Karl Rove needs to see 400 candidates like this!

http://www.politicsnh.com/archives/pindell/2005/June/6_28ps.shtml

HAMPTON, June 28 – State Rep. Peter Sullivan (D-Manchester) told Democratic activists here that in his run for Congress he welcomes a discussion on patriotism if incumbent U.S. Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-Wolfeboro) wants to make it.

“Every time you turn around is getting his picture taken with another veterans’ group,” Sullivan said. “Well if he, like many Republicans, wants to question the patriotism of Democrats then it’s a discussion we’ll finish behind the building.”

“If he wants to question my patriotism then I will gladly bring up how he was trolling around Europe avoiding the draft during Vietnam and that I am the only person in this race that has worn the uniform. I am not going to have some trust fund kid question me on my patriotism. If he wants to hit me I am going to hit him back harder than he did,” Sullivan said.

The Howard Dean approach! MKJ
:loveya:

It is so great to hear someone speak with conviction
and fearlessness.

show some courage and fight back, we can train them to be fighters! Sort of like Pavlov's dogs.

Send your checks to:

Citizens for Sullivan
1195 Elm St.
PO Box 1412
Manchester, NH 03105-1412

:woohoo:

Sullivan is 38; Bradley is 54.

They have a way of lying to the public and making heros into exaggeraters.

:loveya:

Democrats need to reclaim America for the good! It's our flag too, and it's our nation too!

In some of these districts Christ himself couldn't defeat the (R) incumbent. Is there any real hope for Sullivan in the general?

Here's some background on the district...

* It was held by Democrats twice in the last 40 years. Ollie Huot held it for one term, 1964-66. Norm D'Amours held it from 1974 until he unsuccessfully ran for US Senate in 1984.

* In statewide races, it is the slightly more Republican of the two congressional districts, largely because it lacks the 2nd districts academic clusters (Keene, Henniker and Hanover) and large pool of state employees.

* It's a mix of Boston outer-rim suburbs (Plaistow, Merrimack, Londonderry), old mill towns (Manchester, Rochester) with a lot of moderate-conservative Dems, and a growing number of Vermontish rural liberals in the northern reaches of Carroll County. A Democrat who can appeal to the reformist liberals with a reform-minded appeal while still speaking the cultural language of Irish, French-Canadian and Greek ethnic Dems can build a potent coalition. As a moderately liberal reformer who is also a good Irish Catholic boy, I believe I can bring these wings of the Democratic coalition together.

* The Dems have run flawed candidates, so recent history is not a fair guide. The 2004 nominee, Justin Nadeau, was a frat boy who was in way over his head. He had no real sense of how to campaign, and he wasn't terribly well versed on the issues. The 2000/2002 nominee, Martha Fuller Clark, ran a fundamentally sound campaign, spent a ton of her own money, but was simply too much of a patrician liberal in a district that is, at its heart, heavily Catholic and moderate. Many people said in 2002 that Martha would have been a stronger candidate in the waspy 2nd district, while Katrina Swett, the soccer-mom nominee in hthe 2nd, would have played far better in the first.

I think of NH presently as the place where dim-witted Sununu beat the extremely electable Jeanne Shaheen - IOW, VERY partisan Republican. But you pain the picture much more sane than that. I'll send Sullivan some cash.

:patriot:

Colleen Rowley is also running for Congress--one of the 400 patriots who are going to bust this gang of thieves and murderers down to garbage duty!

:kick:

Draw the line, bitchslap the SOB, and if he gets riled stomp his ass.
Sorry, this is a torches and pitchforks night for me; still, I'm wanting my pound of flesh back from these rotten bastards.

NoFederales

As if on cue, the Usual Suspect Democrats have floated a name for this same seat.

Manchester Mayor Bob Baines, a guy with more political and personal baggage than terminal B at Logan Airport, is refusing to commit to serving out his term as mayor if he is re-elected this fall.

For the record, Baines campaign is chaired by a Republican business lobbyist; his "Young Professionals for Baines" is chaired by a Republican lawyer and the daughter of an editor at the far-right New Hampshire Union-Leader; and he is actively assisting a Republican candidate for alderman, who is running against a Democratic labor leader.

Baines also scuttled a Responsible Employer ordinance, and collaborated with Tyson Foods in the closing of a meat packing plant, a move that left 500 local residents, mainly Dominican immigrants, out of work.

This guy sounds like trouble.

The Usual Suspects? Well, basically the old school Manchester politicos. People like Ray Buckley and Lou D'Allesandro come readily to mind. The people who seem to present awards to the same people at every party function since the Woodrow Wilson administration.

If a candidate "does not play well with others", ie, occasionally makes up his or her mind based upon a sense of right and wrong and a knoweldge of the issues, that person is going to be hassled by the old crew.