New Hampshire

Blue America helped raise money and awareness for Annie Kuster when she ran last cycle. We’re not supporting her again, not because she doesn’t have a horrible opponent— she does— but because she also has a horrible voting record. Soon after getting elected, Kuster quit the Congressional Progressive Caucus and joined the Wall Street-owned New Dems. He voting record is UGLY— really ugly, and we’re ashamed that we got taken in by her.

Now that the Republican primary is over, Scott Brown is trying to present himself to New Hampshire voters as more moderate and more mainstream than his record shows he is— particularly on issues important to women voters (and to men who like and respect women). Brown has been lying, claiming he has always supported women having the ability to get contraception easily.

So far this cycle the NRA's PAC, the Political Victory Fund, has contributed $399,350 to Republicans running for House seats and $18,950 to Democrats. The Democrats are all from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party:

This anti-Frank Guinta ad (above) that the DCCC is running in the Manchester, Portsmouth and Rochester media markets of eastern New Hampshire is meant to show voters that Guinta is "outside New Hampshire’s mainstream." Fortunately Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter runs her own campaign and ignores the DCCC sand their messaging. This is a third-rate self-referencing ad that might work among Beltway partisans but says little to regular New Hampshire voters.

Yesterday afternoon, the Washington Post's Greg Sargent pointed out that statewide Republican candidates-- even in the South-- are moving ever so slightly back towards the mainstream and away from the kind of crackpot right-wing extremism that has degraded the GOP brand so baldy in recent years.

At this point, no one even knows for sure that opportunistic Massachusetts carpetbagger Scott Brown will actually be the candidate New Hampshire Republicans decide to run against popular Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

"Ooh, gotcha!" apparently thought once and would-be-future Sen. Scott Brown. "Bitch'll never know what hit her!" Maybe, maybe not.by KenNormally the modern blood sport of "gotcha" politics thrives on ignorance and stupidity, a perfect match for the virtually achieved right-wing dream of an electorate -- and a snoozemedia gang -- dominated by people with absolute-zero functional IQs (fIQs).

Anne and Carol, New Hampshire Democrats with different approachesLast year, as early New Hampshire congressional polling began showing up, we saw an interesting trend.

Last night, Rachel Maddow's opening segment was the Scott Brown Story (above). It's an excellent piece of reportage and I recommend it. Thursday he makes his "official" declaration of candidacy to run for Senate (in New Hampshire). There are 4 other Republicans running, including an ex-New Hampshire 2-term U.S. Senator, Bob Smith. He might find it awkward using the carpetbagger charge against Brown because after he was ousted by John Sununu is the 2002 primary he moved to Florida (and ran for Senate there, unsuccessfully, in 2004 and 2010). But, awkward or not, he'll use it.

A few days ago, Elizabeth Warren sent out a note to her followers warning that Scott Brown, "Wall Street's favorite senator," was back for another try… this time in New Hampshire. When Warren beat Brown in 2012, he managed to win 46% of the vote and spend $35,058,354 to achieve that. Far right hate groups like America 360 Committee, Americans forTax Reform, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Rove's Crossroads GPS poured another $2,192,513 in negative ads into the race smearing Warren.