House race in N.H. may be election day portent

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

BERLIN, New Hampshire - In a tidal wave congressional election, as happened in 1974 and 1994, entrenched incumbents get swept away by less-than-sparkling challengers.

If such a wave seems to be building this November, keep your eye on Rep. Charles Bass, R–N.H. on Election Night.

Polling places in New Hampshire close at 8 p.m., so the Bass race could be an early warning signal for other centrist Republicans across the nation.

Bass is one of an always endangered, but resilient species: a pro-business, socially libertarian Republican from the Northeast.

He has voted for lower taxes and for funding the Iraq war, but split from most Republicans by voting against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, against the constitutional ban on same-sex marriages, and for allowing abortions to be performed in U.S. military medical facilities.

Unforgiving environment for GOP
First elected in the Republicans’ miracle year of 1994, Bass now faces an environment that has turned harsh and unforgiving for many GOP candidates.

His Democratic challenger, lawyer Paul Hodes, makes a simple argument: things are rotten in Washington and voters must react by booting Bass.

“We’re going to ask New Hampshire voters a pretty basic question: Have you had enough? Have you had enough of an imperial president and an ineffective, rubber-stamp Congress who just won’t face the real issues that are facing this country?” Hodes told a small group of Democratic supporters at a campaign stop last week at the Tea Birds Cafe on Main Street in the paper mill town of Berlin, N.H.

Bass said Democrats are trying to hype this race into something that appears more competitive than it truly is.

In 2004, Bass beat Hodes by 20 percentage points. The challenge for Hodes this time is to convince donors that he has the debating skill and is generating the grass-roots excitement that will lift him to victory.

Three indicators that Bass may be in for a difficult race:

• Kerry won his district with 52 percent in 2004, making Bass’s district one of only 18 in the country that went for Kerry but is represented by a Republican House member.
• Hodes raised more in campaign funds in the first quarter of the year than did Bass.
• A scandal in the Granite State has sent three Republican operatives to prison and may alienate independent voters from GOP candidates.

In 2002, a telemarketing company hired by Republicans swamped Democratic Party and firefighters’ union phone lines on Election Day, sabotaging Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts.

Bass has survived strong challenges in the past: in 2002, Democrat Katrina Swett, the wife of the man Bass defeated in 1994, spent $1.4 million to try to oust Bass. He spent $886,000 and defeated Swett by 16 percentage points.

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