Race between Bradley and Stephen a real inner-Republican mud fight

Easily the most heated of tomorrow's primary elections, the Republican contest in the 1st Congressional District between Jeb Bradley of Wolfeboro and John Stephen of Manchester promises to test the conservative mettle of GOP voters.

Bradley is seeking to regain the seat he held for two terms before losing it to Democrat Carol-Shea-Porter of Rochester in a stunning 2006 upset. Four years earlier Bradley topped seven rivals, including Stephen, to win the GOP primary with less than a third of the vote, as the more-conservative vote split among several candidates. This time around, Republicans are witnessing a head-to-head contest which has been bitterly fought across the fault line dividing their party.

The district covers much of the eastern portion of the state, reaching from the Massachusetts line in the south, along the Seacoast and north to the Lakes Region to divide roughly into two halves, the thickly populated south (Portsmouth and Manchester) and more rural north (Lakes Region and Mt. Washington Valley). All Belknap County towns except Tilton and Sanbornton are included.

Bradley and Stephen bring very different backgrounds, experiences and temperaments to the race.

Bradley regularly reminds his listeners that he worked in the family hardware store in Wolfeboro as a youngster, but less often mentions that after graduating from Tufts University in 1974, he lived in Switzerland, where for a spell he performed as a street magician. After returning to the United States in 1981, he and his wife Barbara opened an Evergrain Natural Foods, a business they operated until 1997. Bradley, who touts his experience as a small businessman, also ran a painting firm and managed real estate. An enthusiastic hiker, Bradley has climbed all 48 of New Hampshire's 4,000-foot peaks. Despite an investment portfolio once reported worth more than $5-million, Bradley wears his wealth lightly, often beneath a well-worn, faded Red Sox cap.

Stephen's career has taken no detours. A native of Manchester, where his father Bobby was celebrated boxer, restauranteur and Democratic state senator, he graduated from Trinity High School and the University of New Hampshire before completing his education at the Detroit School of Law, where he was managing editor of the law review. Between 1988 and 1992, he served as assistant county attorney in Hillsborough County and from 1992 to 1998 as an assistant attorney general at the New Hampshire Department of Justice. Stephen spent the next five years at the Department of Safety as the assistant to Commissioner Richard Flynn, who was among the most powerful figures in state politics for much of his 35-year tenure. In 2003, Governor Craig Benson picked Stephen to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

Bradley, at 55, is ten years Stephen's senior, entered public life as a member of the Wolfeboro Planning Board in 1986 and three years later was elected to the Budget Committee. A registered Democrat, that same year he became a Republican and in 1990 was elected to the first of five terms in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. He was among the architects of the Clean Power Act and, as chairman of the Science, Technology and Energy Committee, led the effort to deregulate and restructure the electric utility industry. As a lawmaker, Bradley pursued a collaborative approach to addressing issues by reconciling competing interests and reaching across the aisle.

Serving his entire career in the executive branch, first as a prosecutor than as an administrator, Stephen has developed a different style and perspective. Like Flynn, who he considers a mentor, he works with boundless energy, routinely reaching the office at dawn and leaving after dark. Once he sets a course, he pursues it doggedly, a trait that often put him at odds with legislators of both parties, along with Governor John Lynch during his stormy tenure as commissioner of Health and Human Services.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the campaign between the two quickly turned downright nasty. Stephen and his surrogates, particularly former 2nd District Congressman Chuck Douglas who co-chairs his campaign, have sought to brand Bradley as a "moderate"— and worse a "liberal" and "echo" of Shea-Porter and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Time and again, Stephen has hammered on a theme that describes his opponent as "part of the problem" in Washington, recalling that as a congressman, Bradley frequently voted for "wasteful spending," like the 2005 highway bill with 6,371 earmarks worth more than $24-billion, and charged that he still refuses to join GOP presidential candidate John McCain in pledging to eliminate earmarks. During last week's televised debate, Stephen repeatedly challenged Bradley to explain his votes for earmarks for "a teapot museum" and "snakes in Guam."

Likewise, Bradley stands charged with twice voting against legislation requiring a supermajority to increase taxes. "I want Mr. Bradley to explain why he abandoned conservative values," he demanded.

In defense, Bradley calls Stephen's pledge against earmarks "politically motivated" and insists that without an earmark, supported by Senators Judd Gregg and Sununu, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard would have faced closure with the loss of hundreds of jobs and an untold impact on the state's economy. At the same time, he reminded Stephen that when the younger man was assistant commissioner at the Department of Safety he asked the congressional delegation to submit earmarks to fund the purchase of equipment. He said that although he did not favor doing away with earmarks, he supported measures to bring them to an open vote and subject them to a line-item veto.

Striking back, Bradley charges that as commissioner Stephen sought to increase the department's budget by $438-million, a request Lynch called "a budget buster," and, above all, added to the burden of local property taxpayers across the state by shortchanging the county nursing homes to the tune of more than $20-million a year. When Stephen countered that he returned $143-million to taxpayers, Bradley shot back "you raised property taxes."

Bradley has pursued the same theme in a series of television ads, including one charging that Stephen's management of the department prompted an "investigation," which drew harsh cries of foul and demands for an apology from the Stephen camp. Undeterred, the Bradley campaign followed last week with two 30-second spots featuring a conservative stalwart, Representative Fran Wendelboe (R-New Hampton) and Republican Belknap County Commissioner Christopher Boothby of Meredith repeating the charges. "To make himself look good," Wendelboe claims, "John Stephen manipulated nursing home rates at the expense of local property taxpayers" while Boothby said that "John Stephen stuck every citizen in New Hampshire with higher property taxes."

As for the investigation, Wendelboe answered "I called for a state audit to get to the facts" and added that "the state auditors found 28 deficiencies on John Stephen's watch."

While taxes and spending have overshadowed the campaign, Stephen has not failed to remind voters that he is the genuine conservative of the two. "I am the only pro-life candidate," he proclaims. When to the dismay of the Stephen camp the National Rifle Association endorsed Bradley, former executive councilor David Wheeler pointed out that the New Hampshire Firearms Coalition gave Stephen an "A" rating while Bradley supported bills to require lock boxes and raise the pistol license fee 650-percent. Nor has Stephen let Bradley escape his past votes against drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore and to repeal the death penalty and provide free needles to addicts.

While Stephen hurls conservative tenets like a lance, Bradley has held them like a shield, protecting himself against fatal attacks without alienating his base at the center of the party. As a congressman he voted for legislation to discourage abortion abroad and a resolution to amend the Constitution to forbid same sex marriage as well as supported the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq, tax cuts, reauthorization of the Patriot Act and Medicare prescription drug program. Like Stephen, Bradley has pledged with Americans for Tax Reform to resist any effort to raise marginal income tax rates for individuals and business and has openly advocated a flat tax.

Stephen has pictured Bradley a loser, bearing responsibility for the debacle of 2006. "You had your chance and you failed us," he told him during the televised debate. "We lost the majority because we abandoned our values," he continued, "and Mr. Bradley was part of that."

Nevertheless, Bradley continues to enjoy widespread support within the GOP, particularly among past and present officeholders. Three-quarters of all the Republican state representatives in the First Congressional District, including ten of the 13 GOP lawmakers and a dozen county commissioners, among them all three in Belknap County, have endorsed him. He is backed by mandarins like former Republican National Committeeman Tom Rath, former United States Senator Warren Rudman former Congressman Charlie Bass, former House Speaker Donna Sytek and former party chairman Steve Duprey, a close confidant of McCain. Bradley also enjoys strong support among military families for his efforts on behalf of servicemen and veterans even after leaving office.

Nor is Bradley without some prominent hard-conservative supporters, including Wendelboe and Doug Lambert, whose blog GraniteGrok was among the first to endorse him. "Is he 100-percent perfect, no," said Wendelboe, "but he has come a long way from where he was." Lambert acknowledged his differences with Bradley, but said that he was in step with the district and, above all, electable.

Stephen draws his strongest support from the very conservative wing of the party. Along with Douglas, Flynn and Benson, he has the support of Gale Thomson, the widow of former Governor Mel Thomson, and Wayne Semprini, former party chairman. In Belknap County, his camp includes conservative activist Niel Young, Laconia Police Chief Mike Moyer, Meredith Selectman Colette Worsman , former laconia City Councilor Judy Krahulec as well as a number of well-known business owners from The Weirs.

Executive Councilor Ray Burton, long identified with the center of the GOP, was among Stephen's earliest and most important supporters. Burton's differences with Bradley appear to outweigh their political affinities. In 2005, when it was revealed that Burton knowingly employed a registered sex offender as a campaign aide, Bradley was among those, including Lynch and the entire Republican congressional delegation, who demanded his head. He kept his head and his seat, winning a 14th term on the council.

With Burton's support, Stephen expects to make a much stronger showing in the northern part of the district than in 2002. Although Stephen carried all 12 wards in Manchester, Bradley carried 64 of the 74 towns in the district and five of the six cities, — Dover, Laconia, Portsmouth, Rochester and Somersworth — more than enough to erase Stephen's 3,383 margin in the Queen City.

Last week, Secretary of State Bill Gardner predicted a low turnout with only 80,000 Republican voters casting ballots, which suggests between 40,000 and 50,000 votes in the 1st district. Although the conventional wisdom is that a low turnout favors the conservative candidate in a GOP primary, the race is considered a toss-up.