“I am lion, hear me roar…” Last Tuesday, that was what the Hon. Chris Sununu, current (and apparently future, at least for another year or so) governor of our great state of New Hampshire effectively declared when he decided to squelch the speculation that he would abandon his current office to seek a U.S. Senate seat.
The speculation, of course, was caused largely by the same Chris Sununu, who’s been having a field day flirting with national Republicans by portraying himself rhetorically (if falsely) as some kind of moderate with the ability to appeal to independents, an image he himself blew up by signing a bill banning all abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy.
It has become increasingly clear that an awful lot of women, and not just in New Hampshire, are really, really angry with Chris Sununu for throwing them under the anti-abortion bus with that legislation.
The bill, which goes into effect in January, has no exceptions for rape or incest or even fatal fetus diagnoses. And it mandates — no exceptions — that any woman seeking even a “legal” abortion submit to a medically unnecessary, expensive and burdensome ultrasound examination.
It also targets abortion doctors with serious criminal penalties.
Sununu is the first governor in modern New Hampshire history to sign an abortion ban. So much for his years of glibly and vaguely declaring himself “pro-choice.”
In the blowback from his self-outing as just another condition-setting male politician trying to supervise a woman’s personal medical procedure, the governor decided —surprise! — that maybe this isn’t the year for his debut on the national stage after all.
As my sister said, it appears he decided he’d rather be the biggest bullfrog in the New Hampshire pond than a lowly go-fer for Mitch McConnell in D.C.
“I like getting stuff done. I don’t think they could handle me down there. I’d be like a lion in a cage,” he blustered.
As the then-uncaged Sununu resumed prowling the famed Hall of Flags (occasionally growling just to startle a tourist or two), just to our south, in Manchester, the new generation of another GOP dynasty was making herself heard.
That would be Liz Cheney, daughter of and spiritual heir to gruff Dick Cheney, former vice president to George W. Bush and prominent war aficionado.
She was honored last week in Manchester with the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications First Amendment award for speaking out against the Republican Party’s abject surrender of its long-held principles to disgraced and defiant Donald Trump. In doing so, the party poohbahs have betrayed generations of decent conservatives.
Cheney, presumably with the strong support of her father, has become a one-woman crusade against the malign influence of Donald Trump in the formerly Grand Old Party, and she is unrelenting in her contempt for the former president.
She currently represents Wyoming in the 117th Congress and she’s determined to use her time there to bring some sort of justice to a man who, she believes, defiled the great office he held. And she made it obvious she feels that Republicans, if they’re to redeem their honor, must hold him and his accomplices (what else can we call them?) to account.
She is now vice-chairman (and one of the few GOP members) of the select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection and she told the Loeb dinner guests that she and her colleagues will get to the truth surrounding that day and that those who committed wrongdoing must be held accountable.
Her party, she said, must return to “being a party… based on substance and principles and truth.” And that means, she told the gathering, “reject falsehoods” put out by Trump and his enablers, including the lie that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
“Will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics, or will we… embrace the lies and enable the liar?” she asked. “There is no gray area when it comes to that question, when it comes to this moment. There is no middle ground.”
To her critics, Cheney told the dinner guests that “our institutions do not defend themselves. We, the people, defend them.”
“Our institutions held on January 6th because there were brave men and woman, elected officials at every level of government, who did their duty, who stood up for what was right, who resisted pressure to do otherwise.”
She is, of course, right. The question is whether any Republican ears, including those of Chris Sununu, will hear her. No question, though, that it was an interesting week in Republican circles in New Hampshire.
(Monitor columnist Katy Burns lives in Bow.)