The Sandown Snub from Bill Binnie and Kelly Ayotte - Granite Grok

The Sandown Snub from Bill Binnie and Kelly Ayotte

Updated and bumped: we have a partial video of the event: a question asked of missing Kelly Ayotte.

(H/T: Tom)

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Guest post by Matt Simon (cross-posted from NHinsider)

"Ayotte and Binnie seek distance from NH voters, ditch traditional Sandown debate"

Until Wednesday night, Sandown was one of those sleepy New Hampshire towns I had heard about but never actually visited. What finally drew me to Sandown was my desire to witness a long-standing, almost legendary tradition in New Hampshire politics: the Sandown GOP Senate candidate forum. Five candidates were confirmed well in advance (the four major candidates plus a very annoying chap called Dennis Lamare), and expectations were high for a serious forum allowing voters to ask questions of the candidates.

New Hampshire politics at its very finest, right? Well, I for one was kind of excited, so I decided to make the trip and see for myself rather than simply watching on community access TV along with thousands of voters around the state.

Unfortunately, two candidates, the two so-called "front-runners," decided at the last minute to ditch the Sandown debate, leaving voters to hear only from the two candidates who have actually shown they are capable of meeting voters face-to-face and winning their support. Jim Bender and Ovide Lamontagne both looked and sounded like…


…strong candidates last night. The Sandown GOP’s volunteers who worked so hard to provide this venue deserved a good show, and I was glad to see that they got one, despite being insulted by the last minute cancellations of Bill "Can’t Buy Me Love" Binnie and that other candidate, the one who used to be our awful Attorney General and now spends her time courting DC lobbyists and attending private, big-ticket fundraisers.

In my humble, personal opinion, this would be a much better race for Republican primary voters if Ayotte and Binnie would just disappear… not just for one evening, but into the dustbin of political history. Forget the polls that say these two are in first and second place. The vast, overwhelming majority of GOP primary voters are still undecided, and most won’t make their decisions until after Labor Day.

I predict that for the independent-thinking GOP voter who does his or her homework, this race will actually come down to a choice between Jim Bender and Ovide Lamontagne. And after tonight’s "Sandown snub," it’s clear that’s exactly what should happen.

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