If you can’t make it there, maybe you can make it in NH

Dontcha just love it when a political party, in desperation for some reason or another, searches high and low for a candidate in a statewide race who has had zero-zip-zilch experience running for office, except in another state?

Such is the case with Wendy Long, who’s merely waiting for the curtain to rise.

Sure, WL was raised in NH and even went to Dartmouth, but it remains to be seen if she could pass the “What county is Chester in test?” considering just about her entire career has had little or nothing to do with NH.

And her greatest claims to fame are two quixotic bids to become a U.S. senator from the state of New York, losing in 2012 to Kirsten Gillibrand by 46% (that’s not a typo). And in 2016, she lost to Chuck Schumer by 43% (that’s not a typo either).

Let’s see now, she loses a coupla high-profile Senate races in one state and moves to NH to try to grab one here.

Scott Brown anyone? The biggest thing she has going for her is that Corey Lewandowski and his Mar-a-Lago sponsor are desperately searching for a GOP Senate candidate to earn the Trump seal of approval, since none of the candidates doing the “pick me Donnie” dance has done anything to earn a place in either CL’s or the ex-prez’s heart. Which is another way of saying that neither CL nor the ex-prez thinks the three – Chuck Morse, Don Bolduc and Kevin Smith – has a chance of winning.

Because if it’s one thing the loser of the 2020 prez election can’t stand is a, well, loser.

Pressure points

BTW, there’s another candidate in the NHGOP’s US Senate race, and his name is Bruce Fenton, a self-made bitcoin millionaire/Free Stater who apparently is tired of blockchaining and thinks a run for the Senate would be a good way to pass the time away.

Fenton, who isn’t exactly a household name hereabouts (he just moved to these parts from Mass. in 2017), did his best to remedy that th’other day when he actually told Channel 9’s Adam Sexton in an interview, “there’s so many parallels right now between Ukraine and the Taliban.” And then went on to pronounce: “Remember, as Zelensky is a hero now, Osama bin Laden was once considered a hero.”

Yes, he compared – with gusto, mind you – the leader of the fight against a Russian invasion to a mass-murdering terrorist/fanatic. Well thought out.

As was another statement to AS in which he said he supported defunding the police, sort of: “not in the ways that most of the people that use that slogan say so. What we should do is have less laws.”

And then there’s the one when he said the federal government should have simply butted out of the fight against Covid-19 and essentially just watch it spread and do “nothing.”

In the end, BF’s campaign may actually be a very instructive insight into the state of the NHGOP. After all, if he gets enough support for his extreme libertarianism in a primary, it would be the best evidence so far that the party really is on the way to becoming the political arm of the Free State.

“Three months for trying to stop the steal one sip of wine at a time? Totally worth it.”

– Jason Riddle of Keene, who was sentenced to 90 days in prison for his actions during the 1/6 insurrection at the US Capitol – during which he stole a book, a toy football and a bottle of wine from the Senate parliamentarian’s office.

One of the people in this photo – snapped during the pledge of allegiance before a meeting of the Gunstock Area Commission – is Rep. Michael Sylvia, chair of the Belknap County delegation and proud sponsor of the recent, soundly-defeated constitutional amendment backing NH’s secession from the US of A. In case you need a hint, he’s the guy without his hand over his heart. It’s over his crotch instead.

You wouldn’t be blamed if the first thing that sprang to mind after seeing Maggie Hassan down at the border in McAllen, Texas – 2,236 miles from Concord -- was that maybe she was being shrewd by making a play to snag the NHGOP nod in the Senate race. After all, it couldn’t hurt.

MAKING THE ROUNDS

There’s something a little unsettling seeing a bunch of parents and home-schooling advocates crying murder over a state statute that sets a “reasonable academic proficiency” standard for home-school students to be no lower than the 40th percentile.

It sure sounds like ex-Trump SOS Mike Pompeo supported Vladimir Putin before he was against him. Only a few months after saying he had “enormous respect” for the “very shrewd, very capable” modern-day czar, Pompeo now says the guy’s “a thug.”

One more bit of fallout for the guv’s standup routine at the Gridiron Club dinner/superspreader event. The guv, you may recall, said of Mike “My Pillow” Lindell, “This guy’s head is stuffed with more crap than his pillows” and called those pillows “crap” that could “only be found in the Trump Hotel.” To which ML told Howie Carr: “He is a liar. He is about as bad as they come. He is probably part of the biggest crime in history.”