This week in N.H. politics: A besieged party chair, a havoc-wreaking Free Stater and a patriotic porn star
Conservative activists are demanding the GOP state party chair resign after she publicly criticized Donald Trump for running a “shallow campaign” that depends “on bombast and divisive rhetoric.” And that’s just one front in the ongoing battle between warring party factions.
In a phone interview with the Boston Globe, Republican chair Jennifer Horn downplayed Trump’s chances of winning the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary. “Shallow campaigns that depend on bombast and divisive rhetoric do not succeed in New Hampshire, and I don’t expect that they will now,” she explained.
Horn’s Republican critics claimed the comments violated GOP bylaws, which require party officials to remain “strictly neutral” in primary contests.
Trump supporters fired the opening salvoes. State Rep. Steve Stepanek (R-Amherst), Trump’s state campaign co-chair, blasted Horn and said the remark was “an obvious slanted and slanderous comment.”
“[F]or her to criticize any candidate is totally unacceptable and should be considered grounds to call for resignation,” Stepanek told WMUR’s John DiStaso. “Her actions jeopardize the primary process and the first-in-the-nation primary if candidates believe the party chairperson is going to pick winners and losers.”
Trump’s Rockingham County co-chair, former state Rep. Lou Gargiulo (R-Hampton Falls), echoed Stepanek’s criticism. “Jennifer Horn comments are totally inappropriate!” he wrote on Facebook. “As the NH Republican Party Chairperson her role is to remain neutral… Enough is enough she needs to go!”
‘Donald Trump is not a credible candidate for President’
Horn denied her comments violated party restrictions on taking sides in a primary. Before she became party chair, however, she was anything but strictly neutral regarding Donald Trump. When the billionaire real estate mogul briefly toyed with launching a presidential campaign in 2011, Horn publicly expressed her disdain in a Union Leader op-ed.
“Donald Trump is like a cat with a length of yarn, who keeps jumping instinctively at the thread trying to grab it,” she wrote. “Trump can’t stop himself from reaching at the media attention that has erupted as a result of one well-placed birther comment.”
“Now it has grown into a firestorm of attention so fierce that he’s practically giddy, unable to stop himself from spouting outrageous comments and placing himself ever more often in front of the cameras,” Horn continued.
“Donald Trump is not a credible candidate for President, and if the GOP allows him to hijack the primary process then they deserve exactly what they get,” she concluded.
‘This is wrong’
Following the resignation calls from Trump supporters, conservative activists supporting other presidential candidates smelled blood and joined in the attack. One-time GOP gubernatorial candidate Andrew Hemingway, who competed against Horn for party chair two years ago, spoke out. “This is not about Trump,” he explained on Facebook. “This is about the state party chair bashing the party front runner and his supporters. This is wrong.”
Free State Project chair Aaron Day, who also leads the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, launched a social media campaign with an online petition calling for Horn’s resignation that drew over 1000 signatures from all over the country.
It is not the first time Day has criticised Horn. In February, 2014, Day told James Pindell he was launching a campaign to run against Horn in her re-election bid for party chair. Day cited Horn’s support for the Medicaid expansion compromise approved by Republican lawmakers as the impetus for his decision. Day, however, eventually dropped his bid to oust Horn and she was unanimously reelected by the Republican State Committee.
A ‘misogynistic indecent assault’
Day and Horn recently clashed over a comment Day left on Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s Facebook page, an exchange captured by Union Leader reporter Dan Tuohy. Day had responded to Ayotte’s posting of photos from a Veterans Day speech by posting a link to a Vice story about a porn star giving sexual favors to veterans “to thank them for their service.”
“Aaron Day your post is insulting and offensive and the suggestion is beyond the pale,” Horn wrote. “You should be ashamed of yourself - and btw, the veterans for whom the original post was written share the offense. Take your trash elsewhere.”
“No matter how deep your disagreement may be, there is never - NEVER - a circumstance where referring to a woman as ‘whore’ or a prostitute or even suggesting that somehow her political differences with you makes her a ‘political prostitute’ is acceptable,” Horn continued. “This sort of misogynistic indecent assault on a successful, professional, intelligent woman is grossly inappropriate and completely unacceptable.”
“My comment was simply a link to an article,” answered Day. “Nowhere in the link did I make any reference to Kelly Ayotte at all. I encourage you to actually read the article… This seems like an extremely poor attempt to manufacture a ‘war on women’ defense in order to deflect from Kelly’s poor voting record.”
‘On cusp of a civil war’
Day has vowed to wage an independent, third-party campaign against Ayotte, handing the closely contested seat, and maybe the U.S. Senate, to Democrats – if the Republican-led legislature reauthorizes expanded Medicaid. “Why even have two parties if the Republicans are going to cave on an issue like this?” he explained to Truth in Media.
Day holds Ayotte “singularly responsible for Medicaid expansion.” As he sees it, lawmakers would not have approved the program if arch-conservative Bill O’Brien had been Speaker of the House and O’Brien would not have lost his bid for the speakership if Ayotte had not “meddled” in the contest and endorsed O’Brien’s Republican opponent.
“I think we’re on cusp of a civil war in the Republican Party.” Day told Truth in Media. “This isn’t just me running for the U.S. Senate. I could have people running for Congressional District 1, Congressional District 2 and governor. It could be a rout of the Republican Party. So this is a huge issue and an important time to determine whether the Republican Party has a soul and stands for something and has principle or it doesn’t.”