Kelly Ayotte & Rich Ashooh

I know that folks expect those of us on the scene to provide inside information on candidates - things you might not hear elsewhere. For those of you out-of-state who want to follow national Senate majority issues, the betting at this point is that she will fill the seat occupied by the retiring Judd Gregg, beating Binnie and Bender in the primaries, and Hodes in November. But it's still only July. Her Wikipedia entry really does cover the basics without a lot of bias. As state Attorney general, she argued Ayotte Vs. Planned Parenthood of New England before SCOTUS, which agreed with her unanimously. She went to Villanova, a quality law school that's not an Ivy - which is becoming important to conservatives who believe that there's more intellectual diversity, and hence more original thinking, outside of the Ivy League.

For those in-state, hoping that my contact with the AG's office because of my line of work will give me some inside scoop, I don't have much to offer. She mostly stuck to prosecutions, rather than being a conservative activist looking for ways to kick liberals in the groin. Which is as it should be. She didn't try to politicise any of the highly-charged cases from the mental health side. I don't think she was particularly interested in our little corner of legal issues. The attorneys who dealt with her seemed to regard her as quite good, not someone who would make them crazy when they tried to explain situations to her. I heard neither that she was some brilliant legal scholar about to set the world on its ear nor that she was a fool.

I'm still hesitating to vote for any lawyer, but it won't kill me to make an exception here.

Rich Ashooh: I know an older brother slightly, and an older sister quite well. She is extremely intelligent, both in the quick-witted and grind-it-out senses. The whole family is. I don't know Rich at all. He grew up Melkite Catholic, but I don't know whether he still attends. He worked for NH Sens. Gordon Humphreys and Warren Rudman in Washington before going to work for BAE. Those are all good credentials. Rudman was an especial deficit-hawk, even by NH's extreme standards, so that's a good lineage.

Wish I could tell you more.

Update: I should say more about Ovide Lamontagne, who I also like.