The case against Frank Guinta

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MANCHESTER EXPRESS, OPINION: Letters, Page 13, September 28 - October 4, 2009, Volume 4, No. 39

"The case against Guinta"

To the Editor,

Whether or not Frank Guinta could have been re-elected as mayor is now an academic subject. He has announced that he will not run for a third term as mayor and is now seeking a seat in the U.S. Congress. The basis of that candidacy is supposedly his record as the mayor of Manchester.

From my own perspective, he has very little to run on. The basis of that candidacy is supposedly his record as mayor. How odd. The record he has left is objectively speaking quite negative. As you may remember, Frank Guinta ran on four planks: 1) lower taxes; 2) smaller government; 3) better schools and 3) lower crime. Not one of those occurred.

Frank summed these up in his so called 5-5-5 program regarding education, crime and taxes. He has not met one of these targets. Before he came to office here were five underperforming schools-that figure is now 20 out of 22.

Municipal taxes dropped briefly from the level where they were before Frank Guinta became mayor but rose back up again by 8 percent over the past two years.

Unemployment in Manchester has more than doubled from 3.1 percent to over 7.4 percent (in July 2009) and is still climbing.

Crime has gone up by 6 percent since last year.

Year in and year out, the mayor has submitted budgets that were dead on arrival and firmly rejected by aldermen. That was hardly leadership, but Frank has then gone around saying that he “held the line” on city spending.

One if the reasons the city has had budget troubles is that he has done very little to attract companies to either the city or the state. One case in point is the Manchester Airport’s Free Trade Zone, which neither the city nor the state has supported.

Frank has a record to run on all right...a very weak one.

Let’s set the score honestly before the residents of New Hampshire make yet another and bigger mistake by foisting Frank Guinta on the country as a whole.

David Weston
Manchester, N.H.

Frank Guinta criticizes Carol Shea-Porter!

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Manchester Mayor Frank guinta, who seeks to take on Carol Shea-Porter for Congress, speaks to fellow Republicans during a meet and greet at the Portsmouth Sheraton Harborside Hotel in Portsmouth on Thursday, September 24, 2009. (Scott Yates/syates@seacoastonline.com)
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"GOP candidates Lamontagne, Guinta visit city, call for more local controls"
By Aimee Lockhardt, news@seacoastonline.com - September 25, 2009

PORTSMOUTH — A pair of Manchester Republicans made cases for their candidacies Thursday night.

"The debate about the direction of the country should continue tonight," Manchester lawyer and U.S. Senate hopeful Ovide Lamontagne told a crowd at the Sheraton Haborside hotel. "We'll show the world we mean what we say. We know the ways to fix the nation."

Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta and Lamontagne met with the public as part of a series of events called "Cocktails & Conversation" run by the Portsmouth Republican City Committee.

Guinta plans to run for the U.S. House seat occupied by Democrat Carol Shea-Porter. Lamontagne has not officially announced his candidacy, but said he is considering running for the Senate seat that will be vacated by Republican Judd Gregg, who is not seeking re-election.

Guinta and Lamontagne agreed there should be a cap placed on spending, saying the federal government should have a smaller role.

Lamontagne said he felt that schools and health care should be locally operated. He said that education and health care have to be run by looking at what is successful within a state or even a district.

"Why are we looking for one size fits all?" he asked.

For Lamontagne, the most important issue was balancing the budget, which he said requires elected officials to be honest with the people and to only spend the money that is available.

Much of Lamontagne's agenda was focused on changing Washington. One of the ways he feels this could be done is by calling for term limits so "people can renew Congress."

Guinta criticized Carol Shea-Porter, saying she was often not around when she was needed, refuses open discussions with the public and is not listening to public outcries. "When you represent people, you have an obligation to listen to your constituents," he said.

Both men stressed the importance of independent voters.

"Independents are Republicans in mind and intelligence and Democrats at heart," Lamontagne said. "In their mind, they believe in traditional American values. You learn from other people's ideas — not just Republicans. You have to work with independents and Democrats."

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"A RECIPE FOR MISERY." Shea-Porter isn't taking the constant GOP pounding lying down. A fundraising e-mail this week blasts the Republicans as cooking up "a recipe for misery, brought to you by the same people who ran the country into the ground and now want you to give them another chance."

Shea-Porter says, "In January of 2009, before we took over, America lost more than 750,000 jobs in one month" and "Wall Street had nearly destroyed Main Street."

She says that President Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership "have stopped the hemorrhaging, "but now they are trying to come back with the same package, their plan to privatize Social Security and Medicare."

She says they have "wrapped it in new paper, but it's the same plan."

Source: John DiStaso's Granite Status: Ayotte, Lynch hit back at "attack group" (NH Union Leader, mid-March of 2010).

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"Guinta is wrong on super-PACs"

By Lew Henry, Gilmanton Iron Works, For the Concord Monitor, May 29, 2012

First District Congressman Frank Guinta recently rejected former congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter's wonderful idea to put New Hampshire citizens ahead of outsiders by denouncing super-PAC money. An appalling 93 percent of super-PAC money has come from just 726 individuals - 23 out of every 10 million people.

I'm not shocked that Guinta welcomes the coming avalanche of money from super-wealthy outsiders. After all, Guinta is a fan of taking money wherever he finds it, and then using it as wastefully as possible. He was the No. 1 spender in Congress for taxpayer-funded congressional mailings (which look suspiciously like campaign mailers), while closing one of our two district offices to help pay for them.

Guinta has yet to explain the $355,000 that mysteriously arrived in his campaign account in 2010 and is still being in investigated by the FEC. As a leader of the regressive wing of the reactionary faction of the government-hating Teabaggers, he has earned a National Journal ranking as the 31st most conservative congressman, all the while living off of the taxpayers for many years in a variety of government jobs.

Putting outsider super-PACs ahead of New Hampshire citizens is standard operating procedure for Guinta. Re-electing Carol Shea-Porter will give us an honest, trustworthy, effective legislator who cares only about the citizens of New Hampshire.

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Frank Guinta's political coalition

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GUINTA'S COALITION. Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta has named chairmen of the various coalitions of his GOP campaign for the 1st District U.S. House seat:

Campaign Chair: Executive Councilor Raymond Wieczorek; Finance Chairman: Andy Crews, CEO of AutoFair Companies; Treasurer: Lou D'Amato of Manchester; Second Amendment Coalition: former state Rep. Sam Cataldo, R-Farmington; Families Coalition: Cliff Hurst of Manchester, former co-chair of Mike Huckabee's state campaign; Taxpayers' Coalition: former state Sen. George Lovejoy, R-Barrington and GOP activist Tammy Simmons; Business Coalition: Sean Owen president of the Manchester-based Wedu advertising/public relations firm and Diane Mercier, president of Ocean Bank.

Source: "John DiStaso's Granite Status: Gregg backs Hooksett-built jet engine, with caveat", NH Union Leader, September 10, 2009.

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FRANK'S CAPTAINS. Manchester mayor and GOP 1st District U.S. House hopeful Frank Guinta will release a list of his campaign's county captains shortly.

They include former state Sen. George Lovejoy of Barrington, Joe and Madeline Moffett of Gonic, Maureen Mooney of Merrimack, Doug Lambert of Gilford, Luke Freudenberg of Wolfeboro, Pam Smith of Manchester, Joan Bastek of Portsmouth, Andrew Manuse of Derry, Rogers Johnson of Stratham, Dino Scala of Wakefield, Laurie Boyce of Alton, Dick Hinch of Merrimack, Diane Bitter of Rye, Ken Hawkins and Jane Aitken of Bedford and Tim Low of Hooksett.
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SOURCE: "John DiStaso's Granite Status: Bender may jump into Senate race" (By JOHN DISTASO, Senior Political Reporter, NH Union Leader, September 24, 2009).
John DiStaso is senior political reporter of the New Hampshire Union Leader.
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"Locals among Guinta’s county co-captains"
Soundings, a blog by Adam Krauss, akrauss@fosters.com - www.fosters.com - November 30, 2009

GOP House candidate and Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta recently announced 50 county co-captains joined his team, bringing to 250 the number of people “who have agreed to donate their time and advice to me as we work together to bring some common sense back to Washington."

Many of the supporters described themselves as taxpayer or conservative activists and concerned taxpayers.

Jennifer Cyr, Laura Jones and Kyle Jones, all of Rochester, and Strafford's Michael Harrington and Linda Harrington joined the Strafford County effort.

In Rockingham County, Bill St. Laurent of Portsmouth joined the effort along with Rep. Will Smith of New Castle, Amy Kane of North Hampton, Stratham Selectmen Chair David Canada and Seabrook’s Ben Moore and Ellie Moore, along with several others.

Guinta said the county leaders are important to his campaign.

“In any election, we have to remember it is the people of the district that matter. The early support from so many I think demonstrates a desire for new leadership in Washington. I will continue to talk to residents and express to them my wish to rein in spending and to stop the hemorrhaging of money out of Washington that is indebting generations. I will continue to talk about real healthcare reform that actually reduces costs and improves access while maintaining the quality of care. And I will continue to look for support and advice from great people like my County Captains,” he said in a statement.

“Team Guinta” also announced the endorsement from the National Restaurant Association.

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Frank Guinta is IGNORANT on healthcare public policy!

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"Manchester mayor was clueless on health care"
www.seacoastonline.com - Opinion: Letters - September 5, 2009

9/2 - To the Editor:

On August 31, 2009, I attended a health care town hall meeting in Exeter convened by Mayor Frank Guinta of Manchester.

Anyone who sincerely wanted to learn more about how the high cost of health insurance is impacting our state or Mr. Guinta's views on how to help our neighbors who cannot get affordable coverage would have left the meeting shaking their heads in disappointment.

Mr. Guinta encouraged the audience in trashing our president, Barack Obama, and our congresswoman, Carol Shea-Porter. Even more alarming, he failed to correct the off-the-wall statements made by many of his supporters at the event. Thus, he was complicit in perpetuating vicious lies about the contents of health care proposals under consideration in Congress.

I was one of two pro-reform persons who got to ask a question. To get a perspective on the scope of the problem in New Hampshire, I asked: "How many people in New Hampshire have no health insurance?" Guinta's reply: "I don't have that figure, but I can get back to you with that."

It is amazing that an elected official who aspires to represent our state in Congress could presume to preside over a health care policy discussion and be completely clueless on the most basic fact: the number of his fellow residents who are uninsured.

The answer is 143,754 uninsured in New Hampshire, according to a State Health Facts report, based on U.S. Census data, from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

By the way, I left my phone number but I have yet to hear from Mayor Guinta.

Joan Jacobs
Portsmouth, New Hampshire