New Hampshire Can Set Primary Ahead of Nevada, Iowa

The New Hampshire state legislature has passed a law allowing the Secretary of State, William Gardner, to set the date of the presidential primary as far ahead of any similar primary event as he so chooses.

According to a story that ran in the Laconia Citizen online edition, Gardner has always had that right but the legislature wanted to clarify the rules to ensure that New Hampshire retains its first-in-the-nation primary status.

The assumption among state officials is that Gardner will move the primary ahead of Nevada and possibly the Iowa caucuses as well.

Kucinich Creates Network of Spies

We found this on the 2008 Central blog. Kucinich gets their award for creepiest email. Also an email from Geraldine Ferraro targeting women to support Hillary.

Aside: We know some of the Kucinich spies here in New Hampshire. They are watching me. They sometimes send me threatening emails. I can hear them breathing in the next room!

Bill Shaheen Extorts “Peacemaker” Role from Hillary Clinton

Every four years the sounds of political swine at the trough get louder and louder. Call it a “deal,” a “shakedown,” or — our preference — “extortion,” and you get the idea of what is taking place.

Political deal-makers in New Hampshire are busy making deals with presidential candidates, and New Hampshire Democrats are particularly hungry this time around, having gained control recently of New Hampshire’s Senate and Legislature, to go along with the Governorship they won just over two years ago.

With presidential candidates looking for party insiders to deliver a campaign infrastructure and votes, the power of these deal-makers keeps increasing. And their audacity increases with their power.

In the latest case of political extortion, Bill Shaheen, husband of the once-popular three-time Democratic governor, Jeanne Shaheen, announced his endorsement of Hillary Clinton. From a citizen’s perspective, Bill Shaheen’s public service to the people of New Hampshire has consisted primarily of sleeping next to Jeanne Shaheen and holding her hand while she squirmed over the state’s education funding crisis (which she ultimately ignored). For playing that pivotal role, Bill is considered a state Democratic party power-broker, having worked on the Carter, Gore, and Kerry campaigns. His latest mark is Hillary Clinton.

In an interview with reporters after announcing his endorsement, Shaheen was careful to say that he did not ask Hillary for an ambassadorship. Thank goodness! What he asked for and evidently got were assurances that he would be part of her peacekeeping delegation to the Middle East.

Aside from being a second-generation Lebanese, it is fair to wonder what diplomatic credentials Bill Shaheen possesses to undertake such a monumental task such as bringing peace to the Middle East? I have friends who are part-Lebanese — maybe they should talk to Hillary,too?

The point is, this a a “quid pro quo” however you want to look at it. And the taker in this deal is only in a position to take anything because of who he married. At least Hillary Clinton, after actually being elected twice to the US Senate, has earned her own credentials. If there is a reason to ditch New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary status, this type of brazen and often successful attempt at political extortion is one of them.

This is not “retail” politics, this is wholesale personal greed at its worst.

Ann Coulter: Conservative Slut (Reprise)

Some of you might remember my posting a few months ago about Ann Coulter. At the time I was miffed that she would attack the 9/11 widows as part of a PR ploy to sell her book.  The result was a posting here called Ann Coulter: Conservative Slut.

Her latest attempt at “free speech” was an attack on John Edwards as a “faggot.”

Now, here at A Rake’s Progress and the Hillary Clinton Quarterly, I am an earnest supporter of free speech — even speech I don’t agree with. For example, at Wilton High School in Wilton, CT, the principal banned a school play because he didn’t agree with its anti-war sentiments. Even though I personally believe it would be a mistake to hurriedly withdraw militarily from Iraq,  I also believethe principal’s action was dead wrong and a suppression of free speech. Assuming it is not hate speech and they are not inciting violence, those Wilton students have a right to express their political views, as do students who might take the opposite position.

That said, we are not obligated to listen to or read someone else’s free speech. If you don’t like this blog, for example, don’t read it. If the wealthy neo-cons in Wilton don’t like people protesting the Iraq war, they can stay home, drink their gin and watch Mad Money or whatever else suits their fancy.

The same goes for Slutty Ann.

She has the right to say whatever nasty things she wants to say. On the other hand, we have the First Amendment right to protest her comments in the media and encourage newspapers to drop her column. As a free-market conservative, Coulter no doubt understands the economic forces at work in the media. She’s certainly used them to make a few bucks, but that free market stuff cuts both ways.

Consumers — that’s you and me – can exert their free speech rights to pressure newspapers to stop running Coulter’s rants. As far as I am concerned, she can print up her own little newsletters like a modern-day Tom Paine and hand them out on street corners where she belongs.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I support the effort by Media Matters to get newspapers to pull Ann’s soapbox out from under her feet. If you are interested, visit their web site and do a little protesting of your own.

Besides, Ann says she likes getting all this attention, so do it for her.

Buchanan, Hart Support New Hampshire Primary Status

Pat Buchanan and Gary Hart returned to New Hampshire yesterday and expressed their support for New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary status.

According to today’s Concord Monitor, Pat Buchanan called the New Hampshire primary “a bastion of fairness and justice for the candidates who do not come into this as front-runners, with all the publicity, media and attention.”

Buchanan was the winner of the state’s 1996 Republican primary. He was being honored by the New Hampshire Political Library for his contribution to the primary. It is, he said, “indispensable” to the presidential nominating process.

Hart, who was also being honored at the event, told reporters that the free publicity and media attention candidates receive in a small state like New Hampshire is invaluable. 

“If you eliminate that, if you take that away, then the only people, it seems to me, who can run for president are those with tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars who run media campaigns in the populated states,” Hart said. ”That narrows the gene pool dangerously, in my opinion. Then it’s all power politics.”