Sometime in the spring of 2022, while Senator Giuda was sitting with us in the dining room, he said, “General Bolduc can’t beat Maggie Hassan.” Before his prognostication was proven correct, my first thought was “let’s address the reasons for him saying that.” I never got into the weeds of it, which was likely due to a variety of plausible reasons, including the security and integrity of our elections. However, Senator Giuda also said something else on another day while talking to a handful of people. His comment was about the importance of being effective.
As much as I hate football, I will note that Vince Lombardi said something akin to Senator Giuda’s comment, and it was “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” I’ve sadly lost count of the number of elections it has been since the correct November candidate was sent to Washington in ANY NH federal race. Kelly Ayotte became a senator in 2010, and perhaps that darling OTHER rep district had success more recently than that, but let’s talk about next year’s Senate race because we already know what Einstein said about repeating the same behavior and expecting different results.
I was happy for Scott Brown and The Bluest State, as the Kellerman book called it, when he won his special election in Massachusetts following the long-awaited death of the last Kennedy. However, special elections are not the same as ordinary elections or ordinary elections without an incumbent. Most people are already aware that Scott Brown was unable to retain his seat or secure an election win in NH since then. I don’t care that he plays guitar, people find his daughter attractive, or that his wife crashed the August 2022 Merrimack GOP meeting without RSVPing to stump against Karoline.
I have a problem with Scott winning votes in the primary for two reasons. One of them is that he’s already been “selected” by the establishment elite, and attention-seeking people always looking for opportunities to further themselves. A certain inner-circle Salem rep with my initials comes to mind, but you can ask Ed Mosca if you don’t know who that is!
Let’s get to that 2nd reason, which has to do with being effective and winning. I know lots of people voted for Kelly Ayotte in her primary because they thought Chuck Morse couldn’t beat the Democrat in November, which was a very reasonable and plausible concern. We never got to find out if Chuck would have beaten Joyce, but Queen Sharon thought he could, and so did many others.
Scott Brown thinks he can beat the Pajama Boy, who, unfortunately, is functionally an incumbent, in my opinion. I’m going to play Senator Giuda and say that Scott cannot beat him. If that’s what’s on the November 2026 ballot, of course I’ll vote for Scott, but I’m saying it doesn’t have to be that way. Do NOT let the elite choose your vote for you because a Scott Brown November 2026 candidacy is repeating the same behavior and expecting different results. He and his supporters will tell you that he already has statewide and federal name recognition and fundraising ability, but will he kiss the Mitch McConnell ring? General Bolduc was cut off from $5M because he refused. Yeah, he lost, but is it even possible to win without being beholden? We need to “get to YES” because just another Susan Collins, Murkowski or (insert one of their ilk here) is NOT good enough for NH. We must do better and it’s time for fresh ideas and thinking outside the box. I will borrow the words of Allison Dyer said to old guard NRCC people saying “but we’ve always done it that way,” and they are “how’s that been working out for us in the past several elections?”(city, state and federal)
Dan Innis tweeted that he will make up his mind on whether or not to enter the race by July 4. I considered waiting until then to submit this article because the matter becomes moot if he doesn’t. However, another candidate might appear instead. If multiple non-paper candidates step up, the dichotomy of results will be Scott Brown and “not Scott Brown.” The latter group will be divided an unknown number of times, giving Scott the victory. If you, the reader, think we deserve better than Scott Brown, consider sending an email of encouragement to Dan Innis.
