When I last checked in on New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, national commentators were endorsing her as a serious candidate for vice president and her stock was on the rise. Then she flubbed her big audition on Meet the Press and the press moved on.
As evidence of the cooling ardor, today she received a down arrow from the National Journal and fell from #6 to #10 on the Hotline Veepstakes Power Rankings.
Perhaps Romney’s best option if he wants to bring gender balance to the ticket, Ayotte got buzz when she appeared alongside Romney during his first trip to New Hampshire as the presumptive nominee. But few insiders believe she’ll make the short list.
Gamblers are cutting their loses. Today, Ayotte’s stock is trading on Intrade at $0.25/share, down from a high of $0.50/share last month, with bettors giving her just a 2.5% chance of being Mitt Romney’s vice presidential pick.
Mitt Romney heads to Hillsborough today to disparage the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as “wasteful government spending.” To get there, his motorcade will be traveling on highways maintained and improved with funds provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
I-93 improvements brought to N.H. with $47.5 million from the Recovery Act.
Manchester Airport Access Road improvements brought to N.H. with $15.5 million from the Recovery Act.
Route 101 improvements brought to N.H. with $8.9 million from the Recovery Act.
I-393 improvements brought to N. H. with $800,000 from the Recovery Act.
I-89 improvements brought to N.H. with $22.5 million from the Recovery Act.
John DiStaso reports Mitt Romney will be campaigning in New Hampshire tomorrow at the site of the Sawyer Bridge in Hillsborough. Romney will reportedly cite money spent to preserve and maintain the bridge as an example of “wasteful government spending.”
In 2010, Sean Mahoney made a similar charge during his failed run for Congress. My response first appeared in August 10, 2010:
The arched stone bridges of the Contoocook River Valley of New Hampshire are the earliest examples of dry-laid masonry vaults that became the dominant form of stone construction for engineering structures in New England during the 1830s.
The largest and oldest single concentration of arched stone bridges ever built in New Hampshire is in the town of Hillsborough, which has five of the historic gems. The bridges are registered as historic structures by the Historic American Building Survey and have been recognized as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, the second in New Hampshire after the Cog Railway.
$150,045 in stimulus money was awarded to the Town of Hillsborough to preserve and maintain the Sawyer Bridge that will no longer support vehicular traffic and will now become home to a small garden park for picnicking.
1st District Congressional candidate Sean Mahoney says there’s a problem. “It doesn’t go anywhere… The politicians in Concord asked the politicians in Washington for $150,000 to pave a real ‘Bridge to Nowhere.’” He issued a press release. He made a web video. He got a write-up on Andrew Breitbart.
It’s a cheap shot that tells you more about Sean Mahoney than all of his position papers and web videos ever will.
The latest survey from Public Policy Polling gives Pres. Obama a commanding 12-point lead over Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. Obama has surged to a 53-41 lead, a 14-point swing from ten months ago when Romney led 46-44.
The reason for this huge boost in Obama’s fortunes in this swing state is two-fold: an improvement in his own public image and a decline in Romney’s.
Romney is improving with his partisans (up from 63% to 77% favorability with Republicans), but has slipped drastically from a barely positive 43-42 favorability spread overall to 40% seeing him favorably and 54% unfavorably now. That negative movement is entirely with Democrats (from 25-58 to 8-89) and independents (43-40 to 38-53).
On the flip side, 52% approve and 45% disapprove of the president’s job performance, up 10 points on the margin from 46-49 last summer. Obama is also consolidating support with his base (from 83% to 92% approval) but also with independents (from 39% to 51%).
PPP surveyed 1,163 New Hampshire voters with a margin of error of +/-2.9%. The automated telephone interviews were conducted May 10-13, 2012.
“Romney’s fishin’ off an old dock when it comes to failed Bush-economics that will once again leave the middle-class out at sea.”
— Americans United for Change on Mitt Romney’s economic platform, described by an RNC spokeswoman as the policies of the Bush administration, “just updated.”
The battle for the GOP presidential nomination is all over but the shouting. The Portsmouth Herald, which endorsed Romney earlier this year, reminds us the memories are not good ones.
We’ll remember debate audiences booing a gay Marine just returned from battle and applauding Rick Perry for executing a record 234 Texans during his tenure as governor. We’ll remember Michele Bachmann saying the HPV vaccine causes “retardation,” and Herman Cain’s proposals for foreign policy in “Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan.” We’ll remember Newt Gingrich’s call for a lunar colony by 2020 and Rick Santorum’s saying he “almost threw up” when he heard John F. Kennedy’s famous speech on the separation of church and state.
The red-meat rhetoric fed to Republican primary-goers won’t win over the vast majority of moderate Americans whose votes will determine our next president.
So while most consider the Romney as well-oiled weather vane gibe to be negative, the paper begs to differ. “Frankly, we can’t wait for Romney to start over. … Romney should shake the Etch A Sketch and shake it hard.”
This morning, Ayotte received another vice-president mention in the national press, this time from the NBC News political unit’s blog, First Read:
Yesterday, learned that the former Massachusetts governor tapped his longtime aide and ’08 campaign manager, Beth Myers, to lead his VP search. … Having Myers lead this search will only reinforce the C.W. that Romney is going to zero in on folks like Portman, Ryan or even a Kelly Ayotte and not be looking for, shall we say, a game-changer.
Gamblers have been responding to the positive press. The odds on Kelly Ayotte becoming Mitt Romney’s vice president pick is trending up on Intrade. Today, Ayotte closed at $.30/share as bettors give her a 3% chance of becoming the nominee. That’s up from $.05/share two weeks ago and an all-time high for her. Marco Rubio continues to be favorite, with gamblers giving him a 23% chance of receiving the nod from Romney.
New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte continues to garner attention among the right-wing intelligentsia as she travels around the country as a surrogate for Mitt Romney.
Writing in National Journal, Josh Kraushaar labels her “Romney’s VP sleeper,” saying she would be a compelling choice for the vice presidential pick if Romney wants to make inroads with the female vote.
[Ayotte has] quickly made a name for herself, fluent in policy and also comfortable on the cable news circuit. She may not be the favorite to become Romney’s running mate, but she’s a sleeper worth paying close attention to in the months to come.
The Wall Street Journal is even more obsequious, calling her the “Granite State’s new rock star.”
In the classic swing state of New Hampshire, Romney closed his only office immediately after the January 10 primary. To the astonishment of local Obama organisers, a “for lease” sign was hung outside the Romney headquarters four days before the vote was held. Obama, by contrast, has seven offices up and running in the state, with more than 25 paid staff.
This morning, Sen. Kelly Ayotte was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to answer the question, “Does Mitt Romney have a woman problem?” She said he doesn’t and that women voters will support Romney because of, among other things, high gas prices.
Newsweek/Daily Beast editor-in-chief Tina Brown and co-host Mika Brzezinski pushed her to acknowledge reality, but Ayotte kept coming back to high gas prices — so Brzezinski asked about the oil subsidies that Congress refuses to eliminate despite record profits by Big Oil. Hilarity ensues.
Ayotte: I personally would like to see us eliminate all subsidies on those issues. Let’s make it an even playing field.
Brzezinski: So how did you vote on that?
Ayotte: I voted against it…
Brzezinski: Republicans say it’s such a bad time to get rid of the subsidies for big oil who have made, I don’t know, $80 billion in profits and are making even more profits this year and the next quarter. Most of those Republicans who voted that down received a lot of their campaign help from the oil companies. I’m sure you have. Am I wrong?
Ayotte: [Blah, blah, blah]
Brzezinski: I asked a question…
Ayotte: [Blah, blah, blah]
Brzezinski: So you’re not going to answer my question?
Ayote never did answer the question. The Center for Responsive Politics reports Ayotte has raised over $142,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. You can watch the full video here.
Romney has distanced himself from his signature achievement, arguing that while near-universal health care was right for Massachusetts, it is not right for the nation and individual states should decide what is best for their citizens. We understand the political need for him to say this, but we don’t buy it. Reducing the number of uninsured in Massachusetts made good economic sense for the Bay State and it makes good sense for the nation.
