Last year, New Hampshire Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster defeated an underfunded Republican foe by a modest 50-45 as her seat went from 54-45 Obama to 49-46 Clinton. Republicans want to give Kuster a tougher challenge next year, and WMUR’s John DiStaso reports that they’re hoping that ex-state Rep. Lynne Blankenbeker will run after she gets off of active duty with the Navy in January. Blankenbeker planned to run last cycle, but she was called up for deployment first. Blankenbeker was a combat nurse in Iraq and Afghanistan, and she won a heavily Democratic seat in the 400-person state House in a 2009 special.
But as we noted two years ago, Blankenbeker may not be the dream candidate the GOP wants her to be. She speculated in 2011 that Osama Bin Laden may not have actually been killed. Later that year, she sent an email to her colleagues from her deployment describing how she “got to be the gunner which was fun. The .50cal is quite a gun! I was never ascared [sic] of the unions but they better not F#%k with me again!!! Just saying.” In 2012, she also argued that, “People with or without insurance have two affordable choices, one being abstinence and the other being condoms, both of which you can get over the counter.” When she was told that condoms were not a foolproof contraception method, Blankenbeker replied, “Abstinence works 100 percent of the time.” So yeah, this is the person the GOP has hoped would run for Congress for years.
DiStaso also reports that former reporter and TV anchor Tiffany Eddy, who now works as communications director for the University System of New Hampshire, was mentioned briefly. Eddy responded by saying, “I’m flattered and honored, but it is not something that is on my radar right now.” That’s not a no.