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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