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The first district GOP primary was so boring before Sean Mahoney got into it.
Just an observation on my part - not connected in any way whatsoever with the following excerpt from a Rich Ashooh press release about a phone smear campaign against Frank Guinta:
Negative and deceptive phone calls erroneously blamed on Ashooh Campaign
Third party illegally using campaign number to place calls, complaint filed with NH AG
..."We have become aware that a negative and deceptive telephone campaign has been launched which gives the appearance that the Ashooh campaign is the source of the calls. We unequivocally deny any involvement with this activity and call on the perpetrators to cease and desist immediately.
"This activity is not only improper it is also illegal and we have notified the New Hampshire AG's office. They are reviewing this issue for possible criminal prosecution. We encourage anyone who receives one of these illegal calls to contact the AG's office directly at 271-3650.
They're too chicken to go after Boomers and seniors - they know it'll cost them votes. Instead, New Hampshire Republican candidates for federal office are gunning to loot Gen X-ers and Millenials and the disabled, who they think are paying less attention.
Frank Guinta:
When it comes to reforming Social Security and other programs, he would consider creating personal accounts and increasing the retirement age.
"Everything has to be on the table," said Guinta.
Sean Mahoney:
"But the younger generations, they need to understand there should be other options. Your retirement age may be later in life than your parents' were."He also said younger people should "be able to have a private option, take some ownership over your own retirement."
The Seacoast Republican Women hosted a candidate forum last night in Portsmouth. The doubleheader began with the six GOP candidates for the 1st Congressional District seat, followed by 90 minutes with the six GOP U.S. Senatorial candidates. My observations and impressions follow.
General
Atmosphere: Large, enthusiastic audience. The moderator stressed the event was "educational and informational" in nature and discouraged confrontation. The candidates followed her orders. No fireworks.
Format: The questions were provided to candidates prior to the event, eliminating rude surprises. No questions from the audience. Included a "lightning round" featuring litmus test questions, limited to almost unanimous simple yes/no answers.
The candidates: The lesser known candidates (Congressional candidates Peter Bearse and Rick Parent; Senate candidates Dennis Lamare and Gerard Beloin) were more spontaneous, more thoughtful, less guarded, and less scripted. They, of course, have no chance to win.
Much like Josh said somewhere on TPM in respect to this nationally, I think it is critically important to bear witness to the event unfolding in front of us. So for every New Hampshire pol of any party that wants to rush headlong into the Hall of Shame, I will do my best to be there to note it for posterity.
Today's willing refudiator of our founding principles is Rich Ashooh:
"My position is clear: I do not believe a mosque should be built near Ground Zero. On September 11th, that site in lower Manhattan became a place of deep significance to Americans of all faiths. We may be nearly nine years removed from 9-11 but the pain that day caused our nation is still very much with us. Americans have voiced their strong opinion on this issue already and it is not too much to expect their leaders to do so as well.
Replace the word "mosque" with "church," and there is no way to read the above as from the words of someone sane.
Whether the Burlington Coat Factory Pray Room is two inches or two continents away from Ground Zero is immaterial. Shockingly, those who represent us, or who would represent us, are telling us where the people of one religion should or shouldn't build their place of worship on their own private property.
We are witnessing the casual acceptance and legitimization of prejudice against Muslims in mainstream American thought, right in front of our eyes.
(Bumped, because you know it drives the UL crazy. - promoted by Dean Barker)
It's UNH, but I'll take it. Our Carol is showing significant gains, and currently beating every credible challenger. She's ahead of Guinta by 5, ahead of Ashooh by 8, ahead of Mahoney by 9, and ahead of Bestani by 11.
But of course, the pollster can't help himself from punditry:
It's a dramatic change from April, when the poll showed Shea-Porter trailing every major Republican candidate.
"Carol Shea-Porter seems to have benefited from staying out of the limelight for the last several months," said Andy Smith of the UNH Survey Center.
That's completely wrong.
Carol's House work has been extremely active, and the false hit jobs run against her by her rivals and their media enablers have been non-stop in her district. What's been out of the limelight, mostly, is her actual campaigning, which is par for the course for her at this time of year. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what the numbers show when her campaign is in full gear.
Adding: What's so funny about the timing of this is that I literally have seven or eight different, and positive, items about CSP in my to-do box, and am so behind on them I was going to put them in a round-up tonight. But now I'm going to let these numbers sit for a while, and post the roundup tomorrow.
Republican minority leader John Boehner of Ohio wants to steal your money. In an interview with a Pittsburgh paper yesterday, he said that Social Security payments should be "limited to those who need them":
If you have substantial non-Social Security income while you're retired, why are we paying you at a time when we're broke? We just need to be honest with people."
Democrats in Congress are slamming Boehner for proposing raising the social security age to 70, but to me, this proposal is equally, if not more outrageous, because it totally breaks trust with the working people of America.
Working Americans have paid into the Social Security System all of their working lives, with a promise that the money they put in will come back to them. No one told them it was just another tax to pay for something other than retirement. Boehner wants to steal all that money you and I have paid into Social Security if, in his opinion, we have "substantial" other income.
Do you trust John Boehner to decide what is "substantial"? Do you trust Frank Guinta, Sean Mahoney, Rich Ashooh or Charlie Bass to stand up to Boehner and his attempted larceny?
It seems Team Ashooh has finally figured out that there are about three candidates too many in the GOP side of the CD1 race, and has decided to try to up attention its way by sending out a SHOCKING, and SCANDALOUS, and meritless, release on a daily basis about Carol, with the volume set at 11.
I find this odd.
Because I'm still waiting for Rich Ashooh to give me or anyone a compelling reason to vote for him.
The entire United States of America is fuming at the British CEO of an international corporation which isn't doing nearly enough to stem the ruin they have unleashed on a huge section of the country.
And here we have a war lobbyist for a Biritish based international corporation, perhaps the world's largest defense contractor, asking for a seat at the table in congress.
This is the very definition of revolving door politics. Just starting from the wrong end first.
DC has many deficiencies, but probably the last thing it needs is one more direct link between the purse strings of the treasury and the military industrial complex. I'm pretty sure there are enough folks there already on top of that.
Of course, right now the seat Ashooh wants is in the hands of someone who, mirabile dictu, has actually put the needs of those who serve and have served in the military first and foremost in her legislative efforts, instead of the usual boilerplate about "supportihg the troops" that we get day in and out from pols. How rare is that?
Someday we are going to look back and marvel how we actually had someone in office representing "the rest of us." Let's do our part to make sure that moment arrives when Carol Shea-Porter makes the choice to retire.
So why is AIG spending tens of thousands of dollars every month on four big p.r. firms? Spokesman Nick Ashooh said his in-house communications team needs additional mouthpieces to respond to the "tsunami" of bad news from its collapse last September, including a lavish executive junket and hefty bonuses covered by the $180 billion taxpayer transfusion.
...It's not unusual for private companies to deploy outside p.r. flacks when they get into trouble. The biggest firms can charge as much as $40,000 a month to deal with fallout. AIG is now 80% owned by the government, which has pumped in public funds to allow the company to cover its claims and not bring down the world banking system with it. But some of that money appears to be financing damage control. Just how much, is the kind of question that publicly financed bodies are obligated to answer. When he was asked for AIG's p.r. tab, Ashooh gave a stock corporate response: "Contracts are proprietary."
"That's the whole culture of concealment that's helped some of our bigger financial enterprises get away with murder," Representative Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, told TIME. He said taxpayers are majority shareholders who are "entitled to know how company money is being spent" without the data's being "dressed up with the benefit of high-priced media folks."
Rich Ashooh, 5/10:
"AIG, Citibank, Chrysler, GM and now Greece?" asked Ashooh. "The current mentality of rushing to bail out failing institutions that have rung up massive debt instead of cutting spending and demanding accountability must end.
and:
Ashooh also said he was opposed to both the most recent bailout of GM and companies like AIG.
"There is a difference between trying to prevent a disaster (using taxpayer money) and managing it," he said. "There are things the government could have done without bailouts."
Also, and because some have a hard time understanding it: Carol Shea-Porter voted AGAINST the outrageous AIG and other bankster bailouts. Republican Judd Gregg voted for it, however.
Marc Ambinder writes perceptively about "the slow mainstreaming of wacky ideas. Call it the victory of the heckler's vetoers or attribute it to the dynamics of the way groups are formed, but more and more outre ideas are finding their way into politics these days."
His wacky idea du jour is the tea party-backed call to repeal the 17th Amendment which provides for the direct election of U.S. senators in lieu of having them selected by state legislatures. Supporters of repeal blame the amendment for creating excessive federal control by removing checks and balances previously available to the states to control Congress.
In a debate last week, the Republican CD-1 candidates were asked if they supported repeal. To their credit, each stated opposition to repeal -- "for now". But in follow-up interviews with Granite Grok, they stumbled all over themselves to lend credence to the idea of repeal and its supporters.
Frank Guinta: "There are pros and cons. We need to weigh this one very carefully." Rich Ashooh: "I'm not sure exactly what the answer is, whether it is full out repeal (or) a different kind of amendment..." Bob Bestani: "There needs to be a discussion about it."
As the campaign heats up and competition for the tea party votes intensifies, watch for more tea party dog whistles. And let's hear what Charlie "Their Agenda is Exactly the Same as Mine" Bass has to say about this one.
Is there anything about the Sean Mahoney campaign that is not AstroTurf?
There was the holier than thou separation of convenience from the RNC. The dog whistle Scary Barry Google ads. The fake Twitter accounts that are totally and completely not connected at all to him in any way.
Today, courtesy James Pindell, we are treated to not one but two exciting new adventures in the land of AstroTurf.
First, Sean Mahoney's new media guy's old fake news website highlights, for some strange reason I just can't understand at all, the following:
The Commentary Magazine story quoted a major donor of Ashooh's saying that he wanted to get more Arabs in the U.S. Congress.
The Ashooh campaign (and good for them), is not taking this lying down:
"Sean Mahoney should apologize to the voters for allowing this type of dirty campaigning. Mahoney knew Pat Hynes' checkered past when he hired him, and now he should fire him."
But wait - there's more!
Today also saw Team Mahoney leak to Pindell a strategy memo from David Carney. Sean Mahoney must think the people of New Hampshire are really dumb not to realize that this "memo" is basically a campaign advertisement trying to piggyback on yesterday's primary news.
I didn't think the NH-01 GOP primary waters could get any more toxic than Bradley and Stephen in '08, but boy was I wrong.
(Do not walk. Run to the link that takes your to the UL piece. This is hands down the best write-up of the NH-01 race out there, in any media platform. Kudos to the UL for giving Kathy the room for it. - promoted by Dean Barker)
If anyone is interested, I have an op ed in the UL today with some thoughts on the First District race.
When researching FEC reports to work on it, I noticed that in the last six months, Frank Guinta has only raised about $207,000 from donors that can be used in the primary and Sean Mahoney, who finished third in the 1st cd Republican primary in 2002, made personal loans of nearly $700,000 in that race that were not paid back. Ouch! Meanwhile, Carol Shea-Porter continues to hold steady, and I think will surprise all those Republicans who expected this seat to flip.
As always, the comments are a hoot; this is my favorite:
I find it offensive that the UL doesn't have the decency for a pro conservative writer to write a column.
This prompted an editor's note:
The Union Leader runs two conservative editorials and two conservative syndicated columns every day, Charlie Arlinghaus each week and Fergus Cullen every other week.
Since the current state media paradigm demands serious attention to polls with over 6 percent MoE's, I might as well point out things in it (.pdf) not highlighted by Smith's spin.
In just a two month span, both Frank Guinta (6%) and Sean Mahoney (4%) have lost serious ground to Carol Shea-Porter, while Rich Ashooh has remained flat.
(All so predictable - and so phony. - promoted by Dean Barker)
Does anyone want to bet on what the nastiest primary fight will this year? I've got $10 that it is the Republican 1st congressional CD. It is one fight that Frank "Where's the Exit" Guinta will not be able to run from, and a bruiser of a battle that Rich Ashooh better prepare for.
Why the 1st CD? In today's Granite Status, John Distaso announced that Patrick Hynes and David Carney are now officially part of the Sean "My RNC Resignation Wasn't Faux-ny" Mahoney campaign.
In addition to their Mahoney duties, Hynes is on the board of directors of Americans for Job Security, and Carney is a consultant to the group, as well as the past director. AJS has a history of attacking Republicans in contested primaries.
With spring has sprung a new chapter in the ongoing effort of the Guinta campaign to make it look like former NRCC golden boy Frank Guinta is raising oodles of cash, when he isn't.
As you all may recall, Frank loaned the campaign $20,000 in the second quarter of 2009 to make it look like he raised over $100,000, when the reality was he raised $90,115. The following quarter, he raised what Politico called a "disappointing" $126,000; in the final quarter, his fundraising was basically a no-show: $60,892
The 1st quarter 2010 report isn't out yet, but Frank is back to his old tricks, initially claiming to have raised over $250,000. Then the news came out that the un-frank Frank had loaned $100,000 to the campaign. If all this is accurate, Guinta still has not raised $200,000 in a quarter, and he still is unable to speak frankly about his fundraising.
Over the past couple of weeks, the fault lines in the Republican congressional primaries have become much clearer.
In the west, no one is buying the BassMaster's sudden conversion to Tea People Leader. I can't imagine a candidate more at odds with the new Rush Limbaugh-Glenn Beck defined GOP base.
On the other hand, career beltway pol Charlie is, by dint of name recognition and implicit NRCC support, becoming the presumptive frontrunner. This will be especially true if Jennifer Horn turns in another disappointing fundraising quarter.
Now we see a similar pattern emerging in the east. Frank Guinta is clearly the favorite from the increasingly dominant Glenn Beckistan GOP base. But his lousy fundraising - this quarter badly masked by a 100K loan (and he is not the kind of Binnie/Bender self-funder who can do that at will) has the DC puppeteers nervous.
On the other hand, military-industrial lobbyist Rich Ashooh has kept a moderate, low-key profile and done his dialing for dollars, to the tune of over 200k in eight weeks' time.
The fault lines are pretty clear now. There are the values that the base demands, in Jennifer Horn and Frank Guinta, and then there are the likely nominees, Charlie Bass and Rich Ashooh.
Will the Tea People turn out for a six-term, stem-cell supporting, Bush era backbencher, or a moderate, Romney-supporting industry lobbyist whose firm has donated to Democrats?
Adding: Just to be clear, neither choice is acceptable for our future. On the one hand, you have pandering, sometimes irresponsibly, dangerously so, to 21st century aggrieved Archie Bunkerism. On the other, you have allegiance to the national GOP and their corporate overlords.
Charlie Bass, to use just one egregious example out of many, voted for a war based on false premises that resulted in hundreds of thousands of lives ending before their time, many more wounded, many more displaced, the loss of our treasure and our moral standing in the world.
On that one vote alone he lost his right to represent me again.
(Will the state media give Ryan's SS privatization and Medicare dismantling a pass? You know I'm not into front-paging press releases, but maximum daylight needs to be given to Rep. Paul's budget plan, because if the GOP succeed in taking back Congress, this radical free marketeerism will be that much closer to reality. - promoted by Dean Barker)
Republican Congressman Paul Ryan outlines disastrous proposals at NH GOP fundraiser
Concord - Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) pitched the reckless Republican plan to slash Medicare and Medicaid, and privatize Social Security in New Hampshire this weekend. Ryan held a fundraiser for the New Hampshire Republican Party, and a breakfast with young Republicans.
While Judd Gregg has been a long time supporter of Paul Ryan's, the Republican candidates for Congress haven't been as vocal about Ryan, or any of the extreme Republican proposals he outlined over the weekend.
Pindell (subscription required) is reporting that GOP primary candidate for CD-01, Rich Ashooh, hired Tom Cronin for his campaign. Cronin's latest gig was with Hynes Communications.
I used Teh Google to find :
Before joining Hynes, Tom served on the Washington, D.C. staff of Senator John E. Sununu (R-NH.). On Capitol Hill, Cronin worked on a wide variety of domestic policy topics including healthcare, veterans' affairs, national defense, and homeland security policy.
So there's a Sununu connection. Is the NH-GOP losing faith in its up and coming young star, Frank Guinta?
And will the trad media ever get around to asking the bevy of GOP primary candidates, for CD-01, CD-02 (well, we kind of know where Bass stands) and US Senate where they stand on Paul Ryan's (R-WI) Contract with on AmericaRoadmap Plan Car Crash for America?
Why do some candidates for office insist on treating us like we were born yesterday? Why do they think it is better to either fib or spin than speak candidly?
Take, for example, Rich Ashooh saying that Frank Guinta's fundraising failures had nothing to do with Ashooh's decision to run for office?
In his announcement interviews, he said he wasn't running because of the perceived weaknesses of any other candidate. Oh, yes he is. If Frank Guinta had not fled the scene of an assault on another elected official during a bar brawl, or if Guinta's fundraising efforts had put $500,000 or more into his cash on hand, would Ashooh be running? Of course not!
Well, it seems the US Rep races for CD-02 and CD-01 got a bit more interesting. Jack announced it in the Open Thread, but I'll do it again here: State Representative John DeJoie formally announced his bid for the Democratic nomination to the CD-02 Congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Paul Hodes.
What caught my attention was this:
DeJoie spoke of the importance of restoring consumer protection in financial services, creation of good paying green jobs, healthcare reform with Medicare for All, removing troops from Afghanistan and providing high quality services for all of America's veterans.
On the Republican side in CD-01, BAE executive Rich Ashooh is said to be exploring a run for the nomination.
Hat tip to James Pindell, New Hampshire Political Report
