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"The John Stephen campaign has accepted $33,058 in contributions - including $23,000 from the Dunkin' Donuts franchises in Massachusetts and Connecticut - that appear to be exceed those allowed under state finance law and previous interpretation of that law," said Pamela Walsh, campaign manager for NH for John Lynch.
"We are asking the Attorney General to quickly clarify whether these contributions are acceptable under New Hampshire law, or whether they exceed legal contribution limits and should be returned," Walsh said.
And then there's this, which is appalling:
About 13 percent of John Stephen's campaign funds - $124,000 - come from a series of businesses that share two addresses in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The Lynch campaign has called on Stephen to come clean about the donors, including their interests in New Hampshire, and about whether there are any New Hampshire businesses or citizens who are invested in these companies.
Vote for John Stephen, and he'll save the state of New Hampshire billions and trillions of dollars nothing:
Stephen says the state can save hundreds of millions of dollars by converting its Medicaid program into a "managed care" system, one that emphasizes preventive care for its recipients. Stephen refers to a report prepared by the insurance company Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield in making his claim.
"They say, as a conservative estimate, the state would save $300 million with managed care," Stephen told a group of Monitor editors and reporters last week.
A conservative estimate!
And, if the experience of other states is any guide, any savings in New Hampshire are likely to be much more modest than those outlined by Stephen, according to the very report Stephen quotes on the campaign trail.
But grab a donut (preferably not from CT or MA), and read the whole thing.
Looks like Guinta isn't the only Republican candidate with some financial irregularities that need explaining. This looks quite a lot like John Stephen's struggling gubernatorial primary campaign has questions to answer. Funny how a pair of struggling but establishment-backed Republican front-runners in their respective races have suddenly developed mysterious windfalls, now that they've started losing support.
If seventeen LLCs donate to a campaign and all seventeen are owned and controlled by one person, how in the world is that not a form of laundering donations? If this is legal, then New Hampshire has no functional campaign finance restrictions; unlimited donations would be implicitly allowed by creating out-of-state LLCs and sending five thousand bucks a pop from them.
The collection of clowns the Republicans have put up to challenge John Lynch and Carol Shea-Porter makes it exceedingly clear how bare their bench is these days - and how incompetent New Hampshire's Republicans are at campaigning in a state that doesn't reflexively fill in the 'R' dot on the ballot like it used to.
Remember when the NRCC in 2008 tried to help Jeb Bradley win by splashing the phrase "sex offender" next to the name of the person he failed to unseat? It was least honorable political ad of 2008 in NH, imo, and that's saying something considering the gallery of stoopid that normally descends on the TeeVee just prior to voting time.
Same sleaze, different year. Now John Stephen, who is not polling much better than supposedly non-credible Republican gubernatorial candidates, is trying it against Lynch this cycle.
In other news, New Hampshire is rated the healthiest place in the United States of America to raise children.
New Hampshire again ranks No. 1 nationally in an annual survey on children's well-being.
...In composite rankings for all indicators, New Hampshire ranked highest, as it has in eight of the last nine years. This year, it was followed by Minnesota and Vermont. Mississippi ranked last.
"That's an incredible record, and it says a lot about how well kids fare in this state," said Ellen Fineberg, president of the Children's Alliance of New Hampshire, a nonprofit group that does research on children in the state.
Whatever your policy or political disagreements are with Governor Lynch (I sure have some), there is no question he has been a far superior steward of this state than the days of Craig Benson.
Vitale called the party an annual business event and defended the scrapped contest, saying it would have been "as classy as the 89-year-old Mrs. America Pageant."
His flier advertised it differently.
"It's July, it's HOT and we are having our HOTTEST party ever!!" it reads.
This was by far the best email (release) of the day for me:
Surrounded by lawmakers, educators and students, Gov. John Lynch today signed a law that strengthens and updates New Hampshire's existing anti-bullying statute.
The new law, House Bill 1523, will strengthen the state's existing anti-bullying statute by ensuring every school has a clear anti-bullying policy and the new law for the first time addresses the act of cyber-bullying.
"As Governor, I have made the safety of our children a priority, and today, we are continuing our efforts to protect our most important resource - our children," Gov. Lynch said. "Together - as elected officials, parents, teachers, school administrators and law enforcement - we need to send a clear message of zero tolerance for bullying and we will not allow it in our schools."
Bullying is something I take very seriously in my day job; I am thrilled that protections against it were strengthened today.
This is the work of a Democratically controlled house and senate, and a governor who stands for tolerance.
You may have your disagreements with John Lynch on issues big and small - I know I do.
But when it comes to the basic concept of tolerance in society, we have the example above. And we have the example below waiting for us if we don't GOTV:
"If elected, (John) Stephen said he would sign a bill that repealed the state law that allows gay and lesbian couples to marry."
and
"In his prepared remarks yesterday, Stephen focused exclusively on economic matters, a topic that will certainly form the centerpiece of his campaign. But when asked about New Hampshire's law permitting same-sex marriage, Stephen said he supported repealing it."
Did anyone else notice that Craig Benson protege John Stephen's numbers against Lynch in the PPP poll are virtually identical to Jack Kimball's?
This is amazing to me, given how much more name recognition Stephen should have from his previous runs for various offices and his grandstanding at DHHS.
The PPP press release (.PDF) calls him an "unknown."
Adding: Maybe one clear way to distinguish between Stephen and Kimball is for a reporter to ask if either of them support the Republican Governors Association's new allegiance with Guy Fawkes. Or then again, maybe not so clear.
In Concord, gubernatorial candidate Jack Kimball drew cheers with an anti-tax message. He decried the state's taxation of business while criticizing its relatively low level of services.
"I don't mind paying my fair share, folks," he said. "I don't think any of us do. But I do mind when I'm raped. It's awful."
After he left the stage, Kimball said he was referring to the tax burden on small businesses.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - In New Hampshire, the Tea Party is a loose affiliation among more than two dozen groups ranging from the Christian Home Educators of New Hampshire to the Granite State Taxpayers.
...Granite State Patriots founder Jack Kimball says the coalition came together a year ago when leaders of the individual groups helped organize a large tax-day protest in Manchester.
That would be the protest that included these signs:
When asked if he would ever run against Ayotte if she chooses to run for U.S. Senate in 2010, Lynch replied, "I will never consider running for Senate against anybody."
There's got to be better ways for the other team to raise money for their campaigns than wishful thinking.
John DiStaso back in February on John Stephen's "cost savings" to Rhode Island government:
In Rhode Island, Stephen worked with Gov. Donald Carcieri and the state's human services department to reform the state's Medicaid system and obtain cost-saving federal waivers
Cost savings!
The Carcieri administration had maintained for months that consultants working for the Lucas Group had volunteered their time. But in June, the administration agreed to pay a $370,000 settlement to the firm for its "significant" work on a "global waiver" giving Rhode Island unprecedented freedom in how it spends its Medicaid dollars on health care for the poor, the elderly and the disabled.
One partner in the Lucas Group was John Stephen, a former New Hampshire health and human services commissioner and failed GOP congressional candidate in New Hampshire. Rhode Island's secretary of the Office of Health and Human Services, Gary Alexander, campaigned with Stephen and held a fundraiser for him.
Nothing in the New Hampshire media yet about this clever bit of Benson Era "volunteer" outsourcing.
I can't wait to see what a Stephen administration would mean for my tax dollars in New Hampshire. Maybe someone in the state media will look into it between now and November. Maybe.
Quietly making calls to arrange discussions with strategists and/or activists are Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, who's getting lots of encouragement to run for governor or the U.S. House, Merrimack County Attorney Dan St. Hillaire and 2002 gubernatorial candidate Bruce Keough.
...Health and Human Services Commissioner John Stephen was seen by some as beginning a 2008 campaign for governor with his Tuesday op-ed in this newspaper.
No, really, it was literally at the end of the day*:
John Stephen to run for governor
CONCORD - Updated, 7:53 p.m. Confirming earlier reports in the New Hampshire Union Leader and on UnionLeader.com, the lifelong Manchester resident and former state health and human services commissioner said he'll become a candidate next week
Governor Hummer may have driven off into the sunset without paying for his gubernatorial portrait, but his proteges continue to haunt the Granite State.
Someday, I hope that yet another former NHYD President will run for governor, too. But I strongly suspect that if Garth or Jim runs, they'll do it as Democrats.
*Adding: lolz- actually earlier in the day for WMUR, who actually broke the news.
Shorter John DiStaso's Granite Republican Status (02/25/10):
I double-dutch promise you, with cherry on top: there will be a GOPer to go up against Gov. Lynch who isn't named Jack Kimball or Karen Testerman. Just be patient already!
Adding: At the end of the day, has anyone in NHGOP-Land figured out that having a second Craig Benson protege running for a major office in the fall might just be a bad thing, from a marketing perspective, for Kelly Ayotte and John Stephen?
Republican Karen Testerman is running for governor of New Hampshire.
Back in the day, Ms. Testerman was head of Cornerstone Policy Research, which opposed the current, discriminatory Don't Ask, Don't Tell military policy. Opposed it not for going not far enough, but for going too far.
Here are some statements from Cornerstone's document (click on the .pdf at the link) on "Gays in the Military":
The presence of homosexuals in the armed services threatens the military's highly regarded merit-based system. Sexual attraction encourages special relationships without regard to rank and increases the risk of favoritism.
and concerning HIV/AIDS:
Military men and women willingly accept risks not found anywhere else in society, but should they be needlessly exposed to a disease that is 100 percent fatal?
and my personal favorite:
Other behavior that harms military effectiveness, such as drug abuse and sexual harrassment, is not tolerated in private; there is no reason why homosexuality should be dealt with differently.
To repeat, Karen Testerman is a Republican candidate for governor of the Live Free or Die State.
The Tea People have found their leader, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Kimball.
And Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Kimball has found his, too:
He said Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck was "an American hero" and that everyone should watch his show, on which Kimball will be advertising his campaign beginning today.
Republicans, he said, are "not going to win elections without the Tea Party movement so with me you get two for the price of one."
Radical social conservative Karen Testerman's gubernatorial candidacy announcement, in part:
"NH was founded on the belief that everyone should be free. We should have the freedom to succeed. We should have the freedom to fail. We should not be forced to allow government to be our nanny who tramples on our freedoms with forced dependency.
Cornerstone's Karen Testerman:
Now, if you want to be promiscuous and sleep around with some Tom, Dick or Harry (not a good idea for a variety of reasons) forgetting your health and safety, your NH legislature recently passed a bill, signed and celebrated by your Governor, that lets your pharmacist, provide you with a pill to "wash all your cares away" without even notifying your parents.
...If you follow the money trail, you should ask, who benefits? Could it be a political contribution from the multi-million dollar a year abortion industry? Is this why your governor was so happy to request, encourage and sign this bill into law?
But the Granite State GOP's latest candidate for governor has just the thing to keep those millions from Lynch's campaign coffers:
They need to know that sex without boundaries is deadly. There are consequences when genital contact is practiced outside the bonds of marriage. Our young people need to know that if both parties wait until they make a life long commitment to one another in marriage to have sex, they have a better chance to be healthier, attain a higher level of education, be financially secure, happier and to enjoy sex more, IF that sex is with the one they are married to.
...The only 100% way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea, clamydia, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, HIV and HPV is to abstain from genital contact until marriage.
Please excuse the end of this post; I wanted to add some witty end note, but I am so creeped out right now I think I need to go read some Robert Frost or something.
Karen Testerman is trying to re-invent her image along fiscal issues, and Shira let her.
About thirty seconds of Teh Google pulled this up:
Testerman drew sharp criticism for her comments on a New Hampshire Public Radio talk program, comparing gay men and lesbians with "shoplifters and drug addicts." She also played a major role in helping the governor build support among legislators for the new law that requires minor girls to notify at least one parent or guardian before getting an abortion. In an interview Tuesday, Testerman defended her criticism of the gay community. "We all have behaviors that may have an inclination to harm society, and we try to keep them under control," she told The [Nashua, N.H.] Telegraph. "When we have restrictions on those behaviors, then there is less activity. Homosexuality is a method by which there is some threat to society because of the disease it promotes. We cut men's life short because they cause AIDS and become more susceptible to pneumonia. I would raise the concern that homosexuality is not good in that it is a threat to the overall health of the society as a whole."
During Grok-Gate, much attention was focused on the "f"-word. But the rest of the statement is what mattered more to me:
"Yeah you Faggot. [Pause.] That's right I said it and I meant it. You are reprobate. How the people, the Democrats, I think of some of the gray haired ladies and older people from the old party would stand behind you is beyond me. You are a disgrace to yourself to humanity to mankind and to your party.
How much space, really, is there between these two views? And can the NHGOP in good faith encourage the former to run for governor, while condemning the latter?
The other Republican gubernatorial candidate besides Ms. Testerman is Jack Kimball, who is stockpiling ammo.
This the the New Hampshire Republican party of 2009.
