Former US Senator Kelly Ayotte left DC after one term to land on the boards of a bunch of different companies, including “BAE Systems, Caterpillar, Bloom Energy, Blackstone Group, News Corp., Boston Properties, and Blink Health, as well as the advisory boards of Microsoft, Chubb Insurance and Cirtronics.”
No one would be surprised to find people with deep pockets who happen to have an interest in or are part of the companies supporting her run for Governor of New Hampshire. Not because there is value in a small state governor. Ayotte was and continues to be groomed for much higher office, and I don’t mean the US Senate.
As a one-term US Senator, she was managed by the likes of John McCain and Lindsey Graham as a future GOPe standard bearer. With only a few years in office, her name was dropped as a potential vice president pick. When she lost her re-election by a handful of votes rather than contest it and get back into the US Senate in support of a president the Deep State GOPe didn’t like, she gracefully conceded.
Ayotte became the popular rhetorical blonde, landing on large corporate boards where she was made familiar with an even wider range of insider interests and individuals.
The thinking behind this seems evident to me.
Kelly is not running for Governor to keep New Hampshire ‘New Hampshire.’ She is running at the behest of her sponsors because a governor makes for a much more appealing VP candidate in 2028 than some one-time Senate candidate. A governor also makes for a much better Presidential candidate in 2028 or 2032 (assuming we’re still electing them by then).
Yes, there’s a story to be told about all the outside money, but it is impossible to run for higher office in a small state without it. Almost no one can run and win at any level above the NH House on local money alone. But the outside money is not the story. It is what that cash is trying to buy.
Yes, it wants to elect a governor, but not so it can influence a governor. That money wants future access to the Oval Office, and Ayotte is on somebody’s list for a future campaign as either a donor-directed VP or a candidate for President.
And yeah, the same crowd will take Nikki Haley this time around if you are curious.
That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Disclosure: A majority of the board of the 603 Alliance endorsed Chuck Morse for Governor of New Hampshire, and I am a voting member on that board.
