DSCC - Former NH AG: "I would have finished my term"

New Hampshire Business Review: Q&A with: Former AG Phil McLaughlin

Dan Seufert 8/28/09

http://nhbr.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090828/PEOPLE/908269955

Q. Do you disapprove of the manner in which former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte stepped down recently to explore a run for the U.S. Senate?
A. I neither approve nor disapprove. I would have made a different choice. She made a political decision to seek higher office. My personal choice would have been to fulfill an appointed term.

New Hampshire Business Review: Something “Disconcerting” About Ayotte’s Debut

8/29/09

http://nhbr.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090828/POLITICS01/908269965

While it’s perfectly understandable from a political perspective, there was something slightly disconcerting about former AG Kelly Ayotte’s Aug. 11 debut address as a U.S. Senate candidate.

Speaking to a gathering of Belknap County Republicans, Ayotte unabashedly touted as one of her main qualifications to be a U.S. senator her role in pushing to seek the death penalty last year for the killer of Manchester police officer Michael Briggs.

She said her determination in pursuing the death penalty came after meeting with the officer’s parents.

“That’s why I made the decision that I would personally try that case and ask for the strongest penalties available under our law — and that’s the leadership you will see from me,” she said, adding as something of a non sequitur: “I’m going to roll up my sleeves, and I will read the bills.”

DSCC - Concord Montior Columnist writes Waiting for Ayotte: What sort of Republican will she be?

http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090802/OPINION/908020336&template=single

Waiting for Ayotte: What sort of Republican will she be?

By Mike Pride Monitor columnist

August 02, 2009 - 12:00 am

When Kelly Ayotte announced that she was stepping down to run for U.S. Senate, the burning question in New Hampshire politics became: What kind of Republican will she be? Will she be a right-winger, pro-life, anti-gay and partisan to the max? Or will she appeal to the center with provocative ideas about the economy, the war and foreign affairs?

The question is important not just for Ayotte and the voters. It is also important for the future of the Republican Party.

The Republicans, who dominated this state until a decade ago, are dead on their feet. Their positions on social issues make for heavy baggage in politics today, especially with so many young voters entering the electorate. These voters tend to be free of the prejudices of the past, a trend that will only accelerate in years to come.

The GOP can recycle a few names from its glory days, but the party needs fresh faces and forward thinking. It needs to appeal to the center, where elections are now decided.

That is why Ayotte's entry could be momentous. It is also why she could use an easy ride, or no opposition at all, in a Republican primary. Primary voters tend to be more extreme than the general electorate, forcing candidates to take far-right or far-left positions just to win nomination. If Ayotte can avoid this, she will be a more elusive target for the Democratic nominee.

In her bid for the Senate, Ayotte begins with advantages beyond her record as attorney general. One is that the king of New Hampshire Republicans sits in the seat she wants to hold for the GOP. Sen. Judd Gregg has won every election he's entered for more than 30 years. Surely he wants to leave his Senate seat in Republican hands.

Gregg is also a role model for Ayotte. By the end of the George W. Bush presidency, congressional Republicans looked just as spendthrift and beholden to special interests as Democrats ever did. Not Gregg. A leading expert on the federal budget, he stuck to his fiscal conservative principles. Although he tilted too much toward business to qualify as a full-fledged environmentalist, he has been a leader in supporting New Hampshire's strong conservation ethic. On these issues, Ayotte could do no better than to follow Gregg's path.

Ayotte's record as attorney general may lead some to see her as an ideologue. After all, she took the parental notification issue to the U.S. Supreme Court and briefly joined a national anti-gay-marriage effort. But an attorney general is not an entirely independent agent. She is beholden to the governors, legislators and the public she serves. Attributing those positions to her is a bit like calling David Souter a religious zealot because, as state attorney general, he sent his minions to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend lowering the American flag to half-staff on Good Friday.

Perhaps Ayotte will be a pleasant surprise on social issues. Failing that, there is ample precedent for her to soft-pedal them. Most recent Republican members of Congress from New Hampshire have done so.

Nationally, Ayotte's party needs desperately to shed its Bush-era image as the anti-science, anti-evolution party. More than that, it must escape its reputation as the party of trickle-down economics - the idea that if you legislate to fatten the bankrolls of the wealthiest 2 percent of the population, everyone will eventually be better off.

The crucial questions for Ayotte in 2010 will be on the economy and defense. Unemployment is likely to remain high. How would electing her to the Senate help the unemployed find jobs? The national debt continues its dizzying rise. What would Ayotte do to check it? The United States seems committed to war in Afghanistan. What is the mission there, and under what circumstances might we declare victory and bring the troops home?

Next year, voters will be judging how the Obama administration and its Democratic congressional majority did in their first two years. They will want to know why they would be better off sending a senator to Washington to challenge Obama's leadership and direction than sending a senator to support him.

Ayotte's best shot is to avoid extremism on social issues and to come across as a serious thinker about the economy and defense. The Republican Party long drew its core strength from these subjects, and they will be as important as ever in 2010.

It would be a bonus if Ayotte could remain true to herself. Politicians always do better when they believe what they're saying, even to the point of being ornery.

The attorney general's job has given Ayotte both a credential as a law-and-order Republican and a shelter from political posturing. Politically, she is almost a blank slate. She has the potential to make a great first impression on voters. Whatever happens in the long run, it would be a good thing for the state's lopsided political scene if she did.

DSCC - NH Political Report: Ayotte surprised by how serious Lamontagne is about running

A source familiar with the meeting and not affiliated with either candidate said Ayotte was a little surprised with how serious Lamantange was about running. (The conventional wisdom among those Lamontagne has talked with suggests a 90 percent chance he is in the race.)

EXCLUSIVE: Ayotte and Lamontagne meet for breakfast

http://nhpoliticalreport.com/index.php?option=com_user&view=login&return=aHR0cDovL25ocG9saXRpY2FscmVwb3J0LmNvbS9jb21wb25lbnQvY29udGVudC9hcnRpY2xlLzEzLTIwMTAtdXMtc2VuYXRlLzQxNC1leGNsdXNpdmUtYXlvdHRlLWFuZC1sYW1vbnRhbmdlLW1lZXQtZm9yLWJyZWFrZmFzdA==

Tuesday, July 28 2009 05:15 PM

Before they possibly face off in a Republican primary for U.S. Senate next year, former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte and Manchester attorney Ovide Lamontagne sat down for breakfast.

Sources say it was Ayotte who reached out to Lamontagne. The Monday morning breakfast, in Manchester, was the first time the pair had seen each other face-to-face since both began exploring a run for the same Senate seat.

The conversation was cordial, but appeared to be intended for Ayotte to gauge how serious Lamontagne was to running and if she could convince him not to run.

A source familiar with the meeting and not affiliated with either candidate said Ayotte was a little surprised with how serious Lamantange was about running. (The conventional wisdom among those Lamontagne has talked with suggests a 90 percent chance he is in the race.)

Ayotte's meeting with Lamontagne came a week after she officially filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission opening her exploratory committee. Late last week she was in Washington for a number of meetings organized by the National Senatorial Campaign Committee.

DSCC - NH Republican Strategist: Where Is Kelly Ayotte?

"One of the big questions in the state right now is, where is Kelly Ayotte?" said Mark Sanborn, a GOP strategist in New Hampshire who is not aligned with either candidate. "Is [Lamontagne] going to be to the right of her by a couple of degrees, or is she going to be classified as a [Republican in name only]?"

Staff hired for possible run at N.H. Senate seat

http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/lamontagne-hiring-staff-for-possible-run-at-greggs-seat-2009-07-23.html

By Reid Wilson

Posted: 07/23/09 12:19 PM [ET]

Former New Hampshire Board of Education Chairman Ovide Lamontagne (R) has hired two prominent Republican strategists as he tests a possible run for retiring Sen. Judd Gregg's (R) seat. Lamontagne, who surprised Republicans by winning the party's nomination for governor in 1996, has hired Charlie Spies and Jim Merrill, two veteran GOP operatives and veterans of ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) campaign. Spies, who was Romney's chief financial officer and a key member of the Republican National Committee's legal counsel office, has been reaching out to reporters on Lamontagne's behalf. Merrill managed Romney's New Hampshire primary campaign, eight years after winning the state for President Bush — the last time a Republican took the state's electoral votes. Merrill will serve as a senior adviser to Lamontagne as the former education chairman explores a Senate bid. The new hires are bad news for national Republicans, who had hoped for a clear primary field for former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte (R). Lamontagne, according to New Hampshire sources, will likely run to Ayotte's right, forcing her to play to some part of the conservative base. Ayotte has already engendered some grumblings among state Republicans who are not sure she is sufficiently conservative. Indeed, the attorney general, appointed and reappointed by Republican and Democratic governors, has always been quiet about her personal political views. "One of the big questions in the state right now is, where is Kelly Ayotte?" said Mark Sanborn, a GOP strategist in New Hampshire who is not aligned with either candidate. "Is [Lamontagne] going to be to the right of her by a couple of degrees, or is she going to be classified as a [Republican in name only]?" Lamontagne, Sanborn said, "is very conservative, but likable. He's attractive, as politicians go." Lamontagne has been exploring the race since April or May, making stops at local Republican events. But the hires signal a new, faster pace of the exploratory phase. And that hastening comes at the end of a busy week for New Hampshire Republicans. On Monday, Ayotte filed her exploratory committee with the Federal Election Commission. And on Wednesday, Republican businessman Fred Tausch, who had hired other top Granite State strategists to help with a grassroots anti-spending organization, said he would not run.

DSCC - UNION LEADER: Ayotte's First Hire Is Registered Lobbyist

Nearly a week after we first reported in our online column update that Washington-based political consultant Tom Daffron was the leading candidate to sign on to the fledgling Kelly Ayotte senatorial campaign as a consultant, campaign spokesman Pam Kocher confirmed yesterday that Daffron is in fact now the campaign's volunteer general consultant.

Kocher said Daffron has begun "giving guidance" to Ayotte and her advisers.

Daffron, the chief operating officer of a Washington-based lobbying firm, the Jefferson Consulting Group, has worked in the past for Sens. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, William Cohen of Maine and Charles Percy of Illinois. He also managed Elizabeth Dole's brief presidential campaign in 1999.

Daffron recently managed or consulted for Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who, as we have reported, has been befriended by Ayotte.

The state Democratic Party points out that the Jefferson Consulting web site lists Daffron as one of its "lobbying professionals," and like us, wonders who Daffron is lobbying for. We've called him for this and other comments, but have received no response.

Jefferson Consulting publishes a long list of "representative clients" of the firm on its web site, but there is no way to know from the site which ones were represented by Daffron.

State Democratic Party spokesman Victoria Bonney said that Ayotte's "first move as a Senate candidate was to break her pledge" to Gov. John Lynch to serve a full term as attorney general.

"Her second was to recruit a Washington lobbyist to run her campaign. If she thinks that is the type of leadership the people of New Hampshire are looking for, Kelly Ayotte may want to rethink her candidacy," Bonney said.

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=John+DiStaso%27s+Granite+Status%3a+Alliance+draws+from+all+NH+hues&articleId=172a23e2-547d-456f-9858-cf918a2a9d65