where he’s a successful businessman rather than a professional politician and / or lawyer, I was all for him until he came out for amnesty for illegals last spring. One juan mccain is two too many.

I, too, am a NH resident – and a native one who was stuffing envelopes for Ike before I lost my baby teeth. While I voted for Lamontagne in his disastrous ’96 run for the corner office, I remember the absolutely abysmal results: far left shaheen 57% & Lamontagne 39%. Granted, Perot’s presence in the Presidential race caused ticket splitting down the ballot, but ankle-pants had 8% less votes than shaheen and as you may recall Sen. Smith held onto his seat despite the otherwise dim sweep. Ovide took about 40% of the primary vote versus the roughly even split between two other (more rational) candidates. When the general came around, he added *some* party faithful but the independent vote, which as you know, isn’t all that liberal here, and some of the centrist Republicans went with the “clean for gene” squatter. By my definition, that makes him a fringe candidate. Not, granted, at the level of Ron Paul, kookcinich or larouche, but definitely an unelectable candidate under any but the most abnormal circumstances, even in 2010, even here. I’ve not cast a dimocrap vote except for a few stray ones for Gallen, Durkin & Tom McIntyre back in the day, but based on my 50+ years of involvement in NH politics, my _opinion_ is that the only hope for hodes will be if Lamontagne wins the primary. And, BTW, I didn’t say anything about his supporters being fringe anything, so please don’t impute words to me, hokay? All I’m saying is his primary opponents would have to be *much* less conservative than Lamontagne before he’d get my vote in a primary. I would still vote for him in the general if that were my only (R) option, but I would do so without enthusiasm nor any great expectation of seeing him win. If he should win this primary, I *do* hope I am wrong about that last, as stopping the socialist agenda supersedes all else.

you didn’t suggest Ayotte is the Red Queen . . . but let’s save the nasty comments for our common enemy, the treasonous lefties, eh?

Yes, hodes, zero & shaheen were elected. In 2008. In the tsunami of self-flagellation which resulted in this disastrous regime. I like the younger John Sununu. A lot. Much more laid back & friendly than his father – plus far less self-important. And a staunch conservative, which was his most important quality. That said, 1996 Bob Smith over dickswett was close; far too close given the characters and track records of the two candidates. As you may recall, tricky dick got tossed out on his ear in 1994 for casting the deciding vote for the AWB? Slick’s coat tails were about 1000 votes too short for dickswett in 1996, but shaheen won handily.

Bob Smith can be abrasive at times and was detested by the lefties, but there is no question he is one of the good guys in the true sense of the word and a pure conservative. JMHO, but I think Ovide is no less a decent guy and no less conservative. Ever wonder why he won but Ovide did not? Please consider those dynamics, for I believe you will find them helpful in understanding my analysis (opinion as it may be).

I’m not going to go digging back through Lamontagne’s public statements over the past several years to find specific quotations. And in any case, my opinion rests on voice tones and body language as much as the words themselves – as it does for most people most of the time. When I listen to the man, there are these overtones which I find disconcerting . . . something too inflexible, too self-righteous . . . a sense of a sort of Carrie Nation / John Brown personality lurking behind the eyes.

He would be immensely preferable to hodes, somewhat more so than Gregg, but way down my list of past and present candidate potentialities because of the factor mentioned above.

‘K, ’nuff said on this.