Posted on 03/31/2009 6:15:20 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Rep. Paul Hodes (D) begins his New Hampshire Senate bid with a small lead over a prospective opponent, according to recent poll results.
Hodes led former GOP Sen. John Sununu 42 percent to 36 percent, with 22 percent of survey respondents saying they were undecided. Sen. Judd Gregg (R) has announced he is retiring at the end of his term, creating an open-seat contest in 2010.
Hodes is the only announced candidate so far in the race. Sununu, who lost re-election in 2008, has not publicly expressed interest in running for Granite State’s other Senate seat, but many local Republicans view him as their best shot of holding the seat.
According to the American Research Group survey, Hodes and Sununu play similarly well with their political parties, but Hodes appears to have the edge with undeclared voters, 38 percent to 31 percent, with another 31 percent undecided.
The poll surveyed 535 registered voters in the Granite State March 27-30, with a margin of error of 4 points.
(Excerpt) Read more at rollcall.com ...
Ex-Governor Steve Merrill is my first choice to run, but if he’s not interested and Sununu wants to run, I can back him.
I’d take Sununu over Governor Sunbeam.
However, I’d take either over that loathsome Hodes.
No one else finds it ironic that Sununu's entire Senate candidacy in 2002 revolved around "polls show Bob Smith consistently losing to RAT Shaheen, therefore he should step aside and let someone else give it a shot", yet Sununu was completely unwilling to take his OWN advice when he found himself in that situation in 2008? Are we still drinking the kool-aid that not ONE Republican in the entire state could have run a credible campaign against Shaheen in 2008, therefore that seat was destined to go RAT because we "had" to run Sununu?
I agree with Field, if Sununu is such a great candidate, let him try to get his old house seat back. Until then, the NH GOP desperately needs to get some new blood and stop being so inbred. The fact Sununu's daddy is now Chairman of the NH Republican Party is the final nail in the coffin, IMO. After the entire state went RAT on his watch, they now put him in charge of "revitalizing" the party. His first action? When Obama decided to tap Gregg for commerce Secretary and ensure Gregg would be replaced with a defacto RAT that happened to have "Republican" next her name (thus giving the Dems 60 votes in the Senate and closure), any other competent party chairman would have immediately moved to woo Gregg into refusing the slot through every means possible. Sununu's responce? Call Gregg and offer him a heartily graduations, and heap praise on the liberal closet Democrat named to replace him. It was only through Gregg's own realization later on that we were spared a veto-proof RAT majority. Sununu was more than happy to allow it to happen. (Just as he urged George H. Bush to appoint liberal David Souter and thus ensure the court's current pro-abortion majority)
The bottom line is that Sununu won't beat Hodes (the fact he's polling so far behind a RAT that nobody heard of prior to 2006 speaks volumes) is because he's tied to Bush, who is radioactive in New Hampshire. They're not going to vote for any Republican seen as a Bush lap-dog for 8 years. A local conservative with no ties to "Bush establishment" could win this seat, but nominating someone the voters rejected is just giving Hodes a free ride to the Senate.
I predicted Sununu would lose in 2008 if the GOP nominated him, and it fell on deaf ears. I hope I don't have to say "I told you so" again in Jan. 2011 with New Hampshire having an entire RAT majority.
New Hampshire Republicans have got to consider other options behinds consider to run pampered politicians kids for every office. The voters have rejected them.
Sununu isn’t my first choice, but he’s still credible. And as for 2002, it’s not like we would have done well with the flaky Bob Smith.
Yes Bob Smith did some screwy things in 2002, ended up trailing Shaheen in the polls, and that's why Sununu beat him in the primary. Too bad Sununu's ego showed he wasn't willing to do what he demanded Smith do is 2002 -- allow another Republican to run because the incumbent is damnaged goods. Not only did Sununu insist on running a kamakazi campaign in 2008, but now his fans want to run him again. This is now two campaigns is a row where Sununu is losing to a RAT and his fan club insists he should be the nominee anyway. (and if he refuses their next choice will be Charlie Bass)
If Bob Smith "should have stepped aside" when he was trailing to Shaheen, why not Sununu? What makes him so special? Smith was losing to consistantly losing to Shaheen by double-digit margins for monthes, so the party ran someone else. Sununu was losing to consistantly losing to Shaheen by double-digit margins for monthes, and the party continues to insist on running him.
Don't you find it ironic that Sununu refused to step aside for the very reason he ran six years earlier?
Frank Guinta (R) - Manchester Mayor
Sean Mahoney (R) - Republican National Committeeman
Steve Merrill (R) - Ex-Governor & Ex-Attorney General
Tom Rath (R) - Ex-Attorney General, Ex-RNC Member & Political Consultant
John Stephen (R) - Ex-State HHS Commissioner, Attorney & '02/'08 Congressional Candidate
Those sound like "credible" candidates to me. Yet some New Hampshire Republicans believe the only candidates capable of running for Senate have the last names Gregg, Sununu, and Bass. Must be a "born to lead by royal birthright" sorta thing with their talents. (Can't let mere morals have a shot at running, you know.)
Guinta is a very good choice, but it looks like he’ll run against Carol Shea-Porter. Steve Merrill is my first choice. I’d say Sununu is my third choice.
I backed Sununu over Smith. Partly because Smith was a likely loser and also because Smith was to his left on environmental issues.
I would rather have Merrill or another candidate. Hopefully Guinta will oust Shea-Porker, (oops Porter I mean).
If it’s Sununu I won’t have trouble backing him. But we need fresh blood in the state (Bass Gregg Sununu dynasties) which is why he’s not my preferred candidate. I don’t feel he’s entitled to the first crack at the seat after losing by 7 points to an empty pantsuit. He did only a little better than McCain. Not a lot of ticket spitting.
Speaking of Bob Smith, he moved back to NH from FL. He is seriously thinking of challenging Sununu in the primary and general.
Billy, there was no reason for Sununu to step aside in ‘08. I never saw polling that indicated he trailed by double-digits. He was usually behind by a modest margin (I think an average of 6%, IIRC), but not a gap that couldn’t be closed (and at one point, I saw polling data that he had closed that gap). There weren’t necessarily any clear-cut candidates that could step in to replace him. We had no House members, there was no mention of any former Governors. More than likely, a second-tier candidate would’ve come forward, and we still would’ve lost. I don’t back him now because I know the actual results of the last election and we have enough time to bring in a Steve Merrill or Frank Guinta to take a shot. I would, however, like to see polling data on head-to-head matchups between them and Hodes.
During the fall of 2007, Rasmussen and Survey USA showed Sununu losing by 10-15 points. At first, I thought they looked too good to be true. As the situation in Iraq improved, Sununu’s poll numbers imporved as well. He didn’t look DOA. Rasmussen even had Sununu tied in mid-Sept 08. Then the financial crisis came and Sununu went back to being DOA. Absent the financial crisis, Sununu could have won.
Sununu was to the right of Smith on the enviroment, but Smith was well to Sununu's right on several other issues. One of the most memorial things I recall from the 2002 campaign was Sununu saying he was willing to consider amnesty for illegals simply because "the President Bush supports it", and Smith replies incredulously "So? What does that have to do with anything? Illegal is illegal!" Score one for Smith. Sununu had about a 90% conservative track record but he too much of a butt-kissing Bush yes-man. Smith was more independent. But the bottom line is that anyone who supported replacing Smith in 2002 because he was polling poorly, should have had the common sense to replace Sununu in 2008 with a stronger nominee when Sununu was polling the SAME kind of numbers that Smith was getting six years earlier.
Perhaps the threat of a Smith primary challenge will keep Sununu from entering the race. I hope so, since Sununu is now the "likely loser" if he's nominated again. And yes it does show Sununu is a total hypocrite for calling on Smith not to run when he was a "likely loser" in 2002, but NOT doing the same when the shoe was on the other foot and HE was a "likely loser" in 2008. I can't believe I'm the only one pointing this out. Despite big Dem turnout in '08, we could have defeated Shaheen in 2008 if we didn't have a candidate tied to Bush. We certainly were able to keep the Senate seats in Nebraska, Tennessee, etc. in GOP hands by running new faces, remember? But if Chuck Hagel had INSISTED on running again and had been unopposed in the primary, that seat could be RAT today due to Hagel's dismal approval ratings. He had the common sense to retire, at least.
We do need to start grooming a farm team of rising stars in New Hampshire if we're ever going to take back the state. I think it's going to be a long time. The Rudman-Sununu crowd has controlled the state for decades and kept all other Republicans away from high office so they can give cushy political jobs to their kids. I have a hunch that if John Sununu was named John Doe, he would have never been elected to any office in the first place.
Also, bear in mind that Smith was "written off" as dead meat against Swett in 1996, but won re-election to the Senate. Sununu can't claim the same. You guys were all insisting he'd magically recover at the last minute and pull off a win, but he didn't. Sununu is a one-termer. By defition that makes Smith's Senate campaigns more "successful"
Those initial ‘07 numbers didn’t pass the smell test, and as I suspected, it was really never wider than 5-6% for the bulk of it.
If Hagel had run again in NE, I can’t see the GOP having backed him again. In fact, I suspect he might’ve switched parties and been renominated as a Democrat (since he did endorse the False Messiah). Remember Tom Osborne’s RINO running mate threw a hissy when her ticket didn’t win that she switched to the Democrats before they were barely finished counting the votes so she could run again for her statewide office (she lost to the Republican). I think Mike Johanns still probably would’ve beaten Hagel running against him in the GOP primary or in a general (with Hagel as a Dem).
BTW, I never did get Hagel. I thought he was a very strange and peculiar man whose behavior was inexplicable. Almost like a Bob Kerrey clone. Vietnam vets turning into Jane Fonda types just is a mystery to me. Perhaps they were both brain damaged.
Billy, Bob Smith was (following up on my other post) also a really strange guy. His close call over Swett in ‘96 was bad enough, but I and many others expected if he faced Shaheen coming off her last term (especially given she was undefeated), and his bizarre party switch which didn’t do him any favors, he was going to lose by at least 10%. 2002 was a key year and our #1 priority was taking back the Senate after Judas Jim’s backstabbing of the party. There was the extra-mile effort to get Smith out of the way for a more stable and dependable Sununu for the reason we couldn’t afford to take a single key race for granted. Sununu looked like and clearly was the best possible candidate we could’ve run in ‘02. Smith’s erratic behavior ever since demonstrated this was the right move to retire him when we did.
“BTW, I never did get Hagel. I thought he was a very strange and peculiar man whose behavior was inexplicable. Almost like a Bob Kerrey clone. Vietnam vets turning into Jane Fonda types just is a mystery to me. Perhaps they were both brain damaged.”
The main posture of a majority of Americans has been anti-war—study the run up to WWII, when Americans strongly objected to getting involved, before Pearl Harbor.
On through to Iraq when the majority turned against that episode.
I don’t think it is brain damage. I think it reflects how Americans are sceptical of wars when we are not attacked.
Funny, what was 9/11 ? And any so-called veteran that could endorse the False Messiah for President I could easily term a traitor. Saying Hagel lost his mind would at least give him a shred of integrity.
Seems to me Hagel actually enjoyed stabbing the GOP in back, and would run as a Republican just to spite the party faithful more.
Ultimately I think if Hagel had run again, he would have been narrowly defeated in the primary (narrow due to massive Dem crossover pulling ballots for Hagel), but I was referring to a "what if?" scenario of Hagel running unopposed for the GOP nomination like Sununu in New Hampshire. Personally I think the state party would back their incumbent no matter how liberal he got, that's just the way these "official" GOP organizations operate. And if Hagel had been renominated as a Republican, I think he would have lost to the RAT.
I think ultimately, what did Smith in was not his party switch to Indy (that never hurt Jeffords, Lieberman, etc.) but his switch back to GOP when he was offered a committee chairmanship. It just made him look like an opportunist and aimless flip-flopper. I don't think Smith's campaign style is entirely nutty (look how many years he served in elective office), and his endorsement of Duncan Hunter in 2008 was completely in good faith.
And yes, Sununu was polling better against Shaheen in 2002 than Smith was. That doesn't change the fact that the situation had changed six years later and Sununu was damaged goods in 2008. I haven't looked up the poll numbers, but I stand by my estimation that Sununu was as weak against Shaheen in 2008 as Smith had been in 2002. Youngin even cited two polls that showed Sununu behind by as much as 15 points. He may have briefly "closed the gap" for a week or two (my guess is that Smith ALSO came close to Shaheen in a few 2002 polls), but he was trailing most of that election cycle.
You honestly think not one other Republican in the entire state of NH could have run a strong, credible Senate race against Shaheen last year?
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