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During a conspiracy-spinning interview with radio host Jack Heath Tuesday retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc called fellow Republican Chris Sununu a “Chinese Communist sympathizer” whose family business “supports terrorism,” and claimed he drove the governor from the U.S. Senate race.

“I derailed Gov. Sununu from running for Senate,” Bolduc said. “Let’s face it — the most powerful political family in New Hampshire made a decision not to run against a political outsider for the United States Senate.

“We ran a Sun Tzu-like campaign that brought to the forefront all of his flaws for serving at the national level as a U.S. Senator. And he surprised all of his supporters because in the 11th hour, he looked at the polls and there was no guarantee could beat Bolduc. And he can’t afford a loss based on his future ambitions in the political arena.”

A UNH Survey Center poll released in October found that while Sununu led Sen. Maggie Hassan 45-42 percent, Bolduc trails her 47-42 percent.

Bolduc also called Sununu a “Chinese Communist sympathizer” who’s “in business with Saudi Arabian companies that give money to terrorists. He’s a globalist world-government guy.”

While some of Bolduc’s rhetoric appears to be motivated by personal anger at Sununu’s unwillingness to back him in last year’s Senate primary, the retired general has embraced conspiracy theories as a central part of his campaign.

Bolduc is touting Trump’s fact-free claims about the Biden campaign stealing the 2020 presidential campaign.

Bolduc was also one of 124 retired generals and admirals who released a letter in May claiming the election was rigged in Biden’s favor. And his most recent campaign event headlined disgraced former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

“He was a lousy candidate when he was sane,” one NHGOP insider told NHJournal. “Running as a lunatic isn’t much of an improvement.”

They are the headlines every potential presidential candidate wants to see a month after the midterms:

• “Liz Warren Is Catching Fire” – Politico
• “Elizabeth Warren Has Arrived And So Have We” – Daily Kos
• “Elizabeth Warren’s Moment” – NBC News

“The storyline…is that the heart of the Democratic Party really wants Warren,” wrote Chris Cillizza of CNN.com, while Rep. Keith Ellison of the DNC  said on Face the Nation: “I think that right now people want an authentic candidate. Elizabeth Warren comes off as a very authentic person. So that is what people are gravitating towards.”

That’s quite a December for any candidate. Unfortunately for Liz Warren, that was December….2014.

Four years ago this week, MoveOn.Org was touting the Massachusetts liberal as the progressive’s rising star on their  “Run Warren Run news” website. (“We’re excited for week 2 of the Run Warren Run campaign…”) A few weeks later they would pour $250,000 into their “Draft Warren” efforts, backed by veteran Democratic campaigners like New Hampshire’s Kurt Ehrenberg and Blair Lawton of Iowa.

The effort lasted into the summer of 2015, with excited Democratic activists gathering more than 365,000 signatures trying to rally a reluctant candidate to run for president.

Iowa MoveOn member Saba Hafeez (University of Iowa campus organizer) and New Hampshire Democracy for America member August Tucker (an 18-year-old HS senior from Portsmouth, NH) delivered the petition to Sen. Warren in June, 2015

Four years later, the roles are reversed.

It’s hard to imagine a “Run Warren Run” grassroots wildfire today. Despite her highest of high profiles, polls among Democrats show her in the single digits in the 2020 race. Most Democrats in her home state of Massachusetts aren’t keen on her running.  And her decision to release a DNA test in her ongoing #Fauxcahontas fight with President Trump—just weeks before the midterms—was viewed bad timing and worse strategy.

And so now Liz Warren is trying to transform herself into the very obstacle she faced four years ago: The next Hillary Clinton.

In a story headlined “Elizabeth Warren Forges a 2020 Machine,” Politico reports that if Warren pulls the trigger on her POTUS campaign, “she’ll be rolling out arguably the most advanced and sweeping infrastructure in the Democratic field, a plug-and-play campaign that could give her a massive head start on nearly every contender in the burgeoning primary roster.”  That includes $12.5 million in the bank and more than 50 people on her campaign payroll.

She’s “built a shadow war room….that has encompassed work in all 50 states and close coordination with more than 150 campaigns,” Matt Viser reports in the Washington Post. It’s an impressive tale. But is it true?

Some Democrats tell InsideSources off the record that they think this is largely spin from the Massachusetts senator, an attempt to build up her standing as a member of the 2020 short list.  “They’re pushing this 150 campaign number so it looks like she has a machine,” one New Hampshire Democrat told NHJournal. “But she’s no Hillary Clinton—at least, not yet.”

But could she be?  Hillary Clinton had the benefit of the Clinton brand, built on eight years in the White House and a narrow loss to the politically-talented Barack Obama in 2008.  Sen. Warren, on the other hand, is a Democrat in one of the most Democratic states in the country. The last Republican to win a general election campaign for the U.S. Senate was Ed Brooke in 1972.  (Scott Brown won a special election in 2010 and promptly lost to Warren two years later.)

In fact, according to data analyst Harry Enten of CNN, Warren is an underperforming Massachusetts Democrat. Adjusting for the high number of Democratic voters in her state, “Warren’s performance was the sixth worst of all Senate Democrats” in 2018, Enten says.

When it comes to 2018, all the standard caveats go here: It’s early, none of the best-known Democrats considering a run have even announced, the Iowa caucuses are more than 400 days away, etc.  But the stark contrast between the mood of progressives today and four years ago is hard to miss.  Instead of headlines like “A Democratic Party That Realizes Its Soul Lies With Elizabeth Warren,” the headline in the Wall Street Journal reads “Too Soon For Democrats to Dump Liz Warren?”

Yes, the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal lean right. But the headline from the left leaning Washington Post reads  “As Her DNA Test Still Reverberates, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Political Operation Shows Fissures.” Even her longtime allies at the Boston Globe have editorialized “Warren missed her moment in 2016, and there’s reason to be skeptical of her prospective candidacy in 2020.”

“She has become a divisive figure,” they added.

As Hillary Clinton demonstrated, you don’t have to have grassroots excitement or progressive bona fides to win the Democratic nomination. Bernie Sanders had both and she still beat him (with a little unauthorized help from the DNC).  But if Hillary couldn’t generate excitement, she could generate something else:

Fear. Few people wanted to cross Hillary Clinton, and fewer still wanted to fight against the first woman POTUS nominee of a major party among Democrats so focused on identity politics.

Liz Warren, unfortunately, has none of those advantages. There’s no cost to crossing her, there are at least three other women on the potential-candidates list, and the glass ceiling (for the nomination, anyway) has already been broken.

Four years ago, the chant was “Run Warren Run!”

Today, it’s closer to “Why, Liz? Why?”

For former Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, the Manchester, NH VA Medical Center was both his high point and his downfall. Now New Hampshire officials are wondering what his legacy will be for Granite State veterans.

Within hours of President Trump’s tweet announcing that he was firing Shulkin and replacing him with White House physician Navy Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, NH Rep. Carol Shea-Porter tweeted:

The next Secretary must protect the VA healthcare system from efforts to dismantle it. In August of last year, Secretary Shulkin made commitments to New Hampshire veterans. I still expect those commitments to be met. Anything less is unacceptable.

— Rep. Shea-Porter (@RepSheaPorter) March 28, 2018

Among those commitments: $30 million in new spending on the Manchester VA Medical Center–a high-profile pledge he made in Manchester, surrounded by state leaders, just weeks after firing the top two local VA officials.  Gov. Chris Sununu and other political leaders said they were pleased with the reform efforts of Secretary Shulkin. “It’s a new day, ” Shea-Porter said at the time. Manchester appeared to be a big win for Shulkin.

Unfortunately it also played a cameo role in his ouster. The VA secretary was unable to shake the consequences of expensive (and questionable) taxpayer funded travel.  According to a damning Inspector General’s report, when confronted about apparently light, tourism-friendly schedule on an official trip to Copenhagen, Shulkin defended himself by pointing to the time he spent “handling of matters relating to a media crisis that developed relating to allegations of substandard care at the Manchester VA Medical Center.”

It appears Shulkin mishandled the entire “luxury travel” scandal. As USA Today reports:

He first blasted the VA inspector general’s findings that he improperly accepted Wimbledon tickets and airfare for his wife during the 10-day junket. He then refused to accept the determination that his chief of staff misled ethics officials to get clearance for his wife’s airfare, suggesting instead that her email had been hacked. Shulkin later expressed regret and repaid the cost of the tickets and airfare. But he also complained that the appointees were targeting and undermining him.

That’s not what President Trump wanted to hear. But it could be music to the ears of VA reformers urging that veteran’s health services be handled by the private sector, the so-called “privatization” issue. A source close to VA leadership told NHJournal:

“Shulkin enjoyed tremendous support from the Veterans Service Organizations because they knew he wouldn’t privatize. Veterans are proud of their service and the benefits they’ve earned.  VA Healthcare is one of those benefits.”

Privatization is also clearly on the minds of New Hampshire’s politicians. Rep. Annie Kuster posted on her FB page:

I was disappointed by the misuse of taxpayer dollars by Secretary Shulkin that eroded the trust of the American people. Unfortunately, I have serious concerns that his firing today will strengthen efforts to privatize operations within the Department of Veterans Affairs. I’ve spoken with many Granite State veterans who fear the loss of camaraderie and the full recognition of their veteran status that comes with receiving care at the VA.

Privatization of the VA health system has long been the goal of economic conservatives, but they’ve always lacked the political support to get it done. It seems highly unlikely that the new VA Secretary, a White House doctor with a military background, is going to lead that ideological charge.