WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, UPDATE: DEMS TARGET BASS, GUINTA. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is reserving $520,000 worth of advertising time on WMUR television in Manchester for post-Labor Day buys.

A Democratic source confirmed the report in Politico, which said that the DCCC is preparing $32 million worth of broadcast ad buys nationally, targeting the seats of 26 GOP incumbents, including New Hampshire's Frank Guinta and Charlie Bass, as well as seven Democratic incumbents and three open seats.

Both New Hampshire congressmen, especially Bass, are viewed as vulnerable by the Democrats.

As Politico noted, Democrats need to pick up 25 seats to gain control of the House.

According to a Democrat familiar with the planned buys, this is the first of multiple waves of advertising buys planned by the DCCC, some focusing on swing states where the presidential contenders will be vying.

The $520,000 planned to be spent at WMUR, but not actually spent there, yet, may focus on one or both of the races. To what degree one race takes place over the other -- or how much is actually spent in New Hampshire in total -- remains to be seen, although it is clear that the Bass race against Kuster will receive much attention from both sides.

"Congressmen Bass and Guinta were swept into office on a Tea Party wave that is now nowhere to be found," said DCCC regional press secretary Josh Schwerin. "Since then, both have voted to end Medicare while protecting tax breaks for billionaires and, in the process, proven that they are wildly out of touch with Granite State voters and extremely vulnerable in November."

A Republican source says he has been told by national GOP media buyers that WMUR has not yet heard from the DCCC regarding the buy.

“It's clear that Nancy Pelosi is planning to use her Washington special interest money to boost Annie Kuster," said NHGOP executive director Tory Mazolla, "but the reality is that this is more smoke-and-mirrors because a meaningless reservation has no money behind it. If they really thought Kuster had a chance, they'd pre-pay, but that's a gamble they are not willing to take.”

(Earlier reports and the full April 12 Granite Status follows.)

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, UPDATE: FORBES FOR OVIDE. Conservative financial magazine publisher and Fox News television personality Steve Forbes is endorsing fellow Republican Ovide Lamontagne for New Hampshire governor.

Forbes, a two-time presidential candidate, endorsed Lamontagne in his run for the U.S. Senate in 2010, a race Lamontagne narrowly lost in a party primary to current U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte.

In backing Lamontagne in 2010, Forbes called him “a proven conservative leader of principle and conviction” who will be a “friend to taxpayers.”

The Granite Status has also learned that Forbes will come to New Hampshire next month to campaign with Lamontagne.

On May 8, Forbes will be featured at a reception for Lamontagne at the Devine Millimet law firm.

On May 9, Lamontagne and Forbes will co-host a small business roundtable for regional small business leaders at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.

(Earlier updates and the full April 12 Granite Status follow. A new Granite Status will appear tomorrow in the New Hampshire Union Leader with a full version here on UnionLeader.com.)

MONDAY, APRIL 16, UPDATE: ANOTHER TERM. New Hampshire House speaker Bill O'Brien, R-Mont Vernon, today announced his candidacy for re-election as representative in his House district of New Boston and Mont Vernon and as Speaker of the House.

The speaker also announced five co-chairmen of the campaign, Speaker Pro Tempore Gene Chandler, R-Bartlett; Municipal and County Government Committee Chair and Finance Committee Vice-Chair Lynne Ober, R-Hudson, Ways and Means Chair Stephen Stepanek, R-Amherst, House Republican Alliance co-chair Marilinda Garcia, R-Salem, and Freshmen Republican Caucus co-chair Dan Tamburello, R-Londonderry.

O'Brien said in a statement he is “looking forward to having an open conversation with the citizens of New Boston and Mont Vernon, and with my colleagues of the House about the important issues facing New Hampshire and the extraordinary achievements of this Legislature.”

MONDAY, APRIL 16, UPDATE: GUINTA LEADS IN FUND-RAISING. Republican U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta had nearly a half-million dollars more cash in his campaign account than Democratic challenger and former U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter had at the end of the first quarter of the year.

Guinta's campaign reported raising $180,332 in the first quarter, putting him at $986,038 for the election cycle. The campaign says its cash on hand as of March 31 was $674,747.

Shea-Porter's campaign says it raised $101,289 in the quarter and $395,154 since the November 2010 election, in which Guinta defeated Shea-Porter. She reports having $183,159 cash on hand as of March 31.

(Earlier updates and the full April 12 Granite Status follow.)

THURSDAY, APRIL 12, UPDATE: KELLY RAPS HILARY ROSEN. New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte joined a chorus of outrage today over a nationally-known Democratic strategist's comments belittling Ann Romney, the wife of likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Hilary Rosen has generated bipartisan criticism by saying on CNN on Wednesday night:

“What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country, saying, ‘Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues, and when I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing.' Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life.”

The Democratic National Committee quickly separated itself and the Obama campaign from the remark.

“What she said was absolutely out of bounds,” DNC executive director Patrick Gaspard said on MSNBC. “Ann Romney is someone who obviously has worked hard to raise five good boys and she's made some tough choices in her life, I'm certain. Families should be absolutely out of bounds in this discussion.”

Gaspard also said Rosen “is absolutely not a paid adviser to the DNC or to the Obama campaign.”

Ayotte joined other Republican women surrogates from across the country on a conference call as the Romney campaign began an all-out effort to try to close a gender gap it faces now that the general election phase of the campaign has effectively begun.

“I think it was very insulting for President Obama's advisor and (Democratic National Committee) strategist Hilary Rosen to make the comment she made about Ann Romney yesterday, that she never worked a day in her life,” said Ayotte, the mother of four-year-old and seven-year-old children.

“In fact, it's insulting that the President's advisor would dismiss the value of the important and hard work women do in raising children,” Ayotte said.

“Ann Romney chose to stay at home and I admire her for that, for raising five boys,” Ayotte said. “And as she said herself, it's really hard work raising children. She also volunteered her time working for charities.”

Ayotte noted that Ann Romney “has suffered from multiple sclerosis and is also a survivor of cancer.

“But at the end of the day,” said Ayotte, when you look at where we are, women have faced massive job losses under this administration and the policies of this President have failed women voters _ and men, too. These are issues that impact all Americans.”

Ayotte said she is “worried about what we're leaving for the next generation in terms of the massive debt that we've incurred _ nearly $5 trillion of debt incurred under this President and the opportunities out children are going to have for the next generation. He has failed at getting our fiscal house in order.

“Women are concerned about what we're leaving for our children,” Ayotte said.

The Romney campaign, trailing among women by 19 percentage points in a Washington Post/ABC News poll this week, is trying to show that Obama's policies, especially on the economy, have hurt women.

But the campaign opened itself to criticism on Wednesday when a top Romney campaign aid was unable to say whether Romney supported the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was signed into law by Obama and makes it easier for women to litigate for equal pay.

The campaign later released a statement saying Romney supports equal pay for women, but did not specifically say how he feels about the law.

(Earlier updates and the full April 12 Granite Status follow.)

THURSDAY, APRIL 12, UPDATE: WELCOME, VP BIDEN. As a candidate for President in 2007, Joe Biden said primary foe Barack Obama was not ready to be President, and according to former Gov. John H. Sununu, he was right.

As Biden prepares to arrive in Exeter this afternoon, Sununu told reporters, “Today, even with three years in office, (Obama) is clearly demonstrating that he still doesn't have enough experience to be President.”

Biden will promote the “Buffett Rule” while in the state, an Obama proposal to raise taxes on millionaires to 30 percent of income.

“Do we pay down those deficits, cutting wherever we can, while we invest in the things we know we must to grow our economy and good, middle class jobs—education; research and development; clean energy technology?” Biden will say, according to the campaign. “Or do we continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on these tax windfalls for millionaires _ windfalls they do not need and haven't asked for.

“It's not the American way. We're not supposed to have a system that's rigged. We're not supposed to have a system with one set of rules for the wealthy and one set of rules for everyone else,” Biden will say.

Biden will say Mitt Romney's plan to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond December “will cost about $1 trillion over the next 10 years. And $800 billion of that trillion will go to people to make a minimum of $1 million a year.

“And to add insult to injury, he proposes to give another $250,000 in tax cuts to the average millionaire. That's another trillion dollars to the top 1 percent _ on top of making permanent the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.”

Biden will say the Buffett Rule “says that multi-millionaires should pay at least the same percentage of their income in taxes as middle-class families do.

“The Romney Rule says the very wealthy should keep the tax cuts and loopholes they have, and get an additional, new tax cut every year that is worth more than what the average middle class family makes in an entire year,” Biden will say, according to the Obama campaign.

Sununu, who has traveled the country campaigning for Romney, told reporters, “Here we are with a huge deficit crisis, a huge job crisis and Joe Biden and President Obama and here he is promoting taxes that fundamentally designed to be punitive and, frankly, designed to be a political tool in a class warfare agenda that President Obama seems to be embarking on in this campaign.”

He called on Obama and Biden to make “significant contributions to charity, noting that Romney “gave almost 15 percent of his income last year to charity.”

“So, welcome to New Hampshire, Joe Biden. It's a shame you don't know how to talk about jobs that America needs and it's a shame you don't know how to create the jobs that America needs,” said Sununu.

State Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley said, “I find it interesting that Vice President is coming to the ‘Live Free or Die' state, a state that has neither a broad based income tax or a broad based sales tax with his message that it's time to raise taxes.”

“It's exactly the wrong prescription for now to get our economy back on track,” said Bradley.

John Stephen, the 2010 New Hampshire Republican gubernatorial nominee and a former supporter of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, is now on board with Romney.

He told reporters that “candidates have not fared very well in New Hampshire historically when they come into our state and promote new taxes. The President has done nothing to create an environment that cultivates jobs.”

Sununu said that now that Romney has all but wrapped up the GOP presidential nomination, the campaign will rev up operations in New Hampshire.

“Now that things have settled out, the Romney campaign will start putting its general election resources into play,” Sununu said. “There has obviously got to be a bit of a fund-raising effort first. I think New Hampshire is certainly one of the key state they focus on.”

He said Democrats “had well over 30 full time staffers and tons of offices that they opened up in the 2010 election, but the Republicans focused on getting good candidates, which are the key to success.

“The Republicans ate the Democrats' lunch in the 2010 election and they will do the same in the 2012 election,” Sununu said.

The Republican National Committee today also released a web video attacking Obama on the economy.

After Biden left the state Thursday, the New Hampshire Democratic Party shot back that Romney, by choosing Sununu as a surrogate, “speaks volumes about just how out of touch Mitt Romney is with middle class Americans. John ‘Where's My Jet' Sununu is a Washington, D.C. lobbyist with a questionable ethics record who, like Mitt Romney, thinks he can play by a different set of rules than working families.”

Democratic National Committee member Kathy Sullivan said, “Sununu, while serving in George H.W. Bush's White House, repeatedly misused government resources for his own benefit. Sununu took a government-funded limo to attend a stamp auction at Christie's, the high end auction house, and improperly used military aircraft for personal and political travel. Sununu's repeated misuse of government resources prompted a review of government travel policies.”

“Mitt Romney and John Sununu think that they can play by a different set of rules than everyone else,” Sullivan said, “which makes Sununu the perfect spokesperson for a candidate who's campaigning on a platform where millionaires and billionaires pay a lower tax rate than hard-working middle class families.”

(The full April 12 Granite Status follows.)

THURSDAY, APRIL 12: NOT A PUSH POLL. Chuck Douglas, new lead counsel for Rep. Charlie Bass's fight against allegations his last campaign conducted an illegal push poll, says the Attorney General's case contains “a fundamental legal error.”

The AG alleges the Bass campaign broke the state's push poll law by deliberately avoiding identifying itself as a sponsor of a negative poll against challenger Ann McLane Kuster in September 2010. Bass narrowly beat the Democrat that November.

The Bass campaign could be fined as much as $400,000, or $1,000 for each of 400 calls.

The AG says Bass campaign e-mails show the campaign split the survey's cost with the National Republican Congressional Committee. The e-mails show the initial survey script said it was paid for by the Bass campaign. But then-Bass campaign manager David Kanevsky asked that the NRCC be identified as the sole sponsor because, he wrote, “I'd rather have any issues about ‘push polling' be blamed on them (the NRCC) rather than us.”

The NRCC agreed. The final script identified the NRCC as sponsor, with no mention of Bass.

Bass' campaign says the AG's charge is invalid because the poll was “a legitimate message testing survey,” not a push poll.

Douglas told us that under the law, “any poll being conducted by a political party, such as the National Republican Congressional Committee, is not a ‘push poll.'”

In a statement, Douglas said a push poll is “specifically defined” as a telephone poll conducted “in a manner which is likely to be construed by the voter to be a survey or poll to gather statistical data for entities or organizations which are acting independently of any particular political party, candidate or interest group.”

“In other words,” Douglas said, “a telephone poll is not a ‘push poll' unless it is conducted in such a way that a voter would be led to believe that it was being done by an independent polling organization unconnected with a particular candidate or his party.

“The statute prevents candidates or their parties from hiding behind an ‘independent' sounding name, like ‘Americans for a Better America,'” he said.

Douglas said, “The fatal flaw in the Attorney General's case ... is that the National Republican Congressional Committee openly took ownership of the poll it helped pay for. There was no attempt to portray the poll as having been conducted by some disinterested academic organization.

“Because the NRCC took credit for the poll, the poll was not a ‘push poll' as defined by New Hampshire statute, and that means the Bass Victory Campaign did not violate any state election law.”

The law also says anyone who engages in push polling must inform the call recipient that the call “is being made on behalf of, in support of, or in opposition to a particular candidate for public office, identify that candidate by name,” and provide a telephone number.

Douglas said this requirement does not apply to the Bass case but even if the survey were a push poll, the law was followed because at least one of the sponsors was identified.

“I don't know if the AG's office understands what a push poll is, but this is not one,” he said. He also noted that voter opinion surveys usually poll 400 or 500 people, while in true push polls, “it's thousands or tens of thousands.”

Douglas shrugged off former campaign manager Kanevsky actually calling the survey “push polling” in his e-mail to the NRCC.

“He's not an attorney, so he may not have understood,” Douglas said. “And he's not binding on the campaign. You have to look at the disclaimer, not what some kid thinks it means.”

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MOOT ISSUE? The Federal Election Commission may provide Bass a boost, or perhaps render the case moot, with a key decision due in the next several weeks. (An FEC spokesman said Wednesday the decision would be due Thursday, but told us on Thursday morning that while the issue will be discussed Thursday, there will be no vote.)

FEC commissioners are scheduled to discuss and possibly vote on whether the state law is superseded by the Federal Election Campaign Act.

A request for an advisory opinion was sent to the FEC in February by the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, which says it plans to poll for “certain federal candidates” and “certain nonprofit organizations” in the Granite State this year.

“GQRR's survey research will typically consist of questions regarding demographics, the respondent's views on various issues, the respondent's impressions of the political parties and national political figures, the likelihood to vote for particular federal candidate or candidates, and the likelihood of the respondent to vote for a specific federal candidate after hearing various positive and/or negative information about the candidate,” wrote Greenberg Quinlan attorney Joseph Sandler.

Sandler noted the FEC has ruled that the federal law and its regulations “do not require that any disclaimer be included in telephone survey research,” and his client “is concerned that it may be required to comply with these (state) provisions with respect to its proposed polling in New Hampshire, referencing only federal candidates.”

The NH AG's office told the FEC the state law should apply to federal candidates. Assistant Attorney General Matt Mavrogeorge wrote, “The Commission has repeatedly held that state regulations that do not address reporting, expenditures, contributions or political advertising are valid exercises of state power.

“The FEC's regulations do not include telephone surveys as part of its regulatory scheme or its preemption authority” under federal election law, Mavrogeorge wrote. “This is consistent with the Supreme Court's admonition that the police powers of the state should not be superseded unless there is clear congressional intent to do so.”

Four draft opinions will be reviewed today. Two say that yes, there is clear history that Congress intended that the provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act “supersede and preempt any provision of State law with respect to election to federal office.”

A third draft says that although the federal “likely” preempts the state law, it is up to the courts, not the FEC, to make that call.

In a fourth draft, the FEC declines to give its opinion because the request is asking whether a state law, not the federal election act, applies to its planned polling activities.

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BIDEN AND BUFFETT. With Vice President Joe Biden set to push President Obama's “Buffett rule” in Exeter today, there were dueling press conferences on the issue yesterday.

On the Democratic side, state AFL-CIO president Mark MacKenzie said, “The question is should we ask middle class Americans to pay even more or should we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay what is really their fair share?”

Democratic activist and CPA Deborah Butler said under the rule named for billionaire Warren Buffett, people who earn more than $1 million a year in income would pay a minimum 30 percent in taxes. It would primarily effect people with a significant amount of capital gains income.

“American prospers when everyone does their fair share and plays by the same rules,” said Butler.

The measure would reportedly raise an estimated $47 billion over 10 years, a tiny percentage of government spending and debt. But Obama says it would be enough to spare some popular government programs.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus countered, “It's really funny that they chose the ‘Live Free or Die' state to promote a new tax gimmick. Granite Staters will see through this effort to divide voters.”

State GOP Chairman Wayne MacDonald said the “continuous trips” by Obama and Biden to the state “show just how worried they are about New Hampshire.” He said the “Buffett Rule” is “just as phony as his ‘hope and change' message from four years ago.”

On Saturday, the Obama campaign plans to push “Buffett” with a “Tax Fairness Day of Action,” going door-to-door in 20 communities. Leading the charge in Nashua will be Providence, R.I., Mayor Angel Taveras.

A TOSS-UP. With a big Republican State Committee meeting scheduled for Saturday at Inter-Lakes High School in Meredith, a source tells us the race for Republican National Committeewoman between Deputy House Speaker Pam Tucker and former Cheshire County GOP Chair Juliana Bergeron appears to be a toss-up.

The woman elected will succeed Phyllis Woods after the national convention this summer.

It's the only contested race so far, although write-ins will be accepted.

In other open races, the candidates are Cliff Hurst for party vice chairman, Diane Bitter for assistant secretary, Steve Duprey for a full term as national committeeman and Mark Vincent for Area 3 vice chairman.

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“LIBERAL LEE” NYQUIST? In his first bid for state office, Democrat Lee Nyquist of New Boston has “made it” already to the GOP “hit list.”

“As Lee Nyquist starts to put together his campaign for Senate District 9 as a ‘self described moderate,' he should start explaining his recent history of supporting far left liberals like Paul Hodes and tax-and-spend Democrats like President Barack Obama,” the NHGOP said in a leadoff slap at Nyquist this week. “In 2008, liberal Lee Nyquist donated to Hodes, a liberal who supported Speaker Nancy Pelosi 95 percent of the time,” and Obama.

According to the independent political “watchdog” web site OpenSecrets.org, Nyquist in 2008 donated $500 to Obama and $250 to Hodes.

“Lee Nyquist is only fooling himself if he's going to run a campaign about his so-called ‘moderate' record,” NHGOP Chairman Wayne MacDonald said in the statement. “He's an enthusiastic liberal.”

Nyquist called the statement “a prime example of the partisan and uncivil tone that is unfortunately the standard operating procedure for our Legislature today. It reflects the atmosphere that is crippling our state government and is the reason I'm running for the state Senate.”

Meanwhile, Republican state Rep. Ken Hawkins of Bedford has made it official that he is a candidate for the District 9 seat. The announcement sets up a potential primary with state Sen. Andy Sanborn, who says he will relocate from Henniker to Bedford to run for the seat, and Andy Peterson of Peterborough, who formerly served in the House and Senate, who may run.

Hawkins, a more than 30-year resident of Bedford, perhaps contrasting himself with Sanborn, said, “I am proud to say my roots are long and strong in representing my hometown and region.”

He said that in five House terms, he has “led efforts to reform our pension system, pushed for a fiscally responsible state budget and always voted against job-killing tax increases. As a state senator I will continue to push to make government more accountable, promote policies that spur growth and create jobs and defend the rights of taxpayers.”

Hawkins said he is planning two fund-raisers, scheduling campaign appearances and has a web site under construction.

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OVIDE'S NEW WEB SITE, OFFICE. GOP candidate for governor Ovide Lamontagne's campaign headquarter has been set up at the Brady Sullivan Tower, 1750 Elm St., Manchester, and will be open for business next week. The location is the former site of Rick Perry's presidential campaign.

Lamontagne's campaign has revamped and updated his Ovide2012.com web site with a new look and additional information.

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BENSON FOR SMITH. Former Gov. Craig Benson yesterday endorsed his former staffer, Kevin Smith, for governor.

Smith held the title of Liaison to the Executive Council and Department Heads for Benson. While Democrats quickly criticized Smith for his Benson as “ethically challenged role model and mentor,” Smith, in Benson, will have a wealthy and well-connected fund-raiser.

Benson called Smith “the only candidate with a long-term vision to rebuild our economy and education system around new industries and exciting technologies that will lead to better jobs and help keep our young people here in New Hampshire.”

John DiStaso is senior political reporter of the New Hampshire Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News.