NH INSIDER

Insider: Palin uninformed on Latino issues

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29847.html

By: Jonathan Martin
November 23, 2009 05:38 PM EST

A top adviser on Hispanic issues to John McCain’s presidential campaign said Sunday that a joint interview with McCain and Sarah Palin planned for Univision last fall had to be canceled because Palin was unprepared to discuss Latin America policy.

“She did not feel comfortable speaking about issues regarding Hispanics and Latin America,” GOP consultant Ana Navarro told Univision anchor Jorge Ramos in an interview. “Those are not topics that come up frequently in Alaska. So she asked to cancel the interview and, unfortunately, you were already there.”

With both McCain and Barack Obama aggressively courting the Hispanic vote, each sat for multiple interviews with Ramos, whose evening news broadcast on the Spanish-language channel draws millions of viewers.

Both presidential candidates also agreed to a joint sit-down with their running mate. But on October 9th, the day that McCain and Palin were to face Ramos together outside of Milwaukee, only the Republican presidential candidate sat for the interview.

A campaign source familiar with the events leading up to the interview described it as a near-crisis situation, with McCain officials worried that Ramos would say on the air that Palin wasn’t appearing because she was not capable of discussing Hispanic issues.

“Initially, campaign staff was suggesting we tell Univision there had been a scheduling conflict and have only McCain do the interview,” said the source. “I could not see how this would not be worse though, because McCain and Palin were doing a joint rally in the outskirts of Milwaukee and the interview was to be conducted immediately after in the same arena.”

So, this source said, “we told Jorge Ramos the truth: She was not briefed, not familiar with the issues and just was not comfortable giving the interview.”

Part of their fear stemmed from the fact that it was the second time campaign officials had to cancel the joint interview session, according to two McCain sources.

Originally, McCain and Palin were to do a joint interview with Ramos in the days immediately after the September convention. But Palin, feeling unprepared, pulled out and McCain wound up talking to Ramos by himself in Colorado Springs.

After the campaign had to again only put McCain on with Ramos, the candidate intervened, according to Navarro.

“At that point, John McCain asks me to start traveling with her, to brief her on those issues, and to have that interview - so that she would feel comfortable speaking [about Hispanic issues] she told Ramos Sunday.

Later in October, Palin would ultimately be interviewed by Ramos, at which point she admitted that she did not know how many illegal immigrants there were in Alaska.

Palin aides did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Navarro now says that Palin was not ready to be president and was uninformed on Hispanic issues.

“Look, I think that, frankly, she does not understand issues concerning Hispanics and Latin America,” the Florida-based consultant said Sunday. “She is from Alaska, which is quite an isolated and faraway state. I don’t know how much you know about Alaska, but I don’t know very much about Alaska’s issues. So I didn’t think that briefing her on issues was something I should apologize for or feel badly about.”

Asked why she was going public, Navarro said: “I am uncomfortable with Sarah Palin. I have nothing against her. I’ll say she’s a very talented woman. Yet I think she owes John McCain her gratitude and loyalty. Let’s be clear: Today she is a rich and famous woman thanks to John McCain, who chose her. I think it’s not elegant. But of course, I know melodrama and soap operas sell books, not boring stories.”

For more information on the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, go to:

http://www.nrlc.org/ahc

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Dems risk losing Catholics over abortion 

By Jeanne Cummings

November 15, 2009 06:57 AM EST

By teeing up a public battle over abortion in the health care bill now before the Senate, Congressional Democrats could be risking more than just the fate of the legislation.

Hanging in the balance are millions of Catholic swing voters who moved decisively to the Democrats in 2008 and who could shift away just as readily in 2010.

According to exit polls, President Barack Obama won the support of 53 percent of Catholic voters, a seven-point increase over the showing of the Democrats’ 2004 nominee, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who is a Catholic. Among Latino Catholics, who are often more conservative than their white counterparts on social issues, Obama did even better, winning more than two-thirds of their support, a 14-point improvement over Kerry’s totals, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center.

Those gains will be at risk if a polarizing abortion fight takes place in the Senate.[…]
Click on URL below for complete story

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29516.html

Has Rep. Shea-Porter 'gone native'?

By: Alex Isenstadt

October 20, 2009 05:00 AM EST

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28486.html

Has Washington changed Carol Shea-Porter?

It’s a question that’s being asked in New Hampshire as the Democratic congresswoman gears up for reelection amid criticism that she’s become an insular member of the political establishment she once confronted as a grass-roots activist.

While Republicans have seized on the issue as part of their effort to deny her a third term, the state media has also focused on the theme after Shea-Porter avoided scheduling open town halls during Congress’s August recess. While she eventually held the events, it wasn’t until after she took considerable heat — and after her likely 2010 Republican opponent, Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta, announced he would be holding his own public health care event.

 “The irony is, of course, that Shea-Porter used to be a ‘tea-bagger’ on the left,” wrote Nashua Telegraph columnist Kevin Landrigan in late August, borrowing a phrase Shea-Porter had used to describe conservative town hall opponents. “We remember when, Carol, do you?”

The charge that a member of Congress has “gone native” or been changed by Washington is a campaign staple, but in Shea-Porter’s case, it’s an especially troublesome matter because it cuts to the heart of her political identity.

In the years leading up to her stunning 2006 House upset victory, Shea-Porter won notoriety not as a politician but as a state organizer for an anti-George W. Bush group called Turn Your Back on Bush and for her dogged pursuit of then-Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-N.H.) at public events across the state.

She embarked on a long-shot bid for Bradley’s seat, waged a mom-and-pop-style campaign in the 2006 Democratic primary and managed to knock off then-state House Minority Leader Jim Craig, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s preferred candidate. Then, in the general election, she took down Bradley in one of the election cycle’s most unexpected outcomes.

 “She had gained a following of local activists. They believed in her, and she had momentum from the local level that I didn’t have,” Craig said. “It took on a life of its own — and that was to her benefit, I think.”

Last year, she defeated Bradley in a rematch, but not before bowing to political exigencies — Shea-Porter reneged on an earlier promise that she would not accept help from the DCCC. By the time the dust cleared, the committee had spent a whopping $2.4 million on ads and direct mail slamming Bradley.

The blowback from that small concession paled next to the furor created by Shea-Porter’s reluctant approach to town halls.

Republicans, including former state GOP Chairman Wayne Semprini, accused her of being a hypocrite for avoiding the events and criticizing conservative town hall disrupters when, as a protester, Shea-Porter herself had been removed from a March 2005 event featuring President Bush.

The congresswoman denied in an interview with the Portsmouth Herald that she had been told to leave, a response that had many in New Hampshire political circles scratching their heads, since the incident is a well-known part of Shea-Porter lore.

In an interview with POLITICO, Shea-Porter said that she had merely meant to distinguish between her relatively peaceful form of protest in her pre-Congress years and the more disruptive actions taken by the conservative town hall rabble-rousers during the August recess.

 “I never opened my mouth,” she said of the 2005 Bush event, where she and another activist removed their sweatshirts, turned their backs to the president and revealed T-shirts that read, “Turn your back on Bush.”

 “There’s a very, very big difference between standing there politely and quietly with a shirt on and going around and being disruptive and yelling,” Shea-Porter said.

Bradley, Shea-Porter’s predecessor, claims she has contracted a form of Potomac fever.

 “I think she’s gone to Washington and forgotten that she’s New Hampshire’s representative in Washington,” Bradley told POLITICO, noting that Shea-Porter had frequently been confrontational and challenging at his public events. “I think she’s become Washington, and the power has gotten to her.”

 “What I have a problem with, and what a lot of people have a problem with, is that there’s a double standard,” said Bradley. “There is no bigger hypocrite in Congress than Carol Shea-Porter.”

Shea-Porter allies are quick to argue that the lawmaker’s grass-roots support is as strong as ever and that she’s the same fighter for the causes she believes in. They point to a University of New Hampshire survey released last month that shows her favorability rating among registered Democrats at 70 percent and among those who identify themselves as liberal at 78 percent.

 “If you ask anyone around here, they will tell you that I’m outspoken and that I stand up for the middle class,” said Shea-Porter.

 “I think she does have grass-roots appeal. The difference is that she’s in Congress now. She has a different vehicle to achieve those goals,” said Kathy Sullivan, a former New Hampshire Democratic Party chairwoman.

 “When you’re not an officeholder and you’re very active in politics, you’re very critical of those who hold office,” said Sullivan. “Now that she’s holding office, she can focus on the issues that matter to her and be a positive force.”

Still, as she heads toward what is widely expected to be a tough reelection bid, Shea-Porter must find a way to prove to voters that she remains the same passionate advocate, only with a different title.

Today, Josh Kraushaar with The Politico reports on the healthcare hotspots across the country, “mapping out where the [healthcare] reform debate is the most intense.”  The story includes some key poll numbers on voters in New Hampshire, and what they think of the Democrats’ healthcare plan.  Carol Shea-Porter supports this plan despite public opposition to a government-run health system and the inclusion of massive middle-class tax hikes and significant cuts to Medicare.

Some key excerpts

·         Half of NH voters said they oppose Obama’s healthcare plan.

·         Less than half of NH voters support it.

·         43% of NH voters think health care would be worse under the new plan.

·         Only 28% of NH voters think health care would be better under the new plan.

Read the full report here.

Carter Clews, Director of Communications, Americans for Limited Government

We at Americans for Limited Government are saddened that instead of helping us to get to the bottom of the hateful email that was indeed sent from NBC's server, and this can be verified, and was not tampered with, which can also be verified, that NBC President Steve Capus has instead chosen to circle the wagons and protect what is indefensible with hysterical, frantic accusations. 

This email has left a digital footprint that is undeniable.  We did our due diligence.  We have confirmed that it indeed came from NBC's server and Jane Stone's email address. 

As before, we renew our offer that we made to both Ms. Stone and NBC President Capus over the phone today to get to the bottom of who sent this email from Ms. Stone's Blackberry email address.  That offer remains open, and we would like it very much if both Ms. Stone and NBC would issue an apology to both Americans for Limited Government, and Mr. Alex Rosenwald, who was the target of this hateful email.