This caught my eye this morning where a piece talking about possible GOP contenders to US Senator Jeanne Shaheen (reformatted, emphasis mine):
Soon there will be two U.S. Senate GOP rivals to Shaheen
The first Republican challenger to U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., will make it official on Monday but he won’t be alone for long. Retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc is expected to announce his candidacy at the VFW Hall in Concord Monday morning.
We thank him for his service to our country. That said, I’ve looked over some of his recent writings and I’m not convinced that they yell out “Conservative – trust me!” to me. Yes, I am hearing that on the battlefield, he’s one of those “follow him to the Gates of Hell” guys. Yes, certain generals do and must engage in politics in their jobs but that’s within that rarified atmosphere of the general officer corp of the military itself, and then, depending on the slot, some with Congress and the defense contractors. How well will that translate to the kind of politics that we activists here in NH are used to? I don’t think that it will be an easy A to B comparison easy picture to make as while there is a tremendous history in his service, there is no political record in which to judge and give confidence to us that have been burned time after time after time. No disrespect meant but there isn’t a political history there for what is the second highest elected office in our system (dismissing, for the time being, the Vice President race which has been absorbed into the Presidential race).
Meanwhile, former New Hampshire House Speaker Bill O’Brien of Nashua confirmed he’ll have his own “major announcement” on July 23. O’Brien is expected at that time to also enter the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate race.
And he had an interesting quote that I think bears reading:
“This race will be a great opportunity to compare proven conservatism with aspirational but untested conservatism. Republicans know where unproven promises have gotten them in the past.”
Very true – too many candidates have made a ton of promises and as soon as they take office, they get “swamped”. Kelly Ayotte immediately comes to mind (“I’m a conservative!”) even though nothing in her legal background that backed that up) . Frank Guinta, after making a number of promises to TEA Party supporters that failed to materialize, failed to deliver Consistently. Carpetbagger Scott Brown tried to do the same until his record in the Senate as a US Senator from when he was from MA. This his political history came to the fore like on on Second Amendment issues and his now notorious slide from voting Republican to voting Democrat a majority of the time in being “bipartisan” (another problem for Ayotte as well as “going McCain). Those were two big reasons we helped brush Brown from the stage even as the GOPe was all sparkly with him.
Remember, while the Democrats hated Bill O’Brien’s guts (and from my standpoint, they correctly viewed him as an existential threat to their end game of an all encompassing and overreaching Government) as well as more than a few GOP Establishmentarians as well (“how CAN you think of ticking off the Dems and the media – that’s just not done!”). He successfully erased, against all odds, almost a $1 billion structural deficit in the NH Budget that the Democrats had left (deliberately, IMHO) for him. Their idea was that there was no way that O’Brien could close that gap without a sales or income tax being put into place (the GOPe merely wanted to manage that voluntary decline to being just another state).
His answer was a legislative “here, hold ma beer” redo of the budget that proved both of the opposing camps wrong: closed the gap, no income tax, and no sales tax. He kept his promise to NH Conservatives as well as to NH taxpayers. Doesn’t happen much, does it? Much like what Trump has done thus (even if you hate his outbursts, he’s ticking off his campaign promise bucket list items one by one) – and unlike most politicians, O’Brien kept his promises and has a political history of protecting NH taxpayers and citizens that can be reviewed.
Oh, the title of this post?
Jay Lucas, a venture capitalist from Portsmouth, has also not ruled out a Senate run in 2020. In 1998, Lucas was the GOP nominee for governor who lost to Shaheen, who that year won a second term as the state’s chief executive.
Indeed – several times he has told GraniteGrok that he was happy with what he is doing with his project in Newport and takes quite the joy in relating the success it seems to be having. Every time I asked the obligatory question (f’instance, who comes to an NH GOP Convention and seeks out GraniteGrok to say he isn’t running and really only wants to talk about his book and that project?): are you running? The answer that any sane person would take away was a negative. So where is this, “…also not ruled out a Senate run“, coming from? I really do hope that it wasn’t a deliberate misleading on his part to us.
And of course, to the smiles of the GOP Establishment, here’s comes the obligatory self-funding campaign-alike Scott-Brown-carpetbagger:
Another Republican considering a Senate run is Bryant “Corky” Messner, a successful trial lawyer from Denver, Colo., who more than a year ago relocated full time to Wolfeboro.
Like Bolduc, he also is prior military – Rangers in the early 80s but not a career officer. He’s showering the “right” people / organizations with generous donations from what has been relayed to me and and also hired Todd Chewing, the former NH GOP Exec Dir. His claim to fame, with respect to NH, is that he has “vacationed” here for the last 12 years before moving here permanently a year ago. Scott Brownish, anyone? Same story but this guy has no political track record at all. Talk about any “unproved promises” that he might have. But GOPe has dollar signs in their eyes because SELF-FUNDING!
You know who was another deep pocketed biz guy that thought money that was all that was necessary? Bill Binnie – didn’t do so well in the primary especially for the money he spent. I will give him credit, though, for continuing onward in NH politics (as opposed, again, to Havenstein).
So, this dance will go on for a while. Never is boring, is it?
(H/T: Union Leader)
