“When someone mails a ballot, I don’t know if it was a secret vote ballot.

I don’t know how many people handled it or made the marks on it.”

– In an interview with InDepthNH, SOS Billy Gardner muddies the waters on whether he actually does support allowing people to vote absentee in a pandemic.

Is this a way a guest should act?

Not for nothing, but when the guv of South Dakota – a state that’s in the red zone for Covid – visited NH th‘other day, eager to spread the word about the prez and the rest of the GOP, was she also spreading Covid?

The possibility does seem to exist. Consider that Kristi Noem, the SD guv, was in NH for a one-day visit on 10/15 – the very day her state had reached a new high point for Covid cases.

And BTW, KN – who’s built a national rep among some folks who love her “hands-off” approach to the pandemic – was maskless as she gallivanted around NH, including a stop at the not-exactly-social-distancingfriendly Red Arrow Diner.

And, last checked, SD had a positive test rate of 15% with 73 Covid cases per 100k peeps. (NH, not exactly in the throes of a complete Covid crackdown, has a 2% positive rate and 5.6 cases per 100k.)

But the bottom line: Considering that she’s from a state with such a high positivity rate, she could have chosen to self-quarantine for two weeks before entering NH, per our own state’s recommendations. She didn’t, of course.

So thanks a lot Guv KN for putting Granite Staters at risk for your maskless photo ops.

Party favors

There’s party loyalty, and then there’s something that looks like it but really does make you wonder.

Consider the guv’s recent decision to endorse Carla Gericke in her NH Senate race against Lou D’Allesandro.

On the surface, it’s just one GOPer endorsing another one, right? But CG is a heckuva lot more than your run-of-the-mill GOPer. Although, her running – twice now – as a GOPer really makes you wonder the state and ultimate fate of the NHGOP.

Consider that CG is the prez of the Foundation for New Hampshire Independence, an org that “believes that our state’s future can be assured only by reclaiming our rightful status as a sovereign and independent nation.”

In other words, its mission is for NH to secede from the US of A.

Oh, and did we forget to say that she’s a former prez of the Free State Project (surprise!), having moved to NH from South Africa?

And just to add the cherry on top: CG was very much at an April rally – which prominently featured the participation of a bunch of boogalooers, those not-so-cute anti-government extremists – at the House of State, where they were very vocally protesting the guv himself over his stay-at-home order.

Your NHGOP, 2020 version.

Hot off the bench

Last time out it was about the NHGOP’s bench, or lack thereof.

Are the NH Dems showing signs of a similar problem?

Consider that the Manch City Dems recently sent out an e-blast urging folks to attend an Oct. 14 fundraiser to a state rep candidate. But not just any state rep candidate.

They wanted folks to give bucks to “Tommy K” – the one, the only Tommy Katsiantonis, convicted tax cheat/former state rep/ex-Manch alderman. (Tickets were $25 and masks and social distancing were required, in case you were wondering.)

“It is so important that we send a strong majority to Concord,” went the plea.

His candidacy must be really important for those Dems, considering that in 2018 Tommy K was sentenced to serve 18 months to three years after pleading guilty to stealing rooms and meals tax receipts from his two restaurants and underpaying the BPT he owed. Total haul: $595,531, prosecutors said.

MAKING THE ROUNDS

So why would the RGA conduct a message-testing poll with a question about Dan Feltes’ supposed support for commutation of cop killer Michael Addison’s death sentence? Are things not as rosy for his campaign outlook as we’ve all been told?

For the record: Chris Christie, the ex-NJ guv and George Washington Bridge traffic-creation expert, is all in to help ex-protégé and one of “Bridgegate” costars, Matt Mowers, in his 1st CD bid to unseat Chris Pappas. In August, CC’s Right Direction America donated $75k to the NH Freedom Fund Super PAC — a donation that accounted for all but $2,500 of the money the group brought in through the end of September, according to the Daily Beast. Oh … the dough was used to pay for MM direct mailings.

For those keeping score at home: In Sept., the NHGOP raised $437k, bringing the 2020 haul to $938kl NH Dems brought in $1.5m with a 2020 total of $4.1m.

More for your scorecard – Senate Republican PAC 2020 haul so far in 2020: $416k; Senate Dems: $1.3m.