New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s hypocrisy on outside interests contributing to elections

 As regular readers of America’s Watchtower already know, I am not a supporter of Scott Brown and I will not be voting for him in the primary nor will I be voting for him when he faces off against Senator Jeanne Shaheen in November. So this post is not intended as a defense of Scott Brown, but rather an attempt to point out the hypocrisy of my current Senator.

  Senator Shaheen sent out a fund-raising email about Scott Brown in which she railed against the outside influences which are supporting Scott Brown. Here is more:

In an email with the subject line, “Meddling,” Shaheen pointed out that while outside interests have already weighed in heavily on Brown’s behalf in the campaign, Brown also recently told hedge fund executives during a paid speech at a Las Vegas conference, “You have a role to play” in the mid-term elections.

She also noted that Brown, as we reported last week, recently formed a Joint Fundraising Committee with three other GOP Senate candidates to expand their fundraising reach.

“The stakes for Jeanne just got even higher,” the Shaheen campaign fund-raising email stated. “We’ve set a goal of $60,000 by midnight tonight to help her keep fighting back. We don’t have max-out billionaires. We have you – please, chip in $5 or more now.”

  I happen to agree with the position that outside influences should not be involved in state elections, even if that election is for a Federal office, and I have written in the past that I believe only people who live within a state, and are constituents of the person they want to send money to, should be allowed to contribute to a candidate in his or her state. For instance, not only would I never send money to a candidate in another state but I would also never send money to support a candidate in NHCD2 for I live in NHCD1.

  Having said that, Jeanne Shaheen is not being honest with the people she sent that fund-raising email to:

First, this week it was reported that Shaheen will be a beneficiary of billionaire and hedge fund executive Tom Steyer’s plan to spend $100 million effort nationally to make climate change a prime campaign issues. He is a billionaire and his investment could be viewed objectively as a “max out.”

Steyer is targeting seven Senate and governors’ races – including the New Hampshire Senate race – for big spending by his NextGen Climate Action SuperPAC on advertising and on-the-ground operations. Brown will be targeted primarily for his support of the Keystone pipeline, and Shaheen, who cosponsored the energy efficiency legislation that fell by the wayside as a result of a stalemate over Keystone, will be the beneficiary.

Shaheen’s email also didn’t mention she has her own Joint Fundraising Committee. In fact, she has two.

  And then there is the fact that Harry Reid’s Super PAC is running commercials against Scott Brown. So while she might be claiming she does not have “max-out billionaires” she is obviously lying and relying on what she hopes is the ignorance of her constituents.

  You are either for outside influences in politics or you are against outside influences in politics and it is obvious to me that by looking at the outside influences that are trying to help her get reelected that Jeanne Shaheen does not really have a problem with outside influences…..as long as they are supporting her.