NRSC Has Pretty, Hard-hitting attack against Shaheen up on the air

[Lunar]

Good production values, although I watched it with the sound off (at work).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqObedXII08&eurl

Republicans are going back to their tried-and-tested playbook in New Hampshire, attacking Democratic Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen for supporting higher taxes as governor.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is up with a substantial ad buy, portraying Shaheen as a tax-and-spend liberal. The ad is airing on broadcast television in the Boston media market and on New Hampshire's lone broadcast affiliate.

“As governor, Shaheen signed the first statewide property tax. Then she proposed a sales tax – a big tax increase for low and middle-income families,” a narrator said in the ad. “Piling it high and deep. In Washington, she’d fit right in.”

The attack is a familiar one for Shaheen, who was relentlessly attacked over her support of a statewide sales tax in her 2002 campaign against now-Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.).

The Shaheen campaign issued a rebuttal, arguing that New Hampshire’s tax burden was the lowest in the country when she was governor and she helped create 66,000 new jobs during her tenure.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/

[memphis]

Wow. Amazing how much the style of ads changes around the country.

[Aizen]

lol @ the NRSC wasting money here

[Nutmeg]

I've been an Undeclared here in the Granite State, despite being Democratic-leaning since the late 1990s, since I first registered to vote here.  I've voted in as many Republican primaries as I have Democratic.  I was probably the only person in the state planning to vote for Obama, Sununu, Shea-Porter, and Lynch in November.  I just don't like Shaheen.  But then these negative ads started coming out, and I'm no longer sure that I can vote for Sununu.  It's not that I've decided to vote for Shaheen over the ad wars; I'm truly undecided.  Unfortunately, the others on the ballot are even worse.

So these NRSC ads have certainly been "effective" in influencing my opinion of a candidate.  Just not the candidate they intended.

[Lief 🗽]

Strange that the NRSC has given up on Pearce but is trying to save Sununu. I'd give them both similar (minuscule) odds of winning, but Pearce would be a much more loyal Senator than Sununu.

[Keystone Phil]

Strange that the NRSC has given up on Pearce but is trying to save Sununu. I'd give them both similar (minuscule) odds of winning, but Pearce would be a much more loyal Senator than Sununu.

Incumbency helps.

[Torie]

The pile of dirt bit was a bit gratuitous.  However the substance that Shaheen loves to raise taxes on the middle class is to the point and accurate.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Strange that the NRSC has given up on Pearce but is trying to save Sununu. I'd give them both similar (minuscule) odds of winning, but Pearce would be a much more loyal Senator than Sununu.

Incumbency helps.

Not to mention the fact that Sununu is overloaded with money and poised to start a massive, enduring barrage of ads of his own any day now.  Things don't look terrific for Sununu right now, but this is not quite a seat worth giving up on for the Republicans.  (Yet.)

[JohnnyLongtorso]

The pile of dirt bit was a bit gratuitous.  However the substance that Shaheen loves to raise taxes on the middle class is to the point and accurate.

Doesn't New Hampshire have no state income tax?

[HardRCafé]

I was probably the only person in the state planning to vote for Obama, Sununu, Shea-Porter, and Lynch in November.  I just don't like Shaheen.  But then these negative ads started coming out, and I'm no longer sure that I can vote for Sununu.

Is it just because they're negative ads, or something specific?

[Nutmeg]

The pile of dirt bit was a bit gratuitous.  However the substance that Shaheen loves to raise taxes on the middle class is to the point and accurate.

Doesn't New Hampshire have no state income tax?

She's being faulted for property taxes.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I was probably the only person in the state planning to vote for Obama, Sununu, Shea-Porter, and Lynch in November.  I just don't like Shaheen.  But then these negative ads started coming out, and I'm no longer sure that I can vote for Sununu.

Is it just because they're negative ads, or something specific?

I don't know about Nutmeg, but every time I hear that Shaheen ad on the radio with the obnoxious song and Bush saying that Sununu was "with him," I want to stab my ears until I bleed to death.

[Torie]

The pile of dirt bit was a bit gratuitous.  However the substance that Shaheen loves to raise taxes on the middle class is to the point and accurate.

Doesn't New Hampshire have no state income tax?

She's being faulted for property taxes.

And sales taxes.

[Nutmeg]

I was probably the only person in the state planning to vote for Obama, Sununu, Shea-Porter, and Lynch in November.  I just don't like Shaheen.  But then these negative ads started coming out, and I'm no longer sure that I can vote for Sununu.

Is it just because they're negative ads, or something specific?

I don't know about Nutmeg, but every time I hear that Shaheen ad on the radio with the obnoxious song and Bush saying that Sununu was "with him," I want to stab my ears until I bleed to death.

The ads from both of them have been horrible.  I'm not normally the type to vote on superficialities, but these ads are just driving me nuts, running day and night everywhere I go.  I watch comparatively little television and mostly listen to satellite radio, but every time I step into a store or am waiting at my dentist's office, I am bombarded with this nonsense.  And there are still eight weeks to go.

I like Sununu, but this is really below what I expect for someone asking for my vote for the United States Senate.  In the end, I'll probably still go his way, but without the enthusiasm I once held.

[TheresNoMoney]

We have the 2nd lowest tax burden of any state in the country, no sales tax, no income tax. Sununu attacking Shaheen on taxes is not going to work.

[Brittain33]

The pile of dirt bit was a bit gratuitous.  However the substance that Shaheen loves to raise taxes on the middle class is to the point and accurate.

Doesn't New Hampshire have no state income tax?

She's being faulted for property taxes.

And sales taxes.

She was under a court order to equalize funding among school districts at the time. The issue tied N.H. up in knots for years. When she ran in 2002, she did so as a supporter of Bush's tax cuts. She's risk-averse for where N.H. voters have shifted to the Dems and where they've simply gotten uncomfortable with the southern-style GOP. I would be surprised if she wants to become the first Dem senator from N.H. in modern times only to become the last one, as well.

[Torie]

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God created the concept of school vouchers for a reason. The satanic taxatrix must be defeated!

[Brittain33]

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God created the concept of school vouchers for a reason. The satanic taxatrix must be defeated!

The suit was brought by a rural district in a poor corner of the state surrounded by other poor towns. How would school vouchers have solved this problem without requiring the state to pump in some money from somewhere, which means more revenues, i.e. taxes?

[Torie]

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God created the concept of school vouchers for a reason. The satanic taxatrix must be defeated!

The suit was brought by a rural district in a poor corner of the state surrounded by other poor towns. How would school vouchers have solved this problem without requiring the state to pump in some money from somewhere, which means more revenues, i.e. taxes?

Think macro, my man. Overall savings mean revenues available to pump into rural areas where vouchers won't work very well. It's a grand unified theory, whose simple elegance is a thing of beauty.

[Dan the Roman]

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God created the concept of school vouchers for a reason. The satanic taxatrix must be defeated!

The suit was brought by a rural district in a poor corner of the state surrounded by other poor towns. How would school vouchers have solved this problem without requiring the state to pump in some money from somewhere, which means more revenues, i.e. taxes?

Think macro, my man. Overall savings mean revenues available to pump into rural areas where vouchers won't work very well. It's a grand unified theory, whose simple elegance is a thing of beauty.

A thing of beauty in the bizarre alternate universe in which the WSJ editorial page exists. The real problem is there is not enough money to go around, not even in the richest districts. Moving around the money won't help. And no one would get enough to go to even the cheapest private schools. School vouchers are a magic trick to try and pretend that a revenue shortfall is due to inefficiency rather than an actual lack of revenue. Sort of like all those people who whine about pork though it is .01% of the federal budget.

[Torie]

Private schools cost less per pupil than public ones, particularly grammar schools.

[Dan the Roman]

Private schools cost less per pupil than public ones, particularly grammar schools.

This is only really true in urban or rural areas, and this is because the major per pupil expense in those public schools is transportation, which for private schools is the responsibility of parents. Boston for instance on paper spends 15,000 per student while my town Winchester spends 6,500. But we have no transportation expenses while Boston has major ones. Not all Parents can afford either financial or in terms of time to necessarily get their kids to school and taking the subway to school every day adds up. One reason the expense goes down as you go up in age is because kids can get themselves to school as they get older.

Anyway vouchers wouldn't help much in northern NH. In the district we have a house in, the nearest private secondary school is 25 miles. That's a decent trip daily.

[Torie]

High schools per pupil cost more than grammar schools. At least that is the way it used to be in California at least.

[Alcon]

High schools per pupil cost more than grammar schools. At least that is the way it used to be in California at least.

I remember reading several places that was, as Dan says, increased transportation costs.  Do you have a source that indicates otherwise?