It is the responsibility of the Attorney General to implement effective internal practices to ensure that when the Department of Justice is made aware of an important criminal or consumer protection matter, that information reaches his or her desk.
—Draft Commerce Committee investigative report on U.S. Senate candidate and former New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte’s responsibility in $80 million FRM Ponzi scheme
In the third part of a four-part series on the upcoming New Hampshire elections, New Hampshire Public Radio’s Laura Knoy discusses the race for Judd Gregg’s Senate seat with three of the state’s respected political observers:
Josh Rogers, NHPR’s statehouse reporter
Dean Spiliotes, Civic Scholar in the school of Liberal Arts at Southern New Hampshire University and author of NHPoliticalCapital.com
Andy Smith, professor of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire and director of the UNH Survey Center
You may have noticed the “Cruel Summer” video created by 1st District Congressional candidate Sean Mahoney is no longer available on web video sites. Vimeo.com reports it “was deleted at 9:29:53 Mon Aug 30, 2010.”
Ben Sheffner, Senior Counsel in the NBC Universal Television Group and a regular legal columnist for Billboard magazine, has a follow up report.
Jimmy Asci, a spokesman for music publisher Sony/ATV, which owns the composition to the 1983 single, confirmed that the Mahoney campaign had used the song without obtaining a license, and that the video was removed before a cease-and-desist letter was even issued. “It wasn’t licensed,” he said. …
It’s notable that of the three recent copyright lawsuits involving campaigns of which I’m aware — Jackson Browne v. John McCain, Don Henley v. Chuck DeVore, and David Byrne v. Charlie Crist — all involved individual songwriters as plaintiffs, not publishers or record labels. Corporations simply want campaigns to knock off their unlicensed uses. Individual artists — who often have strong political views of their own, and strong feelings about unwanted uses of their material — tend to demand a pound of flesh.
No word from Bananarama.
This is literally about a blue-collar Hillary Clinton voter versus a white-collar Barack Obama voter… . Kuster is Obama, Swett is Clinton, and it’s really about the heart and soul of the party.
—James Pindell on Democratic 2nd District Congressional primary
You may remember their radio spot denouncing U.S. Senate candidate Bill Binnie as “shockingly liberal,” followed by a 30-second TV ad with the same message.
This weekend, Cornerstone bought a full-page ad in the Union Leader attacking Binnie once again.
The ad is designed as a movie poster for “Shockingly Liberal,” a film starring Binnie (as an Indiana Jones-like character) and co-starring four Democratic politicians Binnie has contributed to.
Binnie, meanwhile, has promised to point his campaign in a positive direction — but the pressure will be on him to respond.
If you’re looking for the next (and final) upset of the primary season, look no further than the 52-year-old lawyer from Manchester who has deep ties to conservatives in the state, isn’t a wing nut, and now has a powerful way to earn his media.
—Marc Ambinder on Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ovide Lamontagne, following Sunday’s Union Leader endorsement
Shira Schoenberg has a must read profile of U.S. Senate candidate Bill Binnie in the Concord Monitor today:
The good:
Friends said they know of people facing difficulties to whom Binnie gave money. Binnie said he doesn’t brag about particular donations because he wants to set an example for his four children. He said he has funded homeless shelters, contributed to his children’s schools, cancer organizations and other nonprofits.
The bad:
Asked whether a person could be blackballed for speaking out about Binnie or the club, Weeks responded: “People are expected to act as ladies and gentleman as members, to act in the best interest of club. If there are times somebody would speak negatively about the club, it would affect other members, and that’s not good for the club.”
And the ugly:
But the Galvin case is one that neighbors of the country club point to when asked about their relationships with Binnie. Several neighbors and others who have tangled with Binnie told the Monitor that they were scared to talk about Binnie publicly out of fear that he would take them back to court or blackball their families from his country club - as he did with the Galvins.
Each day, 1st District Congressional candidate Frank Guinta picks out a Republican spending cut proposal and repackages it as his own self-proclaimed “innovative” and “groundbreaking” initiative.
Yesterday, he recycled a proposal from Sens. Coburn and McCain calling for the removal of taxpayer funds for a scientific research project helping fight drug addiction by studying how the brain chemistry of addiction works.
Guinta call it “stimulus monkey business.”
“We’re using federal stimulus money to watch what happens when monkeys get high,” said Guinta. “Do I really need to say anything else?”
The funding in question is a $71,623 grant for Wake Forest University researchers to study monkeys for the effects of cocaine on a particular neurotransmitter, glutamate. Recent studies show glutamate may be responsible for drug users becoming addicted.
This research on cocaine monkeys is meant to determine how the parts of the brain that use glutamate change during and after exposure to cocaine. The idea is that knowing this will help develop more effective treatments for cocaine addiction — in people, not in monkeys.
“Clearly, drug addiction is a serious problem facing our country, and finding new medical treatments is a high priority,” NIH director Francis Collins tells me. “I don’t know if the critics want us to experiment with humans, or just give up on the problem of drug addiction, but we aren’t going to do either.”
Cross-posted to Blue Hampshire
[T]he campaigns of Ayotte and Binnie have reached a disturbing level of name calling and backbiting that should have supporters packing their bags. … The recent antics of both Ayotte and Binnie are — to be kind — juvenile.
—Foster’s Daily Democrat editorial on campaign for GOP Senate nomination
Republican 2nd District Congressional candidate Charlie Bass issued a press release today attacking Democratic candidate Ann McLane Kuster as she launched her Main Street Jobs Tour.
It’s an interesting strategy since Kuster is in — what appears to be — a tight battle with Katrina Swett for the Democratic nomination. To my knowledge, it’s the first time in the campaign that Bass has singled out either one of the two candidates for attack.
I can think of two reasons Bass would preemptively attack Kuster before she secures the nomination. Either he has internal polling that indicates she has a big lead over Swett. Or his polling indicates that she will be the tougher of the two candidates to defeat in November. Or both.
Did 1st District Congressional candidate Sean Mahoney violate copyright laws with his “Cruel Summer” video? Ben Sheffner, Senior Counsel in the NBC Universal Television Group and a regular legal columnist for Billboard magazine, thinks so and says the video could lead to a “cruel copyright lawsuit.”
I have inquiries in to the Mahoney campaign as well as what I believe to be the copyright owners (Sony/ATV for the publishing and London Records for the master), to confirm what I strongly suspect: that the campaign did not get licenses for this use. (I will update this post when and if I hear back.) The self-imposed “parody” label notwithstanding, I think the copyright owners would have a very strong claim if they decided to pursue this. California Senate candidate Chuck DeVore (R) had a much more plausible claim to parody than does Mahoney — and it was still a loser.
Update: Vimeo.com reports “Sean Mahoney for Congress: ‘Cruel Summer’” was deleted at 9:29:53 Mon Aug 30, 2010.”
This race has been slow getting revved up but soon it could make the bitter, US Senate race look like a polite game of tiddlywinks.
— Kevin Landrigan on potential New Hampshire Gubernatorial contest between Gov. John Lynch and John Stephen
GOP Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte uses Vice President Biden’s New Hampshire visit as an opportunity to ding Bill Binnie yet again for his allegedly “shockingly liberal” leanings.
Top Ten Things Bill Binnie and Joe Biden Have in Common
10. Binnie and Biden both gave thousands to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.
9. Binnie and Biden both gave money to defeat former Sen. John E. Sununu.
8. Binnie and Biden both supported Democrats for President in 2000.
7. Binnie and Biden both opposed President Bush’s reelection in 2004.
6. Binnie and Biden both support a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
5. Binnie and Biden both were open to backing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
4. Binnie and Biden both oppose Arizona’s law cracking down on illegal immigrants.
3. Binnie and Biden both have expressed dislike for the Republican Party.
2. Binnie owned Carlisle Plastics, which opened a factory in Mexico; Biden owns GM, which announced this month it’s investing $500 million into one of its Mexican factories.
And last, but not least…
1. Binnie and Biden will both go down in history for losing their New Hampshire primary campaigns to women!
(h/t Andrew Cline)
This morning we awoke to dueling narratives over the likelihood that the GOP will take control of the House of Representatives in November.
Jim VandeHei, Alex Isenstadt and Mike Allen lead with a “sky is falling” (for Democrats) storyline in Politico.
Top Democrats are growing markedly more pessimistic about holding the House, privately conceding that the summertime economic and political recovery they were banking on will not likely materialize by Election Day.
A Democratic pollster working on several key races said, “The reality is that [the House majority] is probably gone.” His data show the Democrats’ problems are only getting worse. “It’s spreading,” the pollster said.
Not so fast, says Reid Wilson, writing for Hotline On Call. ”Democrats will keep the House… . Here are the four reasons.”
• Money: On both a macro level and a micro level, Republicans are seriously behind in the money chase.
• Turnout: Beyond advertising, money pays for turnout operations, another area in which Democrats have a clear advantage.
• Opposition Research: Call it the Harry Reid model: When you’re not popular, your only hope of winning election is to make your opponent even less popular.
• Modeling: [M]odels matter, and right now Democrats’ models are inspiring more confidence than Republicans’.
First Read analyzes the results from the Tuesday primaries and offers some disheartening but probably realistic advice to incumbents (think Carol Shea-Porter).
Anger trumps accomplishments: The candidates who are channeling the public’s anger best are winning, especially on the GOP side… If 2008 was about “hope,” then 2010 might be about “fear” — with Republicans running on fear of Obama/Dems, while Dems will be running on fear of returning to Bush/GOP policies.
In fact, this explains why someone like John McCain cruised to victory last night in Arizona and Murkowski didn’t. McCain… picked up the pitchfork and channeled the growing anger on the right. Murkowski, on the other hand, touted her record and what she had done for Alaska. Indeed, how McCain ran his campaign could very well be a model for Democrats or any troubled incumbent in November: go negative and peel the paint off of your opponent. Incumbents who run on what they’ve done in D.C. and for their constituents back home are wasting their time and money. Or as one observer put it to us: “Anyone running positive TV ads right now is better off giving that money to charity.” Positive doesn’t work until you’ve completely dismantled your opponent.
The revised model gives Republicans a 77% chance of winning Judd Gregg’s New Hampshire Senate seat. Paul Hodes’ fortunes have improved slightly since the August 15 update, but he still trails Kelly Ayotte and Bill Binnie by significant margins.
If Kelly Ayotte is the Republican nominee, the FiveThirtyEight model projects she has an 82% chance of winning the election over Paul Hodes, and will win by a 7% margin. The model forecasts a closer election if Bill Binnie is the nominee, giving him a 67% chance of winning, with a margin of 3%. The model gives Paul Hodes a 74% chance of besting Ovide Lamontagne if he wins the GOP primary.
Bass… criticized Washington Democrats for passing a nearly trillion dollar stimulus plan that did little beyond create temporary government jobs while piling up record budget deficits and enormous national debt.
The Facts: On the same day, the independent, nonpartisan CBO released its quarterly report estimating the impact of the stimulus package on employment and economic output. The CBO analysis finds the stimulus package raised GDP by 1.7% to 4.5%, lowered the unemployment rate by 0.7% to 1.8%, and increased employment by 1.4 to 3.3 million jobs.
He stated, “Reducing uncertainty is the most effective way government can support business growth. As a former family business owner and current business consultant, I know firsthand that economic uncertainty is what prevents companies and entrepreneurs from investing in new ventures and creating jobs.”
The Facts: Reducing “uncertainty” is not a high-priority for U.S. businesses. According to the latest survey from the National Federation of Independent Business — a small-business trade association that is considered the most right wing of the major business groups — the single most important problem is sales, that is to say, demand for their products. The percentage citing taxes or government regulation is significantly lower than in the 1990s.
A 6-week-old primary poll is about as useful as a 6-week-old tuna sandwich.
The next time you hear a conservative ranting about big government, ask him how he likes his eggs—plain or with a side of salmonella.
Their Texas tour will kick off at the Headliners Club in Austin on Wednesday. Over the next two days, they will raise money at the San Antonio Country Club, at a Houston home, at the City Club of Fort Worth and at a Dallas home.
