July 7, 2002
THE 50TH SENATOR WATCH :
A G.O.P. Primary Strains Party Ties and Bush Loyalties (PAM BELLUCK, July 7, 2002, NY Times)Like no other election in the country, the New Hampshire Senate race has placed the president and his political advisers in the delicate position of juggling loyalty, personal connections and pragmatic politics.On one side is Mr. Sununu, a three-term congressman and son of John H. Sununu, a former New Hampshire governor and chief of staff to the first President Bush, who credits the elder Mr. Sununu with his 1988 presidential victory in New Hampshire.
Mr. Card, deputy chief of staff to Mr. Sununu in the first Bush administration, is loyal to the Sununus.
"The Sununu family is as close to the Bush family as anybody in the country," Mr. Black said.
On the other side is Senator Smith, who in 1999 made a short-lived bid for president and bolted the Republican Party to run as an independent. At the time, Mr. Smith delivered a 55-minute speech to the Senate that savaged the party, saying, "Maybe it's a party in the sense of wearing hats and blowing whistles, but it's not a party that means anything."
But four months later, Mr. Smith became a Republican again, and the timing allowed him to ascend to the chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works Committee. [...]
Few Republicans have forgotten that episode, and in this campaign some Republican leaders and especially New Hampshire voters seem unwilling to forgive Mr. Smith for it.
Mr. Smith got a modest boost from an endorsement by former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York. Dick Bennett, of the American Research Group, said Mr. Smith's education commercials helped him advance in the latest poll. He has also raised more money - $1.4 million at the end of this year's first quarter, compared with $661,000 for Mr. Sununu.
A few months ago you'd have said that John Sununu was going to win this fairly easily just because Bob Smith had alienated the Party faithful by switching and because Sununu has consistently beaten Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in the polls by a significant margin, while Smith runs neck and neck with her. But the Guliani endorsement ad is really powerful, if somewhat inexplicable. Did John Sununu Sr. screw Rudy out of a job in Bush I? Why's Rudy endorsing, and forcefully endorsing, the most anti-abortion member of the Senate, a man who's almost equally conservative on other social issues?
The other thing about the race is that Sununu has been invisible. You never hear his ads or see his signs or see him for that matter. Bob Smith is running like he means it, while John Sununu seems to be awaiting a coronation. The other strange dynamic at work in this race is the low level grumbling about Sununu's ethnicity. The Sununus are Lebanese and, apparently, ethnically Palestinian and the Congressman has been oddly quiet about Palestinian terrorism and about our Israeli allies. If he's not careful he could turn this into the prototype race where Jewish support ends up paradoxically going to a culturally conservative Republican who's seen as a friend of Israel, whatever his other views.
In the end, Senator Smith may have done too much damage to himself, with his party flip-flop, to recover, but he's been left for dead before and managed to survive. In his last race for this seat his challenger Dick Swett (no snickering please) was even declared the winner by some news organizations, before the final vote tallys came in. It's conceivable, though highly unlikely, that he can pull off one more upset, especially if Mr. Sununu doesn't start trying.
MORE :
*Senators Endorse Colleague's Challenger : Abandoning Tradition, Four Support N.H. Incumbent's Primary Opponent (Helen Dewar, May 27, 2002, Washington Post)
*New Hampshire Spyglass : "Your focus on NH politics"