations to the party.
Fergus the Former penned this little masterpiece in 2006.
SEASON'S GREETINGS from the O'Bama family in Blue Hampshire! As we write this year's holiday form letter, our excitement following November's elections is tempered by our usual December outrage at the seasonal assault on the separation of church and state.
Ah, Fergus, Fergus - trying to fan the flames of Billo's war on Christmas - the war that years later isn't being fought by anyone but right wing ideologues.
Take a moment to read the prose of the bard of the NH GOP - and reflect. This letter offers some real insight into why the NH Republican Party is continuing to lose membership and elections.
Senior Sununu is running for NHGOP Chair, and we won't have Fergus to kick around anymore.
To be serious for a moment. Let's not fool ourselves about a race - if he's in the running, he's won the chairmanship. Fran is foiled yet again.
The news has a mixture of good and bad to it, imho. Starting with the bad: John H. is a great debater who gets my blood pumping. He's so thoroughly convinced of his own brilliance that he will be persuasive to the part of the electorate that doesn't think too hard about his radical right-wing ideology. Or to put it another way, there's always a certain portion of the population that likes forceful rhetoric, regardless of the facts on the ground. So the base will be excited.
The good news is obvious: at a time when the GOP, nationally and regionally, is threatening to become a rump fringe party, New Hampshire is going to go with a guy who is knee-deep in how the GOP lost its way. There's a whole generation of younger voters who will have no idea who that crazy old person is haranguing them about Lynch, and who will choose to go with the future.
Chris Hackett addressed the increasingly feisty crowd as they await the arrival of Gov. Palin.
Each time the Republican candidate for the seat in the 10th Congressional District mentioned Barack Obama the crowd booed loudly.
One man screamed "kill him!"
Where on earth would Republicans think it's okay to say things like that? That's not acceptable even to joke about:
HUMOR (Send your family-appropriate political jokes to fergus@nhgop.org):
Almost seven years ago I sat, as did millions of other Americans, and watched as our government underwent a peaceful transition of power. At first, I felt a swell of pride and patriotism as I watched George W. Bush take his oath of office. However, all that pride quickly vanished as I later watched the Clintons board Air Force One for the last time. I saw 21 Marines, in full dress uniform with rifles, fire a 21-gun salute to the outgoing President and first lady. It was then that I realized how far America's military had deteriorated under the Clinton administration. Every last one of them missed.
I'm glad Sununu and Gregg rushed to demand the resignation of their party chair over that. Oh, yeah, I forgot. They didn't have the guts to do the right thing.
Sprintin' Sununu put out another ad today which consists largely of him about to break out into actual sprinting, and plenty of misleading metaphorical sprinting away from his Republican, Bush-enabling identity. For example, it touts how he called for Gonzo to be fired, but nowhere mentions that he supported him as AG in the first place despite the scandal of the torture revelations.
Shaheen and the DSCC both fought back today too. The first ad shines a light on Fergus' ridiculous "radical community organizing" talking point (for much more on this see Kathy's outstanding diary), and the second is just pretty straight ahead hard-hitting on how out of touch John E. is:
