We need to talk about Kevin
Sure, the Dems are catching flack, and rightfully so, for sticking their nose in another party’s business of picking candidates for office. Because, as it’s been said so often (and not just in politics): Be careful what you wish for.
But those words of warning are also applicable to one of the top GOPers in the country, nunuther than Kevin McCarthy, the minority in the US House of Reps who has been resilient for several years now, considering he’s acting as if his backbone apparently was surgically removed in a procedure at Mar-a-Lago shortly after the 2020 election.
McCarthy and Burns: Un-mutual admiration society
Consider a recent report in Politico about the new crop of congressional GOP candidates gobbling up primary nods around the country — a crop that includes folks who just don’t like the idea of KM being their speaker.
Among the skeptics is Karoline Leavitt, the fasttalking GOP nominee in the 1st District. As for the 2nd, the GOP wannabe there, serial candidate Bob Burns has made his view of KM a lot clearer: “He’s dead to me at this point. I’m not going to support him … And quite frankly if it boils down to it, I may run against him.”
Not exactly an endorsement, is it?
Tweeting to oblivion
You can’t be blamed if you lost track of, or have absolutely no interest in, the NH Libertarian Party. So let’s just call this a public service announcement.
Especially since the summer, the party has been attracting attention, although not necessarily the good kind, for its let’s-call-it-active-andleave-it-at-that Twitter account.
First, as some may recall, on the fourth anniversary of the death of John McCain in August, they tweeted a rather nasty “Happy Holidays” accompanied by a photo of his daughter Meghan crying at his funeral. Not to be content with that, a follow-up tweet said the party supported “dancing on the graves of war criminals,” a group that in their mind included the same ex-POW McCain.
One of the observers responding to the tweets was nunuther than the guv, who at the time was asked about it on CNN. His response was that the tweet “should pretty much be the end of the Libertarian Party in New Hampshire.”
Now that was before more recent tweets, which included two that particularly stand out for their offensiveness.
The first one said, “6 million dollar minimum wage or you’re antisemitic.” The second, just posted a coupla weeks ago, was an image of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky with a photoshopped mustache that’s supposed to resemble Hitler’s. The tweet itself read, “When you order a Hitler on Wish dot com.”
In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Ukraine prez is Jewish, his father fought against the Nazis in WWII, and the NH Libertarian Party’s desperate attempt to get attention has reached beyond the pathetic stage to full-blown idiocy.
“Look, primaries are primaries. Go back to 2016 and all the things that were said about Donald Trump. At the end of the day, it’s about what’s best for the country.”
– Guv Chris Sununu explaining why he did a U-turn and decided to endorse the “conspiracy theorist-type candidate,” GOP Senate wannabe Don Bolduc.
Overreaction or understatement?
Just to keep things in perspective, NH Journal, the everfaithful chronicler of all things GOP, reported that when the party’s Triple MAGA (h/t Dante Scala) results became clear on primary night, reactions from “Granite State Republican insiders and strategists” included: “Disastrous.” “Brutal.” And “I think we’re all f—ed.”
In the weeds
What with issues like abortion rights and inflation (and its companion, high energy costs) seemingly sucking up all the oxygen in the election campaign(s), you’re not to blame if you didn’t notice another issue trying to creep onto the stage in the NH guv campaign.
That issue is an old standby we haven’t heard from hereabouts in a campaign much lately: legalization of marijuana. And it’s an issue that the Dem guv wannabe Tom Sherman is apparently very much, er, high on.
Sununu and Sherman: Smoking out the issues
Turns out that the day after he secured the nod in the 9/13 primary, TS stopped by Dem stronghold Keene to discuss, as his announcement put it, “what a legalized framework could look like, as every state surround New Hampshire has done.”
As for the guv, even he — who after years of vetoing bills to legalize it — conceded earlier this year, “I think it’s going to ultimately happen in NH. It could be inevitable.”
Sure looks like the Sherman campaign is placing a wager (legal, of course): that most NHers support pot legalization and the guv will be sticking to his halfhearted embrace of it.
MAKING THE ROUNDS
Two items from the That Was Sure Quick You Might Get Whiplash Dept. First, Don Bolduc, the glib ex-general, within 24 hrs. after securing the GOP Senate nod decided that Prez Biden actually won the election in 2020 — something he had vociferously denied for, yes, years but came to understand almost miraculously “after talking to Granite Staters.” Huh?
Then there’s the guv himself, who only a few weeks ago said the general is “not a serious candidate, he’s really not, and if he were the GOP nominee I have no doubt we would have a much harder time (endorsing him). He’s kind of a conspiracy theorist-type candidate.” Well, guess what the guv did the day after the primary?
Wow, that was quite a crazyectomy the voters of Belknap County performed on primary day.
