Boy, the dirt just keeps coming on Kelly Ayotte, the longtime frontrunner in the New Hampshire Senate Republican primary.
U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte pondered her political future using her state Department of Justice e-mail account, according to a review of thousands of e-mails sent and received by the former state attorney general.
"Bottom line though when will an opportunity like this come along again?" Ayotte, who is seeking the Republican nomination in Tuesday's primary, wrote about her Senate candidacy in an April 25, 2009, e-mail to Rob Varsalone, who is now a campaign consultant. "Do you see it? And without risk, there is no gain."
On some level this should come as no surprise. It was clear Ayotte had political ambitions that trumped her promise to serve out her term as attorney general, and using a state email account to discuss the possibility is relatively small potatoes.
But this story comes on top of Ayotte receiving blame for an oversight failure of a major Ponzi scheme, it becoming public that the state had to pay $300,000 in attorneys fees to Planned Parenthood on a case Ayotte had been claiming she'd won, and primary opponent Ovide Lamontagne getting the endorsement of the state's biggest newspaper and gaining ground in polling. Last night Lamontagne also picked up the endorsement of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint.
The bad news, in other words, keeps coming for Ayotte while the good news keeps coming for Lamontagne. No telling if it'll be enough for him to eke out a victory in Tuesday's four-way primary, but even if Ayotte wins, she'll be a damaged winner.