New Hampshire U.S. Senate Race
Sununu vs. Shaheen
The last time New Hampshire Republicans dumped a sitting U.S. senator it wasn’t pretty. That was back in 1962, when Maurice (Mo) Murphy was seeking nomination for the seat he had been appointed to fill the previous December following the death of conservative GOP Sen. Styles Bridges. What appeared to be a Who’s Who of Granite State Republican heavyweights-including both U.S. House members and the senator’s widow Delores Bridges-challenged Murphy. Nothing personal, mind you, and, the issue disagreements were minimal. It was just that each of them wanted to be in the Senate and resented that the 34-year-old Murphy was there instead. Topping the primary field was the bearer of one of New Hampshire’s most durable political names: Rep. Perkins (Small Mouth) Bass, son of a former governor (and father of present New Hampshire GOP Rep. Charles Bass).
But so rancorous, so harsh, so divisive was the primary fight, that Bass went into the fall race with political sores that wouldn’t heal and he was beaten by relatively unknown Laconia Mayor Thomas J. McIntyre. For the first time since the Depression, the voters in historically Republican New Hampshire had sent a Democrat to the Senate.
Many Republicans fear that it is 1962 all over again. GOP Sen. Bob Smith lost a rancorous Republican primary to three-term Rep. John Sununu, namesake-son of the former governor and chief of staff in the first Bush White House. The two men differed on relatively little, although Smith (lifetime American Conservative Union rating: 92%) was a fair trader and opposed oil drilling in Alaska, while Sununu (lifetime ACU rating: 94%) supported free trade and ANWR.
The 38-year-old Sununu emerged triumphantly with 53% of the vote and Smith, the night of the primary, gave him an endorsement, albeit not very enthusiastically.
Now Sununu is up against three-term Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, who had the luxury of being unopposed for her party’s nomination. "Wired" is how the political savvy Shaheen is usually characterized. She and her husband cut their politically eyeteeth in Jimmy Carter’s winning presidential primary campaign in 1976, went on to organize the state for Gary Hart when he pulled off his spectacular upset in the ’84 primary, and then helped good friend Bill Clinton nearly upset Paul Tsongas from neighboring Massachusetts in ’92. Four years later, then-State Sen. Shaheen was elected her state’s first-ever woman governor and went on to win two more four-year terms. With Gov. Shaheen in his corner and her husband as his state campaign manager, Al Gore won a narrow-but-critical primary victory in New Hampshire over Bill Bradley in 2000.
Simply put, this is one Democrat who knows how to win.
But Shaheen’s unquestioned political skills and the obvious contacts she has made as New Hampshire’s chief executive is a standard "tax and spend" Democrat. Even though she signed "The Pledge" against supporting an income or sales tax in two gubernatorial campaigns, Shaheen in 1997 proposed a statewide property tax rate and supplemental aid for school districts to meet state-determined minimum costs from their own tax bases. The money would have come from taxes on video slot machines and a 23% tobacco tax increase (which the Republican-controlled legislature thwarted). When she won her tightest re-election race two years ago, Shaheen abandoned "The Pledge" and said she "will not rule out any potential solution" to the funding of public education. Translation: Ending her state’s unique status of not having a sales tax or an income tax was a strong possibility.
Like Clinton, Shaheen tries to demonstrate she is a different kind of Democrat by supporting the death penalty. But on most issues, she is lock, stock, and barrel behind Daschle, Gephardt, Gore & Co. She has, for example, vetoed teacher tenure reform, school vouchers, and a repeal of the state inheritance tax.
An engineer by trade, Sununu could not be more Shaheen’s opposite number. He proudly backs vouchers and a 17% flat tax. A point man in the enactment of President Bush’s tax cuts and a champion of ending wasteful government subsidies, he serves on the Budget and Appropriations committees, where his mastery of budget numbers leaves elder colleagues amazed.
Yes, contested primaries sometimes hurt-in fact, almost always hurt when an incumbent falls. Even now, some disgruntled Smith supporters are threatening to vote for Shaheen, write in Smith or stay home in November. But conservatives around the country ask them: Are hurt feelings enough to permit a "Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D.-N.H.)" and the liberal record she is sure to compile for the next six years?
(Team Sununu, P.O. Box 500, Rye, N.H., 03870; 603-625-5585)
Florida’s 3rd U.S. House District
Carroll vs. Brown
"I ran for Congress two years ago and lost. I’m back again and this time, I’m going to kick butt and take numbers!"
This first greeting from Republican House nominee Jennifer Carroll is an experience one doesn’t soon forget. The retired U.S. Navy lieutenant commander drew 42% of the vote against Rep. Corrine Brown (D.-Fla.) two years ago and, this time, brimming with energy and self-confidence, she is determined to do it right-in the process, making history by becoming the first African-American woman to serve in the House as a Republican.
"Things are different [from 2000]," says Carroll, who oversaw a $30-million annual budget as executive director of the Florida Veterans Administration under Republican Gov. Jeb Bush. "First, you aren’t going to have Al Gore coming down into the black churches here and letting pastors say that slavery will be restored if the Republicans get back in power. Second, I’m on the ticket with my governor, Jeb Bush, and don’t believe all those things in the papers about him being in trouble-he’s going to win easily! And third, thanks to reapportionment, we have 53,000 new voters here in the 3rd District [Jacksonville], and they haven’t been subjected to my opponent’s nonsense before."
And there is another, unspoken factor: war and terrorism. With the tragedy of September 11 and the military campaign in Afghanistan-and soon, probably, in Iraq-a candidate with 20 years in the uniform of her country and decorations ranging from the Meritorious Service Medal to two Navy Commendation medals takes on new stature and respect. That’s Jennifer Carroll-also the holder of a master’s degree in Business Administration and a mother of three.
Just like two years ago, the battle between the conservative Carroll and the liberal Brown (lifetime American Conservative Union rating: 9%) has been heated. The incumbent blasts the challenger as a "zero" and "freak of nature." Carroll brands the congresswoman "Corrupt Brown." On that score, she has some back-up from the media. In June 1996, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Brown’s daughter received a Lexus automobile from agents of African millionaire Foutanga Sissoko, who had been imprisoned in Miami on charges of paying an illegal gratuity to a U.S. Customs Service officer. (Brown had previously pleaded with U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to free Sissoko and permit him to return to Africa.) The Times also charged that Brown kept a jazz singer who lived in New York City on her congressional payroll.
The House Ethics Committee found that Brown demonstrated "poor judgment" and created "the appearance of impropriety," but no action was ever taken against her. Voters nonetheless gave the impression they felt something smelled fishy. In 1998, her Republican opponent got 45% of the vote-an unusually strong showing in a district that is 50% black and initially carved to be securely Democratic. Two years ago, Carroll got an equally handsome 42%-again impressive in a district that Al Gore carried with 59% of the vote and where which Bill Clinton campaigned for the Democratic ticket.
Another election is upon the voters and Brown’s record as well as her ethics are again under fire. Don’t conservatives owe it to Jennifer Carroll to reward her tenacity against the odds and to help her now, when circumstances are favorable-and, in the process, to make history?
(Jennifer Carroll for Congress, P.O. Box 440462, Jacksonville, Fla. 32222; 904-727-7601)
Michigan’s 11th District
McCotter vs. Kelley
When Republican Gov. John Engler and the GOP-controlled legislature in Michigan carved up the Water Wonderland’s U.S. House districts, the newly created 11th District had Thad McCotter’s name on it. Part of the district was the 37-year-old state senator’s Wayne County base and the remainder was in historically Republican Oakland County. Led by Oakland County Executive and GOP County Chairman Brooks Patterson, most Republican Party leaders and local elected officials weighed in early for McCotter and made his nomination a cinch.
Moreover, until April, there was no Democratic candidate. McCotter, it seemed, could start hiring a staff, look for schools in the Washington, D.C., area for his three children, and buy season tickets at the Kennedy Center.
All of that is now ancient history. Failure to recognize this and to assume that the election will be a cakewalk for McCotter is to risk letting this new district fall into Democratic hands-and, in a House with such a small difference between the two parties, to risk Democratic recapture of a majority.
Although it took them awhile, the Democrats finally came up with a strong candidate: Redford Township Supervisor Kevin Kelley, son of longtime Detroit City Councilman Jack Kelley. The potency of the Kelley name transcends this particular family. From 1962 until his retirement in 1998, Frank Kelley (no relation) was Michigan’s "eternal state attorney general" and extremely popular in the Wayne-Oakland area, which is also the home base of present state Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jennifer Granholm.
Sensing that the political chemistry here just might produce an upset, state and national Democratic and liberal groups began to pour in money. As of last month, the Democratic hopeful had raised more than $300,000, the bulk of it from "the usual suspects": the American Federation of Teachers, the AFL-CIO’s Committee on Political Education, the Brady Voter Fund (Sarah and Jim, that is), the American Trial Lawyers Association, the National Abortion Rights Action League, Rep. Barney Frank (D.-Mass.), and Sen. Tom Daschle (D.-S.D.)-as well as hordes of local trial lawyers and Wayne County contractors. For his part, Kelley read from the predictable script in the union halls, vowing to "halt" the Bush tax cuts if elected to Congress.
Ever since he won election to the Wayne County Commission while barely in his ’30’s, good-natured, bespectacled Thad McCotter has been considered a comer-admired even by opponents for his straight talk and pleasant way of stating his views. He makes no bones about being pro-life and pro-2nd Amendment and having the support of Michigan Right-to-Life and the National Rifle Association. And, in a stand that puts him directly at odds with most special interests, McCotter has long championed a state constitutional amendment that would require a two-thirds vote of the legislature to pass any tax increase.
Those who have watched him closely at the county building and later in Lansing agree that Thad McCotter is a natural for a leadership role in Congress. But if conservatives simply take it for granted that the election is his for the asking, he may never get there.
(McCotter for Congress, 39202 Lyndon St., Livonia, Mich. 48154; 734-524-0834)
