Free Republic

Let’s step into the Way Back Machine and go all the way back to 1990. That year, George H. W. Bush decided to break his “no new taxes” pledge. You remember, “Read my lips,” don’t you? Well, at the time Newt Gingrich was the Minority Whip of the United States House of Representatives. He was not the leader of the Republicans. He was the number two guy. And he initially said he’d support the deal, but twelve hours later, no doubt after consulting his colleagues, he decided to oppose the deal. The deal, by the way, was made between George...

As I noted the other day, Mitt Romney’s new strategy is to send out surrogates to attack Newt. Tomorrow it is former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, a big name in New Hampshire politics but someone whose name is associated with two of the most major conservative failures in the post-Vietnam war history of the Republican Party. As Matt Lewis points out, Sununu holds a grudge against Newt because Newt tried to stop George H.W. Bush from breaking his “no new taxes” pledge: With former Speaker Newt Gingrich surging in the polls, Mitt Romney has finally decided it’s time to...

CONCORD, N.H. - Mitt Romney made it official on Monday, filing paperwork to become a presidential candidate in New Hampshire, where he has pinned his hopes on a strong victory that will catapult him to the Republican nomination for president. "It's a big day today," said Romney, who was welcomed by crowd of 200 people at the state Capitol. "We're going to make sure it takes this time!"

Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu became the latest boldfaced name to endorse Romney, an announcement that came on the front page of the Sunday Union Leader. Sununu will join Romney on Monday when he files his paperwork with the secretary of state's office to become an official candidate in the New Hampshire primary. The former White House chief of staff, among the most prominent Republicans in the state, said in an interview that he'll "help in any way that they want," but that Romney is already well-positioned to win the state. SNIP Another former governor — Jon Huntsman of...

The Subprime home mortgage collapse...a Primer. It's ALL about the CRA of 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 - This required banks to offer credit throughout their entire market area for “underserved” populations and small businesses. The CRA gave incentives to help low income borrowers become “home owners”. Liberals call this group “low income borrowers”. Conservatives call them a RISK!The CRA was passed by the Carter administration. In 1995 the Clinton administration authorized subprime loans under the CRA. Democrats added these provisions for the securitization of subprime loans and then ENFORCED the lending to high risk individuals. By 2000,...

Former Republican Sen. John E. Sununu announced Wednesday he will not run for New Hampshire’s open Senate seat in 2010, forcing Republicans to continue their search for a top flight candidate. “Representing New Hampshire in the United States Senate is a great honor, but effective public service is much more than just a desire to hold office,” Sununu said in a statement.

Willie Soon, a Harvard University astrophysicist and geophysicist with scores of peer-reviewed papers and books to his credit, said he is “embarrassed and puzzled” by the shallow science in papers asserting the Earth faces a climate crisis caused by global warming. Soon told the second International Conference on Climate Change on March in New York City, “We have a system [of peer reviewing scientific literature] that is truly, truly appalling.” Soon’s criticisms echoed an earlier presentation at the 2-1/2-day conference that was attended by about 700 scientists, economists, and policymakers considering the issue of “Global Warming: Was it ever really...

Rep. Paul Hodes (D) begins his New Hampshire Senate bid with a small lead over a prospective opponent, according to recent poll results. Hodes led former GOP Sen. John Sununu 42 percent to 36 percent, with 22 percent of survey respondents saying they were undecided. Sen. Judd Gregg (R) has announced he is retiring at the end of his term, creating an open-seat contest in 2010. Hodes is the only announced candidate so far in the race. Sununu, who lost re-election in 2008, has not publicly expressed interest in running for Granite State’s other Senate seat, but many local Republicans...

Does John E. Sununu's rapid-fire post-Capitol Hill appointments to three corporate boards and a congressional oversight panel mean he won't run for the open U.S. Senate seat next year?. Not necessarily, says Andrew Smith, an associate political science professor at the University of New Hampshire. "It's not unusual for former politicians to take positions on boards because it allows them to keep their business contacts and make some money, but doesn't put them in a position of having a regular full-time job," Smith said. "It kind of keeps them tied in to political and business circles and allows them to...

WASHINGTON – Former Sen. John Sununu, a member of the government watchdog panel that oversees the financial sector rescue fund, is joining the board of managers of a firm affiliated with a bank that has received $3 billion from the fund. Sununu last week was named to the board of ConvergEx Holdings LLC, the holding company for BNY ConvergEx Group. The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. holds a 33.8 percent stake in BNY Convergex, but it has no control over the company or its board. The bank was one of nine institutions selected by the Treasury Department last fall...

KENTUCKY. US Senator Jim Bunning (R) is already expected to face a tough fight for reelection next year, as leading Bluegrass State Democrats are lining up to run. Over the weekend, Bunning helped to contribute to his reputation for making erratic comments. Speaking at a Lincoln Day event over the weekend, Bunning said that US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be dead from pancreatic cancer within the next nine months. Bunning also complained the NRSC isn't doing enough financially to help him and other embattled conservative incumbents. In related news, The Hill reports that State Senate President David...

A new survey of New Hampshire voters from Public Policy Polling finds that Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes is the strongest early Senate candidate for 2010, although the field of commonly discussed candidates is pretty evenly matched. Hodes has the best net favorability of the quarter polled at 42/34. Former Republican Senator John Sununu and Democratic Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter each receive a +3 rating from state voters with the former at 46/43 and the letter at 43/40. Former Republican Congressman Charlie Bass gets the poorest reviews at 33/37. Hodes leads hypothetical contests against Sununu 46-44 and against Bass 40-37. Shea- Porter...

Ending several weeks of speculation, former Gov. John H. Sununu has made it official: He will try to become the next leader of the state's Republicans. Charging that "Democrats are ruining New Hampshire," Sununu told the New Hampshire Sunday News he has decided to become a candidate for chairman of the Republican State Committee. Current Chairman Fergus Cullen won't seek another term when the state committee meets in January to elect officers. "I am going to step aside and support him," Cullen said. "He's clearly extraordinarily qualified to do the job." There are currently no other candidates for the post.

As New Hampshire Republicans search for a way to rebound from two consecutive devastating defeats in federal and state elections, former three-term Gov. John H. Sununu says he is open to the possibility of leading them.Two decades after he was the state's chief executive and then-President George H.W. Bush's chief of staff, Sununu is "reluctantly considering" becoming a candidate for chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, he told the New Hampshire Union Leader yesterday."People have asked me to consider that," he said in a telephone interview from his Salem office. "It is clearly an insane idea, but...

JUST MAYBE. Maybe this "draft Sununu for Republican National Chairman" thing isn't a waste of time. It's not something we'd expect Sen. John Sununu to want to get into. Sure, he lost his reelection bid, but he's young, he has a growing family and, politically speaking, he still has a bright future and, with his independent streak, he isn't someone we'd think would want to become the face of the establishment Republican Party, not to mention take part in the very inside baseball game of running for the post. But, surprisingly, Sununu didn't close the door to it yesterday. Sununu...

MANCHESTER – Though still smarting over his re-election defeat, some supporters of U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu are encouraging him to run for chairman of the Republican National Committee. They continue to tout him as a star of the party and its future. One Web site, DraftSununu.com, describes the national chairmanship as a chance for the GOP to return to its roots. It says, "We can select a leader who embraces the status quo or we can select a reformer, a new chairman who is a young, energetic and articulate." Jim Merrill, an attorney experienced in helping Republican candidates in...

John Sununu will no longer be a U.S. Senator come January after having lost his re-election bid against former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen on November 4th. But he might be the Chairman of the Republican National Committee if some of his supporters have anything to say about it. A group of Republican officials and operatives plan to launch a Draft Sununu for RNC Chairman committee as early as Friday, two Republican sources tell Now! Hampshire. The sources asked to remain anonymous. The leaders of the effort are not affiliated with the remnants of Sununu’s unsuccessful reelection campaign. If the...

Former New Hampshire congressman Bill Zeliff spent Saturday campaigning for U.S. Sen. John Sununu (R-Waterville Valley). In 1996, Sununu won Zeliff's 1st Congressional District seat after Zeliff opted out of a re-election campaign to run for governor. Zeliff said he was campaigning for Sununu, whom he has known since 1980, because he wants to get the "smartest guy in the U.S. Senate" re-elected. "I know what his reputation is in Washington," Zeliff, now a senior counselor for The Livingston Group, said in an interview with PolitickerNH.com. "He's a guy that gets things done. He's the smartest guy in the U.S....

CONCORD, N.H. -- Any other year, it might have been a defining moment. At a debate for New Hampshire's U.S. Senate race held in a small town near here last week, a moderator relayed a question from a man called Skip, who wanted to know how the candidates would stand up to their party's leaders. Sen. John E. Sununu, a Republican completing his first term, noted his effort to include more civil liberties protections in the reauthorized version of the USA Patriot Act. But Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic former governor of the state, struggled to answer even after being pressed...

It's official: Former Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen is poised to beat both George W. Bush and A. Financial Crisis for New Hampshire's Senate seat. John Sununu? Who he? If you want to know why Republican candidates are struggling -- at risk of ceding Democrats unfettered control in Washington -- consider the Granite State. It highlights the new Democratic strategy of turning every race into a referendum on the current administration. Yet it's also proving that GOP reformers like Mr. Sununu are best positioned to fight back. Only a few weeks ago, Mr. Sununu, one of the Senate GOP's bright minds,...