Published in Politico on October 15, 2012
LACONIA, N.H. — The dash for control of the House this year is muddled by massive population shifts, redrawn districts and a spate of retirements.
But in a pair of House races here in New Hampshire, those variables are all stripped away. What’s left is one the purest barometers in the nation of the agenda of John Boehner’s rightward shifting, tea-party fueled House Republican majority.
Here’s the question: Can lawmakers from middle-of-the-road districts survive in a non-tea party year, and after two years of governing that’s dragged congressional approval ratings to record lows?
Granite State voters — a rightward-leaning but pragmatic bunch — have a chance for a do-over. Returning Republicans Charlie Bass and Frank Guinta to Congress would be a vote of confidence in Boehner’s House. If Democrats Carol Shea-Porter and Anne McLane Kuster prevail — they’re both waging comebacks after losing two years ago — it would be a show of buyer’s remorse and cast doubts on Boehner’s ability to forge a lasting, and robust GOP majority.
It’s a stark test, in two truly swing districts, of the Democratic attacks — and Republican retorts — to changes to Medicare, Medicaid and federal spending.
Democrats want to make this a referendum on the past two years. Kuster is labeling Bass as a big-spending, radical minion of the tea party, and Shea-Porter is trying to paint Guinta as a candidate eager to yank poor infirmed people out of their beds, and swipe meals from their hands.
“I think it’s quite clear for the viewers that if you are part of the 9 percent who think that Congress is working well, then I think Congressman Bass is your candidate,” Kuster said in a debate last week sponsored by WBIN television in Derry. “I’m talking to the 90 percent of people who believe that Congress is dysfunctional right now.”