There is ample evidence that Paul Hodes toes the line, is a Kool Aid drinker, and a reliable party hack. Each effort to sell himself as having fiscal integrity or ethics is met with an abundance of contradictory evidence. So to suggest that he is an independent thinker lacks veracity unless you mean independent from reality. To further demonstrate this break Hodes spokesman Bergman (not Ingrid but Mark) defended his paymaster from a recent attack on his record. (From the Union Leader)
Hodes spokesman Mark Bergman said Hodes voted for the stimulus to boost the economy and save jobs. Bergman disputed the ad’s claim that the government took over health care.
“We don’t believe it’s a trillion- dollar takeover,” Bergman said yesterday. “We’re arguing that this is an outside group that has helped Kelly Ayotte’s campaign. She’s getting another Washington establishment bailout.”
Bergman said Hodes voted for federal cap-and-trade legislation because he believes it will reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil and lead to alternative energy jobs in New Hampshire.
Mr. Hodes doesn’t even know what is in these bills so what they "believe" is irrelevant. And that’s actually the point.
The democrats economic agenda uses rhetoric and class warfare to get you to believe things that are not true. The biggest of these sins regards taxes–it is the biggest because they cannot possibly run their huge government without your money.
Yesterday Terie Norelli celebrated my Birthday by taking to the
Ann McLane Kuster, aside from having another one of those pretentious feminist names like Carol Seiu-Porter, has demonstrated to us that she is just another shill for the left wing narrative.
No one doubts that BP has a responsibility to clean up after themselves but Paul Hodes has taken the opportunity to play word games and politics. 
Independent voices might have some expectation of doing independent things. Things like reading legislation or accessing resources outside the ones the people desperately selling a bill want you to stick to. That kind of open mindedness would go a long way to demonstrating integrity and responsibility. Or you could be Carol Shea Porter. 
Listening to twenty or so people give political speeches in succession may well be worse than being water-boarded. Listening to twenty or so political speeches in an air-conditioned room with close to 300 people who (more or less) are on board with just about everything that is likely to be said at that kind of event is choir practice. But having that kind of access to that many candidates for three hours is priceless.