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Over the past six months, my opponents have constantly reminded me of how crucial this race is. Whether it's a woman's right to choose or a family's right to affordable health care - they've shown us time and time again what we all stand to lose if Kelly Ayotte, Bill Binnie, or Ovide Lamontagne wins.
Earlier this morning, after a great pancake breakfast with more than 200 supporters, I officially filled out the paperwork to become a Democratic candidate for the US Senate.
I want to thank those of you who joined me this morning at the Statehouse. Not only was it a truly humbling show of support for Peggo and me, but it was also a great sign of things to come as we get close to November 2.
Kathy Sullivan had a great post on this earlier today, but I wanted to take a second and talk about Kelly Ayotte's statement this morning that taking drilling in New England "off the table" would be a "huge mistake."
It was unbelievable, especially as millions of gallons of oil continue to pollute Gulf waters and coastlines
(Thanks for stopping by Congressman. Only 160 days until we get to vote for you to be the next Senator from the great state of New Hampshire. - promoted by Mike Hoefer)
For 43 days, thousands of barrels of oil have been spilling into the Gulf Coast. 43 days of environmental disaster because big oil companies were given a blank check on offshore drilling with little regulation and poor oversight.
Now, with the recent failure of the "top kill" strategy, there is no end in sight to the amount of oil that is spilling into the Gulf. This spill is poisoning our waters, suffocating our plants and wildlife, and jeopardizing the health of our citizens - threatening jobs, businesses and communities along the Gulf Coast.
My thoughts and prayers are with the people and communities down on the Gulf, who are dealing day and night with the devastating aftermath of the spill.
This disaster was a warning sign. When government puts the profits of Big Oil first, when politicians listen to special interests instead of the people they are supposed to represent - then we put the safety of our workers, communities and economy at risk.
I was not able to speak with Congressman Hodes when I called him yesterday to express my opinion that I believed the best option for health care reform was to pass the Senate bill intact. The intern I spoke to was very polite and understanding but not able to answer my questions. I think it is imperative we find out exactly where our Reps (Carol and Paul) stand right now.
(1) Are they inclined to support the Senate HCR bill? (If they oppose it, which is a legitimate stand, but not one I support, then what do they offer as an alternative?)
(2) Is the Nelson language really be enough to kill her or his vote? (Again, legitimate, but if they voted for the House bill then why would this be an issue?)
As Dean pointed out, having no HCR bill is not an option. Lives are literally in the balance. If the Democrats want to maintain a majority and have any credibility with the American people then they have no alternative but to pass reform. It really is that simple.
It should be pointed out that Ezra and others have raised the possibility of a new Plan B. They include some variation of the following.
1. Expand Medicare (Allow coverage and/or buy-in for those between 50-65)
2. Raise Medicaid to 200% of poverty line.
3. Bar pre-existing condition denials and policy rescission
4. Close the Medicare Part B donut hole
5. Surtax on wealthy to pay for it.
That seems to be a reasonable fall back position and something most Democrats would buy into. Unfortunately it would do nothing to start bringing down costs for health related services and insurance. But the good news would be that coverage would be significantly expanded without adding to the deficit.
(Still time contribute to Cheshire Dems Inauguration Anniversary Celebration. Looking forward to seeing Hamsters and Candidates tonight in Keene. - promoted by Mike Hoefer)
During election cycles Cheshire County voters elect the highest percentage of Democrats of any county in New Hampshire. To keep that distinction, the Democratic Committee organizes events, conducts Get Out The Vote canvasses, and provides logistical support to Democratic candidates. Our political community spends time and money to ensure voters are exposed to Democratic candidates and their message.
This morning, in Manchester, Congressman Hodes sat down with 14 statewide activists and community leaders to begin the process of forming a Veterans For Hodes steering committee. After brief introductions and a short statement from Congressman Hodes, the meeting was dedicated to a question and answer session covering a variety of key issues, e.g. the President's Af/Pak policy, dwell time for servicemembers, the need to expand the VA in NH, homelessness among veterans, women veterans issues, the homecoming and the impact on families of those returning injured in visible and nonvisible ways.
On the day after Veterans Day, it might be easy to skip over another blog about saying "Thank You" to those that have served. I'll admit, my eyes glaze over at times. Knowing that much is sincere, it is difficult to figure out when sometimes folks are just saying what must be said, when it needs to be said.
However, there is no arguing the sincerity of the doers, those that deliver.
Congressman Paul Hodes Encourages Businesses to Hire Veterans, Launches New Small Business Web Page
With many veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan to a difficult economy, Congressman Hodes is reminding businesses that this tax credit lowers taxes for businesses that employ a veteran. To help small businesses take advantage of tax credits and other available assistance, Congressman Hodes has also launched a new section of his website at www.hodes.house.gov/smallbusiness.
"Granite State veterans have served our country with honor overseas, only to return home to have trouble finding a job in this difficult economy," said Congressman Paul Hodes. "This tax credit is good for New Hampshire's small businesses, and will encourage small business owners to hire veterans and provide good jobs for working families. We must do all that we can to ensure that veterans have job opportunities when they return home to our communities."
A few weeks ago, I went to a pig roast in New Hampshire organized for bloggers to get to know Rep. Paul Hodes who is running for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire. As part of the gathering, Rep. Hodes gave a variation of his stump speech, citing examples of people who have not been treated fairly and his efforts to intercede on their behalf. At the end of each example, he would bring home the point by talking about how the system is upside down. I wrote a little bit about this in my blog post Representative and Participatory Democracy.
This point came home to me yesterday afternoon. Friday, I received emails from many different organizations urging me to call my congresswoman, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, and urge her to support the health care reform bill. I felt very confident on how she would vote. I had heard her speak at various events promising a good health care reform bill, but I had also heard she was getting a lot of calls against the bill, and I wanted to make sure she knew that she was strongly supported in her stance. I tried calling her Washington number repeatedly, but could not get through.
Then, Saturday morning, my wife Kim and I were racking off our Oktoberfest Cider. We had brought some of our previous batches of cider to the pig roast in New Hampshire and it was well received. We were in the middle of making a new batch. The cell phone rang and my daughter Fiona ran to get it. It was a New Hampshire area code, but not my brother-in-law. Fiona didn't get the phone in time. Kim called back and we found it was Rep. Hodes. He was calling to thank us for driving up to New Hampshire for the pig roast. I told him that I really liked his message and we chatted briefly about the importance of social media.
Today's available Sunday columns are Tom Fahey's, from the Union Leader and Kevin Landrigan's from The Nashua Telegraph.
Fahey opens with a report on unemployment benefits. The amount the state pays out will be higher, due to higher unemployment. Employers will also have to pay more into the system in 2010, while laid off employees will have to wait a week to collect.
Landrigan was following the money this morning. The link between Kelly Ayotte and the epic-failure- as-Governor Craig Benson was brought into focus. Well, he did give her her start as AG, which is her platform for her Senate run.
Reporting that most of Ayotte's money was raised from out of state political PACS, many donors have already maxed out, and much of her money can only be used in the general (optimistic!), Landrigan writes:
There was barely a member of the extended Benson-allied family (read campaign $$$) whom Ayotte missed in her maiden fundraising voyage.
(It was great seeing you again, Aldon. - promoted by Dean Barker)
Today, we drove up to New Hampshire for a pig-roast with Representative Paul Hodes, who is running for U.S. Senate. It was a special pig roast and jamfest, or perhaps a Hodes-down for bloggers. We live in Connecticut where we have our own hotly contested U.S. Senate race going on, but I've got lots of good friends who are bloggers up in New Hampshire and I always enjoy heading up to talk democracy in the Granite State.
Today, Former New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte formally declared her candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Prior to being elected to Congress, Rep. Hodes served as Assistant Attorney General under then Attorney General David Souter. The two of them are currently the likely candidates to go head to head seeking retiring Senator Judd Gregg's seat.
It may seem strange to drive four hours each way, to an event for a Senate candidate two states away, but it reflects a view towards democracy that I love about New Hampshire. Back in the beginning of 2008, we traveled up to New Hampshire to help campaign for John Edwards. Fiona, who was six at the time, got up on the stage and led a large crowd of supporters in a chant for Sen. Edwards, and later hopped into his arms after his speech. When Sen. Edwards dropped out of the race, we asked her what she thought about supporting Sen. Obama. She paused for a moment, and said, "I don't know. I haven't met him yet."
When I tell that story to people in Connecticut, or many other states, they are taken aback. Why would a six year old expect to meet a Presidential candidate before deciding whether or not to support them? Yet when I tell that story to people in New Hampshire, they nod their heads and say, "Yup, makes sense to me." Democracy needs to be participatory, and at least for us, that means more than just watching news bites on television. It means having a good face to face discussion with the candidates.
HODES LEADS IN US SENATE FUNDRAISING - Hodes has more than double cash on hand ($1.1 M) than AYOTTE ($561K) --- ALMOST $600K raised in 3Q ... "bringing
his yearly total to nearly $1.6 million" to date. The campaign said it has over $1.1 million on hand
... "This is the largest amount any non-incumbent candidate for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire has ever raised at this point in the election cycle."
Tonight - participants on the Blue Hampshire Blog, and others gathered at Hermano's to chat about politics, listen to a little music and just generally celebrate the joy of being in a Blue State. Expected were representatives Carol Shea-Porter & Paul Hodes; congressional candidates John deJoie and Annie McLain; Marcos from KOS and various party (as in political not social) officials and unofficials.
All day long, the New Hampshire arm of Health Care for America Now (HCAN) - the nation's largest health care campaign - has been generating calls to Hodes and Shea Porter to encourage them to vote for H.R. 3200 before they leave for August recess at the end of the week.
Of course, our representatives can't make that call themselves, but that's one of the reasons why some New Hampshire activists are helping generate phone calls into Blue Dog districts. HCAN anticipates to generate more than 50,000 contacts to the US House of Representatives today alone.
The message is simple: there is strong support for H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act and it's time to move forward. (And my personal note: anti-health care obstructionists will be ... obstructionists. Let's get this bill to the floor, now.)
In case you forgot, H.R. 3200 will:
• use a sliding scale to determine your insurance cost
• provide tax credits for employees with under 25 employees
• use a graduated surcharge on high-income taxpayers that would raise $543 billion over ten years. (Good info: NH Citizens Alliance for Action and SEIU's Change That Works just released a report (scroll to NH) that finds only 1.3% of NH taxpayers will be affected by the proposed surcharge, with low and middle-income taxpayers not affected at all.)
If you haven't made a call, consider yourself asked.
Here's the other interesting information, and why you're probably reading this post - Hodes is hosting a Health Care Town Hall teleconference tonight. For those interested, see release:
Reminder: Congressman Paul Hodes to Hold Telephone Town Hall on Health Care Reform for New Hampshire's 2nd District
Washington, DC--- Congressman Paul Hodes will hold a telephone town hall tonight at 7:40 p.m. for residents of New Hampshire's 2nd Congressional District. The town hall will last an hour and will focus on health care reform.
When: Today, July 28, 2009; 7:40 PM
How: 877-229-8493; 14631#
Hodes is a good health care advocate, and I'll be interested to hear what he has to say about the current status of the bill.
I know it's tempting to compare the recent resignation of Kelly Ayotte to former Governor Sarah Palin, but I think this is a terrible mistake.
Kelly Ayotte is a well educated, accomplished woman who is a formidable opponent--to treat her like anything else is a mistake we should not make. There are plenty of other thing to attack her about, but being like Sarah Palin is not one of them.
Rather than focusing on GOP-like attacks, we should move forward with a positive campaign of substance to ensure Paul Hodes' victory in 2010.
We can win with the issues and our activism.
Anything less than that does a disservice to our state's reputation for substantive political discourse.
Petty comparisons will only turn people away from our party and our message.
(Another Andy Smith production, no doubt. You can be sure we will pick apart the sampling on this, as we always do. - promoted by Dean Barker)
Real Clear Politics just posted a poll from UNH that has Ayotte beating Hodes by 4%...
Hmmm this poll looks highly questionable. I also highly doubt that Tausch would get 25% in a Hodes match up and at the same time have 5/4 Fav/Unfav ratings. Does anyone really know who he is?
I hope this turns out to be inaccurate, but either way, I think this is a really good time to Act Blue.
More (Dean): Are you kidding me? This is the sloppiest sample yet. Check out the latest version of Cloud Hampshire's Hodes' v. Ayotte sample (from the .pdf):
Ex-U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu tells The Associated Press he will not run next year for the Senate seat being vacated by fellow New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg.
Sununu - who was defeated last year by Jeanne Shaheen - says he's busy working with several technology firms, a number of nonprofit organizations and as a member of the panel overseeing the government's bailout of the financial sector.
Another great reason to back Hodes for Senate 2010.
He's not your father's Democrat. He's got the necessary resolve to oppose corruption, even in his own party. Thank god someone is willing is to vote their conscience, not just their wallets. Pelosi's office had better understand they will lose national support by pushing to protect Murtha and other senior Dem lawmakers and their ties to the PMA Group
As the House prepared to vote this week on Republican Rep. Jeff Flake's push for an ethics investigation involving Rep. John Murtha and other senior appropriators, Democratic leaders sent an unmistakable message to their members:
"Don't be a Flake."
That was the subject line of an e-mail that staffers for first- and second-term Democrats received Tuesday from Rep. Chris Van Hollen, assistant to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The message said that Democrats would once again be "voting to table another Flake resolution" - and it made clear that leadership would have its eyes on any Democrats even thinking about defecting.
A new American Research Group poll in New Hampshire finds Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH) leads former Sen. John Sununu (R-NH), 42% to 36% among registered voters in a possible 2010 U.S. Senate match-up.
Among independents, Hodes leads Sununu 38% to 31%.
H/T Teagan Goddard's Political Wire
Go Paul, Go!
That Independent # is a killer for the Republican Nominee. It will be interesting watch that over the coming months... could it keep a respectable Nominee out of the race?
