MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — Liberals booed incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) for interrupting closing remarks by former Sen. Scott Brown at a forum Sunday morning, calling her actions “rude,” video from the event shows.
“She’s voting against small business 100 percent of the time. She’s got a zero rating from the National Federation of Independent Business,” Brown was saying. “I received their endorsement, but not only them but from the Chamber of Commerce because–“
Shaheen cut him off and interrupted: “Koch Brothers funded organization.”
The audience at the forum, at the Temple Adath Yeshurun here in Manchester, yelled at Shaheen, saying she was “rude” and booing her for trying to silence Brown.
“That’s rude! Rude! Rude! Boo! Boo!” various audience members shouted.
Brown took control of the situation and gave Shaheen another opportunity to comment. She had previously given her closing remarks.
“No, I’d like to defer to Sen. Shaheen,” Brown said, calming the boos from the audience.
“I think you objected to my saying that,” Shaheen replied. “And given the support you’ve gotten from the Koch Brothers, I don’t know why you’d object to my saying that.”
“Well, because I was closing, and I gave you the courtesy to allow you to speak,” Brown fired back to cheers from the New Hampshire audience.
Brown’s campaign says this is because Shaheen is getting “desperate” after losing both of last week’s debates.
“On the heels of Scott Brown’s decisive back-to-back debate victories, it appears that Senator Shaheen is growing rattled and more desperate in the closing days of the campaign,” Brown spokeswoman Elizabeth Guyton said in an email to reporters.
Guyton noted in the email that the crowd that booed Shaheen was a “largely-Democratic crowd,” a sign of Shaheen’s slipping support in the state.
Shaheen’s attack line that the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) is a “Koch Brothers funded group” isn’t gaining any traction in New Hampshire, as the New Hampshire Democratic Party is actually touting an NFIB endorsement for another of its candidates.
Chris Pappas, a Democrat who’s running for re-election as New Hampshire executive councilor, is endorsed by the NFIB. The executive council is a system of state government unique to New Hampshire, which has five districts and the five executive councilors form a second tier of the executive branch of the state government–essentially it’s a position higher than a state senator. Flyers printed by the New Hampshire Democratic Party, obtained by Breitbart News, tout Pappas’ NFIB endorsement. Thus, by attacking Brown for getting the NFIB endorsement–and attempting to defend her zero rating with the organization–Shaheen is attacking the New Hampshire Democratic Party and Pappas.
But that aside, Shaheen’s campaign has had an enormous amount of missteps in recent days. Her campaign promoted a local rap group that touted a nudist colony in New Hampshire, the senator and Sen. Liz Warren (D-MA) were more than an hour late to an event where Warren endorsed her on Saturday, and Shaheen’s staff kicked this reporter out of an open press campaign event last week despite this reporter’s credentials from the U.S. Senate press gallery–a decision the campaign acknowledged was wrong and reversed on Saturday by allowing this reporter into the open press Warren event.
In addition, Shaheen has had problems in the two most recent debates. At one point in Thursday’s debate, she interrupted Brown, similar to what she did Sunday morning.
“I already voted five times to repeal it,” Brown said when asked if he would vote to repeal Obamacare. “She was the deciding vote. When she says–“
“There were sixty of us,” Shaheen interrupted. “Everybody was a deciding vote.”
“Excuse me,” Brown cut her back off curtly. “Every Democrat voted [for it] and yes, every Democrat was the deciding vote for a terrible bill that’s crushing businesses.”
NH1’s Kevin Landrigan said Shaheen looked “irritated” and “frustrated” in that Thursday debate, which was co-hosted by his network and CNN. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said also that the national Democratic Party was a “little worried” because Shaheen “looked a little angry” in last Tuesday’s NBC News/NECN debate.
It’s interesting that Shaheen campaigned with Warren on Saturday, as she was trying to catch some of the Massachusetts liberal superstar’s political electricity and energy. But when Warren came, she didn’t bring any intellectual firepower or real ideas–just left-wing Democratic Party political rhetoric. As Martha Coakley–who Brown beat in 2010 for the U.S. Senate seat long held by liberal icon Ted Kennedy–sails to what appears to be another loss, the comparison between Coakley and Shaheen can’t be too far off. Shaheen is no Liz Warren, even if she tried to be. She’s more like Martha Coakley, who Politico dubbed “Martha Choke-ly.”
“You could call her the Bill Buckner of politics, if she even knew who the Red Sox were,” Ben Schreckinger wrote for Politico magazine in mid-October, before Republican Charlie Baker opened up a nine-point lead in the latest Boston Globe poll for that state’s gubernatorial race.
“She’s a Democrat who managed to blow a huge statewide lead to a Republican in deep-blue Massachusetts in epic fashion,” Schreckinger added. “And now she’s blown it again. Or at least that will be the epitaph on Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley’s political career come November if Charlie Baker edges her in the governor’s race.”
Seems like Shaheen might be headed in the same direction if this momentum continues. It’s only fitting that Brown beat Coakley the first time. And now he’s on the march against Shaheen in New Hampshire.
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