The Fortnightly Rant for September 10, 2010, from The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 254, No. 25, posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011.
Here is more evidence — as if it were needed — that we are mired in a jobless recovery: eight Republicans are scrambling for a single job, running against Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-Rochester) for the First Congressional District seat.
Their shared plight serves them right. To be accepted as true Republicans they must bitterly oppose regulation of any kind, even for Wall Street, whose shenanigans brought down the economy. They must support trade policies that favor the export, not of American-manufactured goods, but American manufacturing jobs. They also must support tax breaks for the fabulously wealthy, which, despite all available evidence, might result in the creation of a job or two, somewhere, for somebody, eventually.*
Robert “Bob” Bestani
The first Republican to cast his homburg into the First District ring was Robert “Bob” Bestani. Why not? Who could better understand the needs of families in places like Manchester, Pinardville, Seabrook and Somersworth than an international banker who is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations?
Bestani studied economics at the University of Chicago, at the knee of Milton Friedman himself. Economics is called “the dismal science,” and Friedman is one good reason why.
Bestani was formerly the Director General of Private Sector Operations for the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The ADB asserts that its mission is to improve the lot of Asians living in poverty. It has now been operating for 44 years, and nearly two billion Asians are still living in poverty. The ADB has job security, though, impervious to charges from its critics who say it provides abundant loans to countries with thriving economies like China and India while giving short shrift to destitute, more deserving nations. As Mark Twain said, a banker is “a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.”
Frank Guinta
In May of 2009 Frank Guinta announced that he would join Bestani in the primary race. Guinta, then the Mayor of Manchester, had been elected in 2005 on a platform that included “promoting fiscal responsibility … and reducing property tax rates.” During his first term he “tackled violence at local nightclubs,” according to a rather glowing entry in Wikipedia.
All of which forces us to report that irony has made yet another appearance on the political stage. As Bill Duncan informed us in a letter published in our December 5, 2009 issue, Guinta’s record on fiscal responsibility is far from faultless.
“In 2008,” Duncan wrote, “the bond-rating agency Moody’s warned Manchester that the amount of money available through the rooms and meals tax would not be sufficient in 2010 to make the bond payments on Verizon Arena. Guinta did nothing to solve this problem, causing Moody’s subsequently to downgrade these securities to junk bond status.” Which, of course, cost Manchester taxpayers money.
As for his pledge to reduce property taxes, it’s unlikely that voters were satisfied by the Mayor’s failure to pay his own on time.
What really seemed to take the shine off his campaign, though, was an innocent night on the town. On June 18th, 2009, Hizzoner was at the East Manchester Fish & Game Club with his friend, Alderman Frank Garrity. At about 10:00 p.m. Alderman Garrity was trying to convince another friend that he should leave the place. Not wanting to leave, the friend assaulted Alderman Garrity. A bloody brawl ensued. The friend eventually left for a four-day stay at Eliot Hospital, nursing a badly broken leg. While even Guinta’s critics will allow that he was not personally involved in the fight, they do fault him for failing to call an ambulance and report to the police that a city official had been assaulted.
Fortunately for Guinta that little kerfuffle seems to have been overshadowed by more recent news. Unfortunately for Guinta, it was he who was that news.
Guinta amended his FEC filings recently, after lending his own campaign $240,000. His amended filings reported a previously undisclosed bank account worth up to $500,000. Guinta said that this had been an “inadvertent oversight,” as opposed to an intentional oversight, we presume.
Our own theory is that this nonchalance regarding half-million dollar bank accounts may be what endeared him to the Republican National Committee (RNC) in the first place. HuffingtonPost.com reported August 13th that PACs run by House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) have given Guinta the maximum allowed by law.
The HuffingtonPost piece was based on information from a mysterious source, “a Republican operative in New Hampshire [who] expressed anxiety that the episode would muddy the party’s ethics message.” How noble. Wonder who he works for …
Richard “Rich” Ashooh
With a field as weak as this, it is no surprise that others would be tempted to compete for the Republican nomination. That being said, it’s hard to imagine why a lobbyist for BAE, an oft-indicted, foreign-based, multinational arms corporation, would think he had a chance. But, that’s Rich Ashooh and today’s Republican Party. Ashooh may be the only candidate who, when you look him up on OpenSecrets.com, a website that tracks the money going to and from candidates and lobbyists, is listed twice, once in each category.
Ashooh was endorsed in July by a two-time veteran of the New Hampshire Presidential Primary. That endorsement may be of limited value, though, coming as it did from Steve Forbes, a hereditary plutocrat and specimen of human taxidermy, who was laughed out of the state twice, in 1996 and 2000.
More recently, William Tucker reported on BlueHampshire.com that on August 20th, during a debate right here in River City, Rich Ashooh proposed “a 25 percent across-the-board cut to [the] federal budget.”
Assuming that Tucker’s report is accurate — which we have no reason to doubt — that is just flat-out weird. Or, maybe, not quite weird enough. If Ashooh is crazy enough to believe that a 25 percent across-the-board cut to the federal budget is (a) feasible, and (b) a good idea, he might as well go all the way and propose a magic wand to eliminate the national debt.
Sean Mahoney
Portsmouth resident Sean Mahoney owns and publishes the magazine BusinessNH. He was also a member of the Republican National Committee until last spring. Mahoney resigned in protest on April 6th, citing as “the last straw” a news story that broke a week earlier. The RNC had picked up the $2,000 tab for a night at Voyeur, a bondage-themed strip club in West Hollywood, where the entertainment included topless girls in leather bikini bottoms simulating sex acts for the jaded audience.
Mahoney’s effort to place himself in a contrastingly righteous light failed to convince even many of his fellow Republicans. The National Journal’s online site Hotline called the resignation “not entirely altruistic.” It noted that Mahoney had been considering a run for months and would have had to resign his RNC post to become a candidate. Even more cuttingly, Hotline wrote that “parts of the letter read like a declaration of candidacy.”
As a candidate, Mahoney is doing his best to paint himself as the conservative. He assiduously attends Tea Party rallies, wearing a Scott Brown barn coat if it’s not too hot. He wants to repeal what he calls “Obamacare,” and he backs Arizona’s “Show Me Your Papers” law. And he says, quite vehemently, that we’ve got to cut taxes and instead of spending stimulus money we should pay down the national debt.
If Mahoney does gets elected, the public had better hope he’s more conservative with their money than he is with his own. So far he has contributed $900K to his own campaign. In contrast to Guinta, no one doubts that Mahoney had the mazuma.
Mahoney likes to talk about his business experience and implies that he’s a self-made man. When he does, he puts us in mind of the lament Shakespeare put in the mouth of King Lear: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” One would think Sean might show a little gratitude and mention once in a while that he used to work for his father David’s salt-importing business, Granite State Minerals. As we understand it, it was only after David Mahoney’s death that Sean bought himself a magazine to run — and to run for office on.
Recently, as the primary campaign went into its final, furious days, potential voters reported a flurry of mysterious robo-calls. The calls said nasty things about Frank Guinta — sadly, no one’s reporting exactly what. Recipients with Caller ID reported seeing the phone number of Rich Ashooh’s campaign headquarters. Ashooh’s team denies any involvement, and, frankly, no one believes they’d be stupid enough to pull a stunt like that. So, lo and behold, suspicion fell on Mahoney’s campaign!
The state of the race almost leaves us feeling sorry for Republican Party boss “Papa John” Sununu who must be eagerly crossing off the days until it’s over. But we don’t quite.