Force of habit

Could it be that there’s a critical mass of opposition forming to the seeming lifetime tenure of Ray Buckley as NH Dem chair?

After years of occasional grumbling, the Nov. 3 election results – with NH Dems losing majorities in the NH House and Senate and the Exec Council – quite a trifecta – seems to have sparked an insurgency to RB’s reign over the Dems.

The budding Dem resistance was apparent from the evening of 11/3, in fact. So much so that within a week RB set up a so-called “Task Force on Building a Blue Hampshire” to “take an objective look at the coordinated efforts across all entities and partner organizations in the 2020 campaign, compared to 2018’s successful down-ballot year, in order to identify areas of opportunity and to build our bench for 2022.”

The reaction, which apparently RB didn’t expect, wasn’t so much to the boilerplate yadda-yadda but to who was named to the task force – mostly the usual suspects and a few others to provide cover. All the makings of a rubber stamp with little or no interest in actually recommending changes.

The real anger over the RB Task Farce, er Force, stems from two simple facts:

1. This was the second decennial election in a row – when the legislature that’s picked oversees redistricting – that the NH Dems not only lost but were embarrassed. OK, 2010 may have been worse numbers-wise, but 2020, as far as most people thought (including a lot of GOPers) was a done deal for Dems to keep control,

2. Money. The NH Dems party spent $4.2m on the election. GOPers? $1.3m. And then there were the Senate PACS: Dems, $1.5m, GOPers, $450k.

Which only underscores a simple observation: RB is sure good at raising the dough, but spending it wisely? Well, maybe the Task Force can figure that one out.

Take him at his words?

Sununu insiders Patrick Hynes and Paul Collins, among others, are pushing the idea of the guv taking on Maggie Hassan for her Senate seat in ’22.

Apparently, they forgot that in ’17, he specifically told a Seacoast Media Group edit board when there was speculation he might take on Jeanne Shaheen in 2020: “I will never run for the U.S. Senate.”

Asked why, he added: “I have no interest in being part of that process which I think a lot of Americans would agree with me, I do not have a whole lot of faith in (the) federal Congress and Senate right now. I think they need better leaders to be sure. But my focus is on the state of New Hampshire. I’m a businessman, I’m an implementer, I’m a manager, that’s where my skill set lies.”

Ohmygosh: Who are we supposed to believe now?

Count him out

Sen. Jeb Bradley’s tirade over some losing Dem Senate candidates asking for recounts, implying – no, saying directly, actually – that they put people’s lives at risk for doing so, makes you whatever happened to the old Jeb Bradley. You know, the guy who seemed so reasonable.

In venting to John DiStaso about the audacity of Dem senators asking for those recounts, JB let ‘er rip because, he averred, there was no chance that the results would have been overturned.

Recounts confirmed that in District 9, incumbent Dem Jeanne Dietsch lost her seat to Denise Ricciardi by 409 votes; In District 11 GOPer Gary Daniels reclaimed his seat with a 198-vote margin over Shannon Chandley; and in District 12, Kevin Avard won his seat back from Dem Melanie Levesque. That margin was 805 votes.

The District and 9 and 12 recounts were what threw Bradley over the edge – “outrageous” that they were even conducted, he said.

Not only because the margins were so wide they couldn’t possibly be overturned, but the three-day recount process put dozens of peeps in close proximity to each other for the vote counting. Social distancing, you know.

JB lives in Wolfeboro, but apparently there’s a vacuum involved since he’s been a loyal Trumpet since Nov. 2016 and has uttered nary a peep over the soon-to-be ex-prez’s tantruminspired demand for recounts and assorted other scams over margins that were far less close.

MAKING THE ROUNDS

Anybody who downplayed the ability of the NHGOP to muster its forces and actually do more than a little damage to NH Dems this year owes an apology to underfunded Steve Stepanek.

There are so many names being thrown around as potential challengers to Ray Buckley for NH Dem chair (among them: Steve Marchand, Andy Volinsky, Mindi Messmer, Melanie Levesque, etc.) that the next Dem convention’s gonna need a fireworks permit, even if it’s virtual.

Corky Messner’s still screaming about the “political hit job” involving a lawsuit filed over his Colorado foundation. Sure, his complaint might be valid – but that’s not the reason he lost his US Senate races against Jeanne Shaheen.

All this talk about the guv running for Senate raises a question: Whatever happened to Kelly Ayotte?

For the record: In late Oct., selfanointed political genius Newt Gingrich (remember him?) confidently told Fox News viewers that “the left is going to be terribly shocked” on election night, when he said Trump was going to win “326 electoral votes plus.” How’d that one work out?