Subject: ProgressNow Alert - Union Leader attacks our New Hampshire affiliate
From: Denise Cardinal <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 14:48:11 -0500 (CDT)

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Dear friends, supporters and colleagues,

Before we all take some much needed holiday time to enjoy our family
and friends, I wanted to make sure you saw the latest conservative
attack on one of our affiliates. As many of you know the New Hampshire
Union Leader is both the largest print outlet in NH and is also
extremely conservative. What you probably don't know is that the Union
Leader is now targeting our affiliate in NH, Granite State Progress,
and our allies at America Votes.

This attack-editorial appeared in print today, one day after a related
claim was published regarding the workers rights veto vote and
out-of-state corporate corruption of NH House Speaker Bill O'Brien.
The gist of the first piece can be captured by the quote given by our
Executive Director in NH, Zandra Rice-Hawkins:

"Bill O'Brien turned to out-of-state corporations to write his
agenda - now it's clear they're running his campaigns
too," said Rice Hawkins. "It's time for Speaker O'Brien to
focus on middle class priorities like good jobs that pay a fair wage
instead of empowering corporations to cut wages so they can boost CEO
salaries."

Please take a few moments to read the subsequent editorial below and
see what we are up against. Responses to this, like all of our other
work, will take care careful planning and, like all of our other work,
can not be successful without your continuing support.

Please let me know if you have ideas on how to best approach this
and/or ways that you may be able to help.

Warm regards,

Denise Cardinal
Executive Director ProgressNow and ProgressNow Education
612.269.9276

Union Leader Editorial

Outsider spin: Hypocrites for NH
Published May 26, 2011 at 3:00 am (Updated May 25, 2011)
 
New Hampshire voters were treated on Tuesday to this absurdity: A
group funded by out-of-state interests complaining about the influence
of out-of-state interests.
 
Zandra Rice-Hawkins, director of a group called Granite State
Progress, said that House Speaker "Bill O'Brien turned to
out-of-state corporations to write his agenda - now it's
clear they're running his campaigns too."
 
Specifically, she alleged that John Kalb, executive director of New
England Right to Work, worked on the election campaign of Republican
Peter Kukmas, who lost a May 17 special House election in Mont Vernon.
 
That's a fascinating complaint coming from Rice-Hawkins. Her
organization is a front group for out-of-state liberal activists. It
is financed by America Votes, a national left-wing advocacy group. In
the latest state campaign finance report we could find, dated in 2008,
every contributor to America Votes-NH lived outside of New Hampshire.
 
In the May 17 election, America Votes gave Granite State Progress
$1,500 to defeat Kukmas. Granite State Progress filed as a political
action committee for this race on May 11 - the same day it
received America Votes' $1,500. America Votes filed as a PAC on
May 10. So in the last week before the election, these two PACs
appeared and dropped $1,500 to defeat the Republican.
 
Rice-Hawkins, who gave $50 to Jennifer Daler, Kukmas' opponent,
might have limited her complaint to possible violations of election
law. Instead, she spun it as principled opposition to out-of-state
interests trying to affect New Hampshire elections, something she is
clearly not opposed to, as her work in New Hampshire politics is
funded by out-of-state interests. What hypocrisy.

http://progressnow.pnstate.org/site/R?i=WxkJ4x8YC1LJtEKsRGDgjw..

You can find coverage of the developing story here:
http://progressnow.pnstate.org/site/R?i=xSMQhVqPbFuyDvr_MgAylg..

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