To the editor:
Six years ago, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was opposed in her successful reelection bid by former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. And, it looks like history is repeating itself in 2020 as deep-pocketed Bryant “Corky” Messner, fresh from the state of Colorado where he has lived his whole life, has thrown his Rocky Mountain cap into the ring.
His main opponent in the September GOP primary is conspiracy theory king Donald Bolduc.
But the nagging problem Messner will encounter if he gets to the general election in November, aside from Shaheen’s stellar record of accomplishment, is that virtually all of his campaign funding since he announced his candidacy in September 2019 has come from his home state.
He solicited and received contributions for more than a year, all addressed to his campaign office in Denver, payable to the “Messner N.H. Exploratory Committee.” In addition, all of his recent monetary contributions to local Republicans have listed his home address in Denver.
Despite owning a home in Wolfeboro since 2007, he cast his first here in New Hampshire in November 2018.
This all hearkens back to Brown’s 2014 attempt to cast his image as a genuine Granite State lifer, until the debates and meet-and-greets began and he found trouble articulating basic, elementary facets of New Hampshire life, which included geographic and economic gaffes.
One guesses that Messner is spending much of his time boning up on facts and figures pertaining to our state leading to his appearances here. In any case, his starting line already is far behind the estimable, authentic Shaheen, who served two terms as state senator, three terms as governor and two terms as U.S. senator.
A couple of curious letters appeared on these pages recently, as some local first salvos from President Donald Trump’s fan club to smear Shaheen. In just a few hundred words one writer managed to get in the word “socialist” four times and “radical” twice. These terms have long been hot-button, knee-jerkers used to incite hardline conservatives.
The truth is that Shaheen is neither, as anyone who has followed her career knows. That is, unless you think working as governor to keep children’s health care costs down, reining in college tuition, balancing budgets with neither a sales nor income tax, cutting energy bills for businesses, and a plethora of other state-level enhancements are radical.
In her two U.S. Senate terms, she kept the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard funding and employment strong, allocated funds for the widening of Interstate 93, pushed for tough drinking water statutes, and increased funding tenfold to address the opioid epidemic.
As a member of the Armed Services Committee, and the only woman on the Foreign Relations Committee, she is a leading voice on national security matters, and she remains a global leader for women’s rights. She has also helped to pass legislation to give veterans more options for health care closer to their homes.
The writer of another letter refers to a host of unnamed “giveaways” that she, presumably, is responsible for, and that Messner, if elected, will stop by making “tough decisions.” The only rejoinder necessary is to point out that under Trump’s economy, the national debt has gone from $14 trillion to more than $23 trillion in three years, in spite of the fact he campaigned on eliminating the debt entirely in 2017.
If elected, Messner would be just another abettor of the presidential train wreck that we have witnessed for more than three years. Now more than ever, New Hampshire needs the steady and sensible stewardship that Shaheen has provided for three decades.
William F. Klessens
Salem N.H.
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.