Pun Salad

Pun Salad tends to concentrate on its own dreadful Congresscritter, Carol Shea-Porter. But New Hampshire has two Congressional Districts: NH-02 is currently represented by just-as-bad Democrat Paul Hodes (who plans to run for the US Senate seat currently occupied by Judd Gregg).

One of the GOP candidates for the NH-02 seat is its previous inhabitant, Charlie Bass. (Hodes beat him in 2006.) He's making fiscally conservative noises about "big government" and "out of control" spending. Over at GraniteGrok, Skip gathers a bunch of reasons why conservatives might want to look elsewhere. Looking back at my archives, I have a few reasons of my own:

• In 2005, Charlie was one of only 38 Republicans to vote against the Online Freedom of Speech Act. It would have kept the FEC's regulatory paws off the web. But Charlie stood up for the regulators and against free speech.

• Back in 2005, Charlie was deemed one of 15 Republican bedwetters by a RedState blogger, deftly snarling GOP efforts to pass a spending reduction bill.

• Charlie only managed to grab 200th place on the Club for Growth's 2006 Congressional Scorecard.

• Charlie was a co-sponsor of the dreadful REAL ID act, and the almost-as-dumb Unlawful Internet Gaming Act.