PrioritiesNH.org

While we do not agree with everything that PrioritiesNH.org prints, we most certainly agree with their basic goal. We hope that we see them on the Trail a whole bunch this cycle. At both Republican and Democratic events.

Crib Note: Our belief in that shared goal is the reason why we want to put our head through 4 inches of plate glass window when presidential candidates start talking about the need to "rebuild our military".

And yes, we are aware that there is a "global war on terror going on."

But does anyone remember this?

Hola!

We caught New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson pressing the flesh (but not the bread) at Consuelos Taqueria in Manchester this morning where he took questions from about 20 people for 45 minutes.

Most of the (pretty sophisticated) questions centered on foreign policy (Crib Note: W is a war monger who has screwed the U.S. royally, how would you rebuild our country's alliances?) on health care and on energy.

The Gov even managed to work in rhetoric about his recent fundraising "successes" and about how he has moved up and out of the "margin of error" in the polls.

Hi-yi! Hi-yi! Hi-yi!

Richardson does have a dedicated following in New Hampshire. In fact, in the last month we have talked to two savvy Democrat activists who both picked Richardson to "break out" in the first-in-the-nation Primary.

Although we're not activists, savvy or Democrats, we remain unconvinced of Richardson's long term viability.

The Governor clearly has a story to tell and some experience in diplomacy. But his tenure at the Department of Energy was a disaster (yes, we're citing a Republican hit piece but the quotes in it are accurate).

So New Hampshire is supposed to elevate a man who had trouble running 1 Executive Branch Agency to a position where he would control the entire Executive Branch?

That doesn't sound right.

We're just saying.

Soft Re-Launch?

We just caught Mitt Romney at a town hall meeting in Derry.

The highlight of the event, for us, was finally being able to thank our friend at Fox News for intentionally inserting B-Roll footage of us into a piece Fox ran a few weeks back, finally meeting (in the flesh) the world famous Cosmo (hey, when Ben Smith links to your Blog, you're famous) and being able to say a very quick hello to a slightly harried looking Mark Halperin.

Gotta love first-in-the-nation.

But what about Big Love?

One word - "RE-LAUNCH"!

Mitt gave a 20 minute stump speech to a crowd of about 100 New Hampshire residents before taking questions for 45 minutes.

Not one word (NOT ONE WORD!) was uttered in his stump speech about conservative social issues.

This is a Note worthy change from when we last saw Romney at a campaign event in Manchester in December of 2006.

The closest Romney came today to any of those pesky (Mitt-Flop?) topics was when he briefly touched upon his "strong" belief that children benefit from having a "mom and a dad for as long as possible".

We agree.

The rest of the 19 minutes and 30 seconds Mitt spent touting his record as a successful businessman and Governor.

And, it's an impressive record.

Which is why we can't understand why Big Love listened to some jackass consultant 6 months ago who told him "Governor, we're going to launch you as the true social conservative candidate. It's going to be great!"

Sure it will.

We bet Love wishes he could get some of that burn rate back.