Union Leader Issues Correction and Withdraws Editorial

An editorial that ran in the August 11 Union Leader was removed from the web after a firestorm of criticism. The column praised Rep. Frank Guinta for holding town hall meetings “even though he knew full well that he was going to take flak” for his votes on the budget and raising the debt ceiling.

For that alone, he is an improvement upon his predecessor. After they voted for Obamacare in March of 2010, then Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes … took Speaker Nacy Pelosi’s advice not to hold big, open meetings in which lots of non-supporters would get to yell at them.

The claim that Shea-Porter and Hodes did not hold town hall meetings was patently false, as Dean Barker pointed out.

Of course, Shea-Porter had held EIGHT town halls just prior to that.

Why so many? It came on the heels of the historic health care vote, and despite the bogus hay made earlier by the dishonest in a similar venue, despite knowing that the Tea People were determined to make theatre out of every one, the Congresswoman was adamant about reaching out to her constituents’ questions about this legislation.

The facts were immediately challenged on the Union Leader web site and on Twitter. Editorial page editor Drew Cline eventually issued a correction on Twitter and the piece was removed from the web.

Correx: Today’s lead editorial erred in stating that Shea-Porter, Hodes did not hold town hall meetings after the health care vote. They did

Barker concludes:

My takeaway is that when you know you will never be given a fair shake by certain sectors of the media, you cannot give one inch when it come to errors, distortions, lies, etc… Rapid response is required, always.

Drew Cline Rewriting History

Drew Cline:

New Hampshire voters do what so many others don’t: They think for themselves. They meet the candidates, study the issues and make decisions based on more than just TV ads and sound bites. That’s why candidates like Bill Binnie and Barack Obama don’t do well here. [emphasis added]

For the record, in the 2008 Presidential election, Barack Obama beat John McCain in every New Hampshire county and won the state by nine percentage points, a margin greater than his national win.

Internal Poll: Ovide Within 10 Points

Drew Cline has the numbers from GOP Senate candidate Ovide Lamontagne’s internal polling:

Ayotte: 34%
Ovide: 24%
Binnie: 12%
Bender: 12%
Undecided: 18%

No further survey details were released. With my now standard warning about reading too much into internal polls, this one is interesting. It confirms the trends from the earlier Magellan poll: Lamontagne rising, Binnie dropping, and Ayotte still maintaining a significant lead.

Ayotte, Bender, and Binnie Pledge to Increase Deficit

Drew Cline reports GOP U.S. Senate candidates Kelly Ayotte, Jim Bender, and Bill Binnie have signed a pledge vowing to repeal all federal estate and gift taxes (which they quaintly refer to as the death tax). The facts:

• Less than half a percent of estates pay any estate tax.
• The average small business or family farm pays about 12 percent.
• 37 percent of the value of estates worth more than $1 million and 56 percent of estates worth more than $10 million have never been subject to taxation as income.
• Repeal would cost at least $500 billion over 10 years.
• Repeal costs about 15 times more than extending unemployment benefits did, and we heard that the benefits were too expensive to finance with deficits.

Cross-posted to Blue Hampshire