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Former NH Gov. and U.S. Senate hopeful Jeanne Shaheen launched her first campaign tlevision ad earlier today. "Maybe it's because her father worked in a shoe factory and her mother was a church secretary... maybe because she and her husband raised three daughters with the values her parents taught her…but Jeanne Shaheen gets it. She puts people first," said the ad's narrator in a matter of fact tone that could suggest that rival Sen. John Sununu may not. The campaign hopes will highlight her leadership and accomplishments which could be fading into memory for many. See the ad here.

GOP response was fast. "Jeanne Shaheen's ad rewrites history and masks her six years of failed leadership with campaign rhetoric. Shaheen's real record was long on blue ribbon commissions but short on leadership. Her legacy includes record spending, advocacy for a 2.5 percent sales tax and the statewide property tax, and failure to solve the education funding crisis that began on her watch," said N.H. Republican Party Chairman Fergus Cullen." “This kind of fluffy ad early in the campaign is typical Shaheen politics. The next step will come when Sen. Chuck Schumer and the Washington Democrats flood New Hampshire airwaves with hundreds of thousands of dollars in negative ads over the coming months."
TRUTH CHECK: SHAHEEN’S MISLEADING AD
Shaheen claims “and for the first time for many communities she made public kindergarten a reality.”
TRUTH: But, during Shaheen’s time as Governor, she vetoed bi-partisan school accountability legislation, failed to solve the education funding crisis that began on her watch, blocked efforts to improve teacher quality, and the state’s high school dropout rate climbed to more than twenty-five percent. Simply put, Jeanne Shaheen failed New Hampshire’s students.
Shaheen claims she would “cut taxes for the middle class not big oil.”
TRUTH: But, as Governor, Jeanne Shaheen signed the first-ever statewide property tax, vetoed a repeal of the death tax and also proposed a sales tax for the state.
Shaheen claims “66,000 new jobs while she was Governor.”
TRUTH: But, while Shaheen was Governor, New Hampshire lost more than 16,000 manufacturing jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in December 1996, the month before Shaheen took office, New Hampshire had 99,400 manufacturing jobs. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in December 2002, Shaheen’s last month in office, New Hampshire had 82,900 manufacturing jobs.
Shaheen claims she would “work to bring our troops home from Iraq.”
TRUTH: But, when Shaheen ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002, she said she supported President Bush’s goal for regime change in Iraq, including the use of military force. Shaheen even bragged that she “came out very early in support of the President on Iraq.” As late as September 2007, Shaheen said she did not regret her position, but when deciding to run for the U.S. Senate, Shaheen flip-flopped and said she regretted that position and now opposes the war in Iraq.
I could be wrong but I think this means they didn't like the ad.

Post mortems for Hillary
It's bad enough that Hillary Clinton is having to work triple time just to get some attention to remind people that the race isn't really over and she does have some, ah, hope but the post-mortems for her historic and spirited campaign have already begun to flow -- and the quality will be uneven. Evidence 1: The New York Times today has an embarrassing piece of pundititis that emphasizes the conventional wisdom trivial and ignores some of the issues and historical forces at play. Anybody paying even the slightest attention on the trail knew that the Iraq war vote was going to be a big issue and the more Clinton tried to finesse it, the worse it looked and the more it painted a pciture, unfair or not, of a calculating pol who wanted to have her tough guy cake and eat it too.

Evidence 2: Obama supporter Ariana Huffington has an appreciative piece celebrating Hillary's run on Huffington Post. "It is to her great credit that very shortly into the '08 race, when you saw Clinton on television, you didn't think, "Oh, there's the woman running for president." That is no small feat for a woman trying to break into a male-dominated arena. So the next time a woman -- or two or three -- runs for president, it won't be seen as a novelty act. Because Hillary certainly wasn't," Huffington wrote.

Sunshine strategy: blame the media
On the attention getting front, Clinton will head to Florida on Wednesday, her campaign said yesterday. Hmm, why o why, Florida? Maybe there's a premiere of Recount somewhere in South Beach. Meanwhile, CBS News' blogger Ryan Corsaro reports that Bill and Hillary are playing the blame media card with gusto. "First of all, by their own admission, this has been the most slanted press coverage in American history. Secondly, they declared her dead more times than a cat’s got lives," Bill Clinton told a Lexington, Ky. audience Monday night. It's no wonder that the folks in Hillaryland praise Fox News for their coverage (calculated pro-Hillary; mostly because they love to hate her and would love to keep hating in the general election) and that Hillary has taken to using Karl Rove's analysis that she would be most formidable rival for John McCain. Funny, how we didn't hear that blame media stuff when so many cosndiered her an inevitable shoo-in last year. But that was then...

SuperD update
Since last night, Obama has added Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Scott Brennan and Guam Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo. The latest count by the Obama campaign:"Bordallo is the 306.5th superdelegate to endorse Obama, who is 107 delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination."