New Hampshire Democrat Paul Hodes misses unemployment benefit extention vote

    During the campaign to fill the senate seat of retiring New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg, Paul Hodes– the lone Democrat in the race and a proponent of extending  unemployment benefits– has been taking shots at the Republicans in the race for not supporting the unemployment benefits extension. 

  Paul Hodes called those who opposed the measure “extremist, obstructionist, lying hypocrites who think you don’t have to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest but are holding up help for the neediest.”

  As you can tell, Paul Hodes has some strong feelings about helping out those who have been out of work for an extended period of time. While his words about his opponents are damning, Paul Hodes actions– or more accurately, inactions– are even more damning (to himself) as they show he doesn’t quite live up to the hype. 

  Paul Hodes just couldn’t find the time to actually vote on this extension because he was too busy meeting with liberal bloggers to show up for the vote. While his vote did not mean anything because the vote passed anyway, it seems that if you are going to prod your opponents for having a differing opinion than yourself the least you could do would be to show up and cast your vote in favor of the legislation. His non-vote was the same as a no vote. He is no better than those whom he was condemning. In fact he is worse than his opponents; his opponents in the New Hampshire Senate race did not have a vote but he did, and he chose not to exercise it.

  Paul Hodes is the “lying hypocrite” who could not be bothered to show up to vote on an issue he claimed to care so much about. He placed playing politics at a liberal bloggers convention about the issue of voting on extending the unemployment benefits to millions of Americans, and he is calling his opponents the “extremists?”