If you got John Stephen’s campaign mailer this week, you know he’s running against Jeb Bradley. One side is split in two, with one half featuring a photo of Jeb with a list of reasons not to vote for him, and the other featuring a photo of Stephen with a list of reasons to vote for him. But if you got Jeb Bradley’s mailer last week, you would think he is running against Carol Shea-Porter in the general election — on Sept. 9!
It’s a tri-fold mailer with the front mocking Shea-Porter’s energy plan (including a quote from a New Hampshire Sunday News editorial). Open it up, and you see one page devoted to attacking Shea-Porter on energy policy, one devoted to praising Jeb on the subject, and a third with a now famous image of a gas price sign with prices listed as “arm,” “leg,” and “both.”
Right in the middle, at the bottom, are the words “Vote Republican — Vote Jeb, September 9th”
Wait, what?
This unmistakably implies that the general election is on Sept. 9 and features Jeb against Carol. There is no mention of John Stephen anywhere in the mailer.
Now that’s deceptive. What happens to the voter who shows up at his polling place Sept. 9 expecting to vote against a Democrat only to see two Republicans on the ballot?
I asked Bradley spokesman Periklis Karoutas if this is a primary mailer, and if so, why doesn’t it mention Stephen?
“Yeah, it is a primary mailer,” he said, “but I think a lot of people want someone who can beat Carol Shea-Porter.”
Why does it say to “vote Republican — Vote Jeb, September 9th”?
“Sept. 9 is primary day, it’s election day,” he said.
But you can vote Republican and still vote against Jeb on that day.
“Unless you pick up a Democratic ballot,” he responded.
I asked for a comment from Bradley, and Karoutas said he’d call me back. A little while later he called back and said, “We addressed Carol and gas because that’s who Jeb’s running against.”
So there you have it. Jeb Bradley says he’s running against Carol Shea-Porter, not John Stephen. Won’t he be surprised if Stephen wins the primary?
Karoutas also alleged that Stephen had a mailer that was exactly the same. He said it didn’t mention Jeb at all and said to vote on Sept. 9. I asked him to fax it to me. He did, and guess what? The mailer doesn’t mention Jeb, but it doesn’t mention Shea-Porter either. It’s not a contrast mailer, it’s an ID mailer. It identifies Stephen as a fiscal conservative and says to “vote for John Stephen Republican Primary Tuesday September 9, 2008.”
Sorry, Jeb, that’s not a deceptive mailer. Yours is.
Wow, life imitates The Onion again.
Obama has a real-life half brother who, sadly, lives in a shack in extreme poverty.
The Onion last week, before the story of Obama’s real half-brother broke, imagined Obama having a Billy Carter-like hillbilly brother.
The story of the Obama half brothers is extremely interesting, I think, in that it shows the vast differences in opportunity that are available to black males in America vs. Africa. Had Obama’s father raised his other children in the United States, what might their lives be like today? What might Obama’s life be like if he had moved with his father to Africa instead of staying with his mother’s family in the USA?
At the VFW convention, John McCain suggested that Barack Obama has chosen his positions on Iraq based not on what’s best for the country but on what he thought would get him elected. Obama, predictably, responded by saying, “That’s how political campaigns have been run in recent years. But I believe the American people are better than that. I believe that this defining moment demands something more of us…. If we think that we can use the same partisan playbook where we just challenge our opponent’s patriotism to win an election, then the American people will lose. The times are too serious for this kind of politics.”
Oh, please. I don’t know about you, but I’m plenty sick of Obama pretending to take the high ground whenever his motives are challenged, while at the same time he challenges McCain’s motives.
Every chance he gets, Obama portrays McCain as a shill for “special interests,” particularly “Big Oil.” That is nothing other than attacking McCain’s patriotism. It is saying that McCain puts political interests before his country’s interests. Obama cannot cry foul when his motives are challenged as long as he is running around saying his opponent is a corporate stooge. And yet, he does just that.
The mainstream media really ought to call Obama on this double standard. Someone needs to put him on the spot and ask him to explain the difference between McCain’s attack and his own. Alas, I suspect no one will.
Barack Obama might announce his running mate as early as tomorrow morning. Since Dover “prevention coordinator” Dana Mitchell would frown on us playing a drinking game around the selection, let’s have a safe and sober guessing game instead. You be the first person to correctly guess Obama’s running mate, and I’ll give you a free book or a two-week subscription to the Union Leader. What more could you want, really? So, fire away, and good luck.
So that I don’t slant the contest, I won’t guess his choice. I will instead offer my suggestions for his consideration. To my mind, Obama’s top three VP choices would be:
1. Clint Eastwood. Yes, my pick for John McCain’s running mate is also my pick for Barack Obama’s running mate. Eastwood is a libertarian-leaning Republican, so the odds of him joining the New New Deal Obama team are slim to none. But he still would be the best choice for a green, over-intellectual candidate who, as the man himself says, doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the currency. He gives Obama instant tough-guy cred, which Obama desperately needs. Squiggy is more macho than Obama. Eastwood could debate McCain and McCain’s running mate at the same time and still win.
2. Bill Gates. Nothing would say “fix Washington” better than choosing as your running mate the man who became a household name by changing the lives of every single person on the planet who doesn’t live in a jungle. Obama-Gates would show that Obama means business when he talks about changing the culture in Washington and making it work for the people. Gates is nothing if not competent at finding solutions to people’s problems. Yeah, the Moveon crowd would probably prefer Steve Jobs, but Obama doesn’t need to get too anti-establishment with his pick. And standing beside Bill Gates, Obama would look like Will Smith next to Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day.
3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. OK, so Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a Republican. But Obama ought to at least ask. Dale Jr. famously took his whole crew to see Fahrenheit 9/11 because, he said, he was interested in hearing the other side. That’s the kind of bipartisanship Obama claims to support, despite his hyper-liberal voting record. An Obama-Junior ticket would instantly make millions of working-class men comfortable with Obama, possibly giving him the presidency. Of course, Junior has his downsides. He isn’t married, and he has said the reason he’s bad at dating is because women demand too much control once the relationship reaches a certain point, and he insists on being “the boss.” If that gets out, there goes some of the female vote. But Hillary probably will take that with her in an underhanded attempt to sabotage Obama and set herself up for 2012 anyway, so it might not be a big factor.
I am not aware of a single current NASCAR driver who is a Democrat. Former champ Junior Johnson gave Hillary Clinton $2,300 and co-hosted a fundraiser for a Democratic candidate for governor of North Carolina, but how many people will remember him? Plus, he is a former moonshiner, and breaking the law doesn’t look good on a VP candidate’s resume. Dale Jr. is a bad guy/good guy, and something of a crossover star, with appeal beyond NASCAR. Dale Jr. could help Obama win Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Missouri, giving him the White House. And he could double as Obama’s driver, making sure that he’s not late to an event ever again.
When he came to make his endorsement last week, U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner did know that former Rep. Jeb Bradley had a primary challenger, his office confirms.
Boehner has been endorsing Republicans who face primary challenges this year. He has endorsed Pete Olson (TX-22), Darren White (NM-1), Doug Lamborn (CO-05) and Patrick McHenry (NC-10).
It is interesting that he would admit he knew someone was running against Bradley, and also that he knew nothing about that someone. That says that Boehner was endorsing Bradley for reasons entirely unrelated to his policy positions. If you were the Republican leader in the House, why would you endorse Bradley when you know nothing at all about his opponent? I think the answer is obvious. You endorse the guy you know will be the most loyal to your leadership team.
In an op-ed in the New Hampshire Sunday News yesterday, Barack Obama wrote this:
“But protecting Social Security also means opposing efforts to privatize Social Security, as I did when President Bush proposed risky private accounts a few years ago. Privatization is wrong. It tears at the very fabric of Social Security — the idea of mutual responsibility — by subjecting a secure retirement to the whims of the market.”
Wait just a minute. First, no one proposes privatizing Social Security. The Bush plan that Obama calls privatizing involves, as President Bush said in a visit to New Hampshire in 2005, allowing individuals to choose, if they want to, to “put 4 percent of your payroll taxes in the account, and the rest of it, obviously, will go into the Social Security system.”
Leaving 96 percent of payroll taxes in the Social Security system is “privatization”? I don’t think so.
“The Bush privatization plan that Sen. McCain now embraces would tell 39,000 New Hampshire residents that they’re on their own, putting them at risk of falling into poverty and costing each of them more than $235,000 over their lifetimes,” Obama claimed.
That’s complete hogwash. It would put no one “on their own” because it keeps 96 percent of everyone’s payroll taxes in the Social Security system.
At risk of falling into poverty? Social Security does not guarantee payments, nor do you have a right to the money you put into the system. That money is gone. You don’t own it, and to get it back you are at the government’s mercy. Private accounts would be voluntary. No one would have to participate. Those who choose to participate would be able to invest that money and have a personal retirement fund of their own that the government could not confiscate or simply decide to raid to give to someone else. Private accounts are pretty much the exact opposite of what Obama describes.
Obama is misleading voters about Republican ideas for Social Security reform. He’s doing it to scare people into voting for him. I thought Obama was supposed to hold that kind of tactic in contempt because he’s for changing the way Washington works. But he’s not. He’s always stooped to scaring seniors about Social Security (he was doing it in New Hampshire in early 2007), and it is a perfect example of how he attacks people who do offer real change while he himself supports the liberal, big-government status-quo.
Go to Mahrajan at Our Lady of the Cedars on Calef Road and casually mention that the guy beside you said he thought the food at the Latino Festival was better.
Then run.
I went to both this weekend, and the food was outstanding. I think the food at the Latino Festival is getting better every year. If you haven’t been, you’re missing authentic Mexican food, not the Tex-Mex we mostly get in New England, but real Mexican with real spice to it.
At Mahrajan they make amazing Middle Eastern food. It’s all authentic, and it’s all delicious. For me, it’s impossible to leave without wishing that Manchester had a big Lebanese restaurant. (I hear that one is going to open pretty soon, though, so keep your fingers crossed.)
The Obama campaign announced today that Obama’s two-millionth individual donor is from New Hampshire. What are the odds that another supporter profiled by the campaign would be from an important swing state — and a small one, at that?
Obama’s millionth donor was reported to have been a college student from Hawaii, so some solidly blue-state folks have made the rounds of the Obama press campaign.
In an editorial today, we criticized Dover’s Youth 2 Youth “prevention coordinator” Dana Mitchell for his aggressive tactics in going after beer and cigarette makers. All of the stories about the youth group’s recent run-ins with Anheuser-Busch distributors refer to Mitchell as a retired Dover police officer. He is and he isn’t.
Mitchell is still employed by the police department. But he is no longer a sworn officer. His sole job now is “prevention coordinator” for the city. He works with this youth group to combat underage drinking and smoking.
And for that task the taxpayers of Dover pay him $58,000 a year, as the city’s employee compensation report reveals.
Barack Obama has just announced his list of 10 regular folks who will get to meet him backstage at the convention before he accepts the presidential nomination. Surprise, they’re all from swing states. Some of the states lean red or lean blue, but none is solidly in one camp or the other. Slick.
Here’s the list of states: Montana, North Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Alaska, North Dakota.
Here’s the Real Clear Politics color-coded electoral map.
I also love how the press release announcing these 10 supporters is written by “Barck” himself. He refers to some of these people by first name — “Lenny,” “Barb” — calls them “amazing,” then writes, “I’m looking forward to meeting them at the Open Convention.”
Wow. On a first-name basis with people he’s never even met. Thus is the magic of Barack.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is two years younger than me, just ruled himself out as John McCain’s running mate this year. Speaking on “Meet the Press,” Jindal said he wanted two terms as governor of Louisiana. When host David Gregory said Jindal had left some wiggle room, Jindal said no, no wiggle room, he was out.
Good. Jindal is incredibly bright, and I think that barring any major misstep, he’ll be a top presidential prospect for the GOP within the next decade. But for McCain to pick him now would undermine McCain’s message of experience and readiness. He can’t go up against Obama, challenging him on his lack of experience, while his running mate is younger than (though has more political experience than) Obama.
John Boehner came to Bedford this week to endorse his friend Jeb Bradley. This story is so great in so many ways, it’s hard to know where to begin.
In this “change” election in which Congress has lower approval ratings than President Bush, and the American people seem to hunger for outsiders who will go to Washington and do things differently, Jeb Bradley decides it would be a good idea to have House Minority Leader John Boehner fly up from Washington to endorse him. And he decides it’s a good idea to hold the endorsement press conference in Bedford. Not in Manchester, where Bradley lost all but two wards in 2006 and really needs help, but at a ritzy Bedford restaurant that just screams: insider! Why didn’t someone on Bradley’s campaign tell him this was a bad idea?
Asked why he was endorsing Bradley in a Republican primary, Boehner seemed unaware that Bradley had a primary challenger.
“I don’t have any idea about him [Stephen] I know Jeb, we’ve been friends that’s why I’m here,” PolitickerNH reported. “Do you have an opponent,” Boehner said turning to Bradley. “I don’t know anything about his opponent. I’m here to help Jeb.”
Boehner reiterated that he and Bradley were friends and that’s why he had come to endorse him.
That’s hardly a ringing endorsement. Just as bad, it says to voters: Bradley is buddies with the leader of the House Republicans. Remember that whole “change” thing? Boehner said he had no idea who Stephen was. Nothing could have made Stephen happier than to have the guy who passed out tobacco company checks on the House floor say he’d never heard of him.
Most importantly, though, did Bradley not tell Boehner about Stephen? That appears to be the case. If so, that would be a terrible breach of etiquette, not to mention deceitful.
In any case, if Jeb Bradley is the nominee, you can bet Carol Shea-Porter will have a field day with this press conference, just as she had a field day in 2006 tying Bradley to House leadership. That was one of the reasons Bradley lost. Obviously, he has failed to grasp that.
