Ovide Lamontagne - strong words from the nicest guy in politics for the Jeanne Shaheen Machine (Nasty??) - Granite Grok

Ovide Lamontagne – strong words from the nicest guy in politics for the Jeanne Shaheen Machine (Nasty??)

WMUROvide Lamontagne was on WMUR’s Close Up this past Sunday (and yes, I DVR it and yes, I forgot that I had transcribed this, so putting it up now.  Josh McElveen, trying to wheedle out of Ovide whether or not he’s going to run for a specific office this time around.  Here, he tries to get a bead on one of those offices:

What kind of candidate do you believe it will take to defeat a very popular Jean Shaheen?

“Make no mistake about it, the Shaheen Machine is a very effective, and I would suggest, a very NEGATIVE machine.  The person who is the Republican nomin for US Senate has got to be willing to take it to her. And I may not be that person because I have run before, I ran against Jean Shaheen in 1996; we were both first time for the first time for a state wide electoral office.  I have a hard time running against a woman and being, taking the kind of negative approach that it will have to take because the Sheheen machine is going to cut someone’s legs off and they have before and they will again.

…I think in the end it’s going to be someone that’s got to be willing to take the battle right to her and be able to marshall the kind of support from independents and as well as Republicans to win in the general election.  It’s not going to be a Presidential year as you know so I think the voting block is not going to include a 100,000 people that are going to register the same day as they did in 2012. “

Nothing new here that most political types in the State don’t already know.  I think that Ovide really might not be that person  but I can think of a few that could – and might actually enjoy it!  “Politics ain’t beanbags” will be mild in comparison  to rough (insanely dirty?) this race might turn out (unless those beanbags are coming out of a 12-gauge!).  She can be deft – appearing to be a nice grandmotherly type (but with a political shiv in the purse or in the hands of surrogates).  Ovide correctly points out that another 100,000 new registrants may not be there (given the signs that “Organizing for Obama” is exactly that – lucky for the rest of us that he’s extremely stingy with who might be getting to the data machine, all rumors about him taking back the US House in 2014 still swirling around0.

It won’t be too much longer before credible candidates start making the rounds…

>