Democratic Senate hopeful Paul Hodes is expected to weigh in definitively on the pending, national health care reform bill.

     Last week, the cautious, two-term Congressman Hodes said he’d take time to read the 1,900-page measure that his New Hampshire colleague, Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, had endorsed.

      Hodes has already embraced the concept of a public option and this latest version permits states like this one to opt out if its Legislature so chose.

      Anything short of support from Hodes would be a surprise and a big setback for the US House leadership that can’t afford many defectors.

      Meanwhile, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn, R-TX, said that for the time being he’s through picking primary winners and losers ahead of the vote after that nasty GOP skirmish that cost his party a New York congressional seat that it had held for a century.

      The committee has yet to endorsed in the NH Senate race but the PAC opened their headquarters for a major fund-raiser and kicked in $10,000 to former Attorney General and GOP Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte.

   Ayotte, a Nashua resident, returns to her grade school alma mater to make the 2 p.m. announcement that has been several months in the making.

    The Sunday Telegraph first reported when Ayotte would make the plunge and that it would be in her hometown.  It took a few weeks of logistics to get school officials to agree and set the ground rules for the venue.

  [-] KEVIN LANDRIGAN [-]

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   Former Gov. and Republican State Chairman John H. Sununu has snagged a heavy hitting GOP figure for a fund-raiser next month.

    House Republican Leader John Boehner will headline the $100-per-person event at the Grappone Center in Concord Nov. 13.

     Boehner is one Washington political figure with big ambitions who has not been a Granite State frequent flyer.

      The last time he visited here was for the unsuccessful, re-election of then-NH Congressman Charles Bass.

   [-] KEVIN LANDRIGAN [-]

  While state Democratic leaders remain focused upon Republican Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte’s big fund-raising trip to Washington today,  Democratic Paul Hodes is raising his own cash today.

    Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley is Hodes’ special guest for today’s event at Cornerstone Public Affairs, a DC lobbying group.  

    Tickets are at least $500 a head for individuals and $1,000 for political action committees and can run more than double that amount for PAC ($2,500 to co-host).

     On Sept. 30, IL Sen. Dick Durbin hosts a fund-raiser for Hodes with the same ticket prices at the Phoenix Park Hotel.

    State Democratic leaders have critcized the Republican National Senatorial Committee for co-hosting an event for Ayotte who still faces a likely primary challenge in 2010 from Manchester Republican lawyer Ovide Lamontagne and Republican National Committeeman Sean Mahoney of North Hampton.

- Kevin Landrigan -

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<ET

   Former US Sen. John E. Sununu will confirm tonight that he will not seek a vacant Senate seat in 2010, opening up a scramble for potential, Republican candidates.

     Sununu, 44, lost a tight and expensive rematch to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in 2008 and since then has landed some key appointments to corporate boards and a seat on the congressional oversight board on the TARP money.

]      The Sunday Telegraph first foreshadowed this move that Sununu was not retiring but taking a haitus from electoral politics when two of his brothers and former political director decided to form their own lobbying-consulting firm.

          The decision will no doubt cause some Republican heavyweights to try and convince their freshest face,  Attorney General Kelly Ayotte of Nashua, to get into the 2010 Senate campaign.

          Multi-millionaire investor Fred Tausch of Merrimack is a likely candidate and Manchester lawyer Ovide Lamontagne is also seriously considering a bid as is former Congressman Charles Bass.

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   The entry of former, Democratic State Sen. Bobby Stephen into the Nashua mayoral campaign today sure complicates things for Manchester GOP Sen. and fellow candidate Ted Gatsas.

    For several weeks, Gatsas had been trying through back channels to convince Stephen, a retired, state jobs official, to stay out of the fight to replace Frank Guinta who is running for Congress in 2010.

     But Stephen has always had his own mind and the name remains familiar in the city given his son, John, ran for Congress himself twice and served as the state’s health and human services official.

    Now, Gatsas finds himself in the uncomfortable middle of an ideological sandwich in this race between the more liberal, Ward 1 Alderman Mark Roy and the more conservative Stephen.

     While in the Senate, Stephen was a favorite of GOP governors and Senate presidents back then opposing both broad-based taxes and liberal Democratic spending schemes.

     Now Gatsas has to uncomfortably wait to see whether Stephen goes after the level off spending in city budgets that Gatsas has played a big role in.

      To be sure, the self-made, multi-millionaire Gatsas can outspend anyone in this race but once you get up around $250,000 in this kind of race, any additional money amounts to citizen harassment that has little utility in turning more voters out.

     This one will be interesting.

   Gregg’s lead over Hodes, 52 percent to 36 percent for Hodes, is much larger than the five-point lead [-] a virtual dead heat [-] that Sununu has over Hodes.

     Sununu leads with 46 percent to 41 percent for Hodes with 2 percent picking someone else not named and 11 percent undecided.

     Gregg has already said he does not intend to run next year. Hodes has said he’s in the Senate race whether Gregg is or not.

    Sununu, who lost re-election last November to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, has been silent on his future plans.

     The University of New Hampshire Survey Center did the telephone poll of 503 adults from April 13-22.

      The margin of error for the match-ups is plus or minus 4.4 percent.

       Gregg remains the most popular member of the delegation but all four grew more unpopular since the last survey in February.

        Among those living in the First District of Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, just as many said they were favorable (38 percent) as were unfavorable (37 percent) with the rest not knowing her or having no opinion (25 percent).

      Shea-Porter has already said she intends to run for a third term in 2010.

      Last week, Manchester Mayor Frank Giunta formed an exploratory committee to seek the First District Republican nomination next year.

[-] Kevin Landrigan [-]

   Democrats stepped up their get-out-the-vote effort eight days in advance of a State Senate special electon.

    The political office of Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, D-NH, sent an e-mail blast urging supporters to devote as much time and $$$ as they’re able to help elect Democrat Bud Martin of Sandwich in Senate Dist. 3 on April 21.

     Martin’s opponent, ex-Republican Congressman Jeb Bradley, lost elections to Shea-Porter in 2006 and last November.

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