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Outgoing New Hampshire GOP Chairman Wayne MacDonald tells NHJournal he has “major concerns” over ending the policy of party neutrality in the 2020 POTUS primary and supporting incumbent President Donald Trump.

“Anyone should be able to run for the nomination. Donald Trump is the president, and his record should be considered. But until our nominee is chosen by a vote of the people, the party leadership needs to be neutral,” MacDonald told NHJournal.

Not everyone agrees. Bruce Breton, who was very active in Trump’s 2016 campaign in New Hampshire, finds the party’s policy of neutrality “deeply flawed.”  He has abandoned his bid for NHGOP Vice Chair in part because running for the office “would be contrary to my continued support of President Trump. As per our bylaws I would have to remain neutral in the upcoming 2020 campaign. It is my strong belief that those bylaws should be changed to reflect that the NHGOP would support an incumbent president.”

But MacDonald was adamant. “I understand the logic of wanting to support an incumbent president in your own party. But the nomination is something that is bestowed upon them by the voters,” MacDonald said, adding that the candidates and offices are irrelevant.

“This has nothing to do with Trump. We were neutral in 1992 when George H. W. Bush was president [and challenged by Pat Buchanan].  And it’s not just the presidency. Governor, senator, what have you—the party needs to remain neutral.”

MacDonald has served as state party chair three times, always as an appointee and never as an elected candidate. On Tuesday, he announced he won’t be running to keep the job.

“I’ve always enjoyed it, but it’s never been easy. People don’t leave the job when things are going well,” he noted wryly. “It’s an intense and exhausting experience.”

When news broke of MacDonald’s decision, Gov. Chris Sununu released a statement offering “sincere thanks to Chairman MacDonald for his steady leadership over these past few months. He had to step up to take on a tough challenge, served admirably, and I sincerely hope Wayne stays involved in the years ahead — the Republican Party is better off with Wayne MacDonald at the table.”

MacDonald told NHJournal he agreed with those who say the job should be a paid, full-time position for the GOP as it is for the New Hampshire Democratic party, adding: “I’m Scottish, so if they had offered to pay me, I wouldn’t have said ‘no.’”

“One big advantage Democrats have had is continuity. They’ve been able to build on their experiences from one cycle to the next. We’ve had very few chairmen serve back-to-back terms.”

MacDonald is right. Former NHGOP chair Fergus Cullen tweeted out the list of state party chairs since 2000. There have been eleven already, and only one—Jennifer Horn—served two consecutive terms.  “During this time, NHDems have had just two. They stuck with Kathy Sullivan and Ray Buckley not only after wins but after losses too,” Cullen tweeted.

MacDonald declined to endorse anyone to replace him, but he did share his biggest concern for the next chairman: “Fundraising.  That’s got to be the number one job.”

“And I don’t have a problem with going to Washington, DC for funding, as the Democrats do, that’s fine. The problem is that there isn’t this pile of money waiting for us in Washington to just scoop up and take back to New Hampshire. We’re going to have to compete for money there too,” MacDonald said.

He pointed out the example of former party chairman John H. Sununu. “He really was in a class by himself when it comes to state chairmen. He had been governor, he had all the contacts, and he raised a lot of money for the party.  But even he didn’t meet the $1 million fundraising goal he set for himself.”

“No matter who becomes the next chairman, fundraising is always hard.”

A progressive group led by former Attorney General–and possible 2020 POTUS contender– Eric Holder announced this weekend it’s targeting the Granite State in its push to “stop or prevent” what it calls “Republican gerrymandering.” This despite the fact that Democrats just took control of both houses of the New Hampshire legislature.

In a post on their website, the National Democratic Re-Districting Committee revealed the map of states they will be targeting in 2019 and 2020 as part of their efforts at what they call re-districting reform.  “During the 2019-2020 election cycle, the NDRC is targeting 12 states, including 3 gubernatorial races, 13 state legislative chambers, and one down-ballot race,” the NDRC says.

One of those governors is New Hampshire Republican Chris Sununu.

In fact, despite claims by Holder that his efforts at the NDRC are non-partisan (“We’ll go after Democrats if they try to gerrymander, too,” he said during a stop at St. Anselm College in June), all three of the governors his group is targeting are Republicans.  All of the legislatures on the NDRC list are controlled by the GOP, too, with the singular exception of Minnesota, where control of the legislature is split.

(from the NDRC website)

“They’re all states where we need to stop or prevent Republican gerrymandering,” the NDRC says.

One of the biggest promoters of Holder’s efforts here in New Hampshire has been Colin Van Ostern, the one-time Democratic campaign worker and gubernatorial candidate who’s now lobbying to replace Secretary of State Bill Gardner.  Having a partisan ally as the chief elections officer in the Granite State would be a boon to Holder and the NDRC.

It’s also likely to raise more questions about the wisdom of having an openly-partisan Secretary of State replace Gardner, who has earned praise from both sides of the aisle for his nonpartisan approach to the job.

Anyone who wants to be the next president needs to protect seniors, not drug company profits.

 Congress did a good thing earlier this year when it passed a law to help America’s seniors pay less for their prescription drugs. But now, big drug companies are spending millions trying to strong-arm members of Congress into breaking the deal just to boost their own profits.

This would be a terrible blow to seniors. Over 40 million older Americans rely on the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit to help them pay for life-saving medicines. Unfortunately, an increasing number of them have to decide between putting food on the table and filling their prescriptions.

Consider this: AARP’s Public Policy Institute found that the average annual retail price for widely-used brand name prescription drugs was nearly $6,800 in 2017. For the average older American who takes 4.5 brand name prescription drugs on a chronic basis, their annual cost of therapy would have been more than $30,000—over 20 percent higher than the median annual income for Medicare beneficiaries.

In a 2015 AARP survey of the 50+ in New Hampshire, 85% said that affording health care/prescription drugs was extremely or very important to them.  What’s more, nearly half (48%) said they worry about being able to afford their prescription drugs.

The law passed earlier this year required drug manufacturers to provide a bigger discount on their brand name drugs for the Medicare beneficiaries who are in the Part D donut hole. This critical reform, if allowed to continue, would save seniors an estimated $6.7 billion between 2020 and 2027.

PhRMA wants Congress to roll back this year’s Part D deal, which would deliver $4 billion more in profits to pharmaceutical companies over 10 years. The industry is the last one that needs to make more money off of seniors and taxpayers. In 2016 alone, Medicare Part D paid $141 billion to drug companies.

These same big drug companies who reap tens of billions of dollars annually from Medicare Part D are trying to get Congress to reverse the savings it delivered to seniors earlier this year. These companies are spending millions on advertising and lobbying targeting Congress. What a waste!  Those millions could be devoted to developing drugs to treat diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

And there’s an ironic disconnect.  President Trump has been talking a lot lately about how unfair it is that Americans pay the highest drug prices in the world. But just months after Congress made progress toward lowering drug costs, some members of Congress are preparing to side with the drug lobby rather than look after their own constituents’ interests, which align with the President’s position.

A deal is a deal.  AARP’s 230,000 members in New Hampshire are not going to sit by and let this happen.

Senators and others who want to be President, take note. When you come to our community, be prepared to show that you have what it takes to stand up to big drug companies. Older Americans vote – a majority of voters in the 2018 election were over 50 – and they will remember whether presidential candidates stand by seniors or sided with big drug companies to raise the cost of prescription

“If Democrats pick Colin Van Ostern today, they are voting to elect Secretary of State [Bill] O’Brien tomorrow.”

That’s the warning of one longtime New Hampshire politico to NHJournal.com regarding Tuesday’s legislative vote for Secretary of State. Once Democrats turn the job into a plum gig for loyal partisans, it will never go back.

This is the sentiment many NH political activists and observers expressed to NHJournal as the Secretary of State election approaches.

“I hate to be alarmist, but I really believe that if New Hampshire loses its place as the ‘First in the Nation’ primary, America loses something. And if New Hampshire loses our reputation for having an even-handed, non-partisan Secretary of State, we will be in real danger of losing that primary.”

So says political consultant Josh McElveen, who has been pointing out the dangers posed by Colin Van Ostern’s openly-partisan advocacy for the office. He’s organizing a rally on Monday morning at 10:30am outside the LLB in Concord to remind legislators of what is at stake.

“If we have a Secretary of State with a partisan agenda, one who’s raised more than $250,000 dollars from partisan sources—people who gave that money with some sort of expectations—those outside of New Hampshire who want to take away our ‘First in the Nation’ status will use that against us,” McElveen told NHJournal.

Many Democrats reject the argument that electing Van Ostern in any way endangers New Hampshire’s place on the primary calendar. “Gardner did not create NH’s reputation as a state where anyone can run for President and launch a national campaign,” former New Hampshire state rep and outspoken Democratic activist Judy Reardon tweeted. “See primaries before he became SoS – 1968 (McCarthy) and 1972 (McGovern) for example.”

But the argument against Van Ostern isn’t that he’s a Democrat—Gardner is, too. Instead, the concern is over the fact that Van Ostern is a partisan political activist who was his party’s nominee for governor in 2016 and is widely expected to run for elective office in the future.

“I have kept my pledge not to use this office as a stepping stone. I’ve never run for office and I never would,” Secretary Gardner told NHJournal. “My opponent has only pledged not to run ‘in 2020.’”

At the Union-Leader, Kevin Landrigan reminds readers that Van Ostern began his campaign for the Secretary of State’s job with a pledge to “do everything in my power to help elect a legislative majority in support of [his] platform. I intend to recruit and campaign and raise money for these candidates,” Van Ostern said at the time.

He soon backed away from that pledge, but as Landrigan reports, his allies and former aides stepped up and money flowed to Democratic legislative candidates, anyway. This is hardly a surprise given Van Ostern’s background as a political operative.

Notably absent are New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate Democrats, neither of whom have endorsed Van Ostern for Secretary of State despite supporting his previous candidacies.

“This is a matter for the Legislature to decide,” Sen. Maggie Hassan said in a statement, while a spokesperson for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s office simply said she “is not getting involved in the race.”

“If the Secretary of State’s job devolves into a partisan political office with partisan practices like fundraising and campaigning, it will never go back,” McElveen said.

A Republican state house insider had a similar message for NHJournal: “How many times have the Democrats had control of the legislature? Something like less than 10% of the last 100 years. A vote for Van Ostern now is a vote for a hardcore conservative in 2020 when the GOP takes over the legislature.”

And another GOP activist put it even more bluntly: “They have no idea what they’re going to unleash. What—do they think we’re going to watch them elect someone like Van Ostern, and then when we take back the House, we’ll bring Billy [Gardner] out of retirement?”

A GOP majority in 2020 is hardly a certainty. What is all but certain, however, is that there will be a Republican legislative majority in the New Hampshire General Court again. And if history is any guide, in the near future.

Democrats may want to keep that in mind as they cast their votes on Tuesday.

A new study finds that New Hampshire residents are among the most generous in the U.S.  The study was released by the data analysis group WalletHub.com on #GivingTuesday, a day encouraging acts of generosity during the holidays.

“In the spirit of inspiring altruism, WalletHub determined the most charitable of the 50 states by comparing them across 18 key indicators of charitable behavior. Our data set ranges from volunteer rate to share of income donated to share of sheltered homeless,” the website reports.

The results? New Hampshire is the ninth most generous state in the nation, one of just two New England states (along with Connecticut) to make the top ten. In fact, Rhode Island ranks 50th out of 51 (DC is included). Massachusetts and Vermont can’t even crack the top 25.

Even more impressive, the Granite State also ranks third when it comes to the percentage of the population who donate their time to public service and is tied for second in the percentage of the population who donate money.

When it comes to the percentage of income donated to charity, however, New Hampshire ranks near the bottom. WalletHub ranks New Hampshire at #47 in percentage of donated income, and an analysis of IRS data by Business Insider puts Granite Staters at #46.  This is due in part to New Hampshire’s relatively high household income and also the fact that church attendance (and the weekly giving that goes with it) is relatively low.

#GivingTuesday was created by the nonprofit 92nd Street Y in 2012 to encourage people to make charitable giving part of their holiday season traditions. In 2017, participants raised $300 million in online donations for charitable causes.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has a new book out,“Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance, ”and he sat down with New Hampshire Public Radio on Monday to promote it. When asked if he is going to run for president in 2020, he said it depended on the reaction he got to his message that “we need an unprecedented grassroots political movement to stand up to the greed of the billionaire class and the politicians they own.”

Well, if Bernie really wants to battle “millionaires and billionaires,” all he has to do is file his papers for the 2020 Democratic primary. The list of 33 (and counting) potential 2020 candidates includes several billionaires, including former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, coal-magnate-turned-green-activist Tom Steyer and Starbucks ex-chief executive Howard Schultz, along with Dallas Mavericks owner/reality TV star Mark Cuban (who may or may not be a Democrat).

When it comes to “billionaires buying elections,” Steyer is the leader of the pack. With a net worth of $1.6 billion, Steyer has been the top individual donor in two out of the last three election cycles, giving a total of more than $226 million dollars over that period.  Steyer is open in his efforts to connect his donations to environmental policies he supports.

Steyer’s $59 million in this cycle was edged out this cycle by fellow billionaire liberal Michael Bloomberg (Net worth: $45 billion), who gave $61 million, much of it through his pro-gun-control efforts. Bloomberg is just as clear that he wants his money to impact public policy on the Second Amendment.

Big spending by these billionaires, however, doesn’t seem to bother Bernie. When asked about Bloomberg and Steyer, Sen. Sanders said Steyer “is a very decent guy,” while he said he didn’t know Bloomberg personally. Then Sanders went on to add:

“The issue that concerns me–it’s not just those guys– it’s that, as a result of Citizen’s United, we have a corrupt campaign finance system. The Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, they’re trying to buy elections. Billionaires shouldn’t be buying seats for themselves.”

But how is Tom Steyer, who has literally used his billions to build a campaign infrastructure many believe he will use to run for president in 2020, different from the Koch Brothers–other than the fact that they’re not running for anything, and their Americans for Prosperity Action PAC spent a measly $6.5 million this cycle?

The problem for progressives like Bernie Sanders and Liz Warren with their “millionaires and billionaires” schtick is that the Democratic Party has become the party of America’s wealthy elites. For every Republican billionaire like Sheldon Adelson (who was the top individual donor this cycle at $113 million) there are a dozen left-leaning tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Jeff Bezos at Amazon, or rich Hollywood millionaires and movie stars, or liberal activists like George Soros, etc. etc.

The Trump GOP is the party of rural working-class Americans more than it is “millionaires and billionaires.” And making the case that the rich are stealing democracy is tough when they are (based on the numbers) apparently “stealing it” for Democrats.

And why do the Democrats even need leftover rabble rouser Bernie Sanders?  Tom Steyer is at least as populist as Sanders–if not more so. Michael Bloomberg is at least a socially liberal–once again, if not more so. And there’s a whole bevy of college-student-friendly far-Left activists like Booker, Brown and Beto who haven’t achieved AARP status yet. For a guy who should be considered top dog for 2020, Sen. Sanders current poll numbers are unimpressive.

Bernie’s real problem isn’t “billionaires.” It’s his bad luck that the last real chance he had of being the Democratic nominee was stolen from him by Hillary Clinton and the DNC.

So what happened in New Hampshire on Tuesday? Here are all the numbers you need to know:

RECORD SETTING TURNOUT

Total turnout was about 580,000 ballots cast, “the first time we’ve broken the half a million mark in a midterm,” Secretary of State Bill Gardner told NHJournal, “and the first time we’ve had a midterm turnout higher than any presidential primary.”

“All that, on a day when we had bad weather, too. If people have the will to vote, they will make the effort–rain or no rain.”

NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTERS LOVE TO SWING

There were 573,735 votes cast in the race for governor: Gov. Chris Sununu, 302,838; Democrat Molly Kelly, 262,408.

Republican Sununu’s margin over Democrat Kelly: 40,430.

A total of 560,034 votes were cast for the major-party Congressional candidates: 310,320 for the two Democrats; 249,714 for the two Republicans.

The Pappas/Kuster margin over Edwards/Negron: 60,606.

That’s a 100,000 “swing vote” margin just in the top-tier races–about 18 percent of voters split their tickets for governor and Congress.

Or put another way, Republican Chris Sununu outperformed the two GOP congressional candidates by 53,000 votes, while Molly Kelly underperformed her Democratic colleagues by 48,000.

“It’s not that unusual, actually,” Gardner told NHJournal. “When Ronald Reagan ran in 1980, he won New Hampshire by a 2-1 margin. The same year, the Democrat running for governor won 2-1, too.”

(NHJournal checked, and Gardner was right: Reagan got 58 percent of the vote in New Hampshire in 1980, and incumbent Democratic governor Hugh Gallen got 59 percent.)

GOP TURNOUT WAS GOOD. DEMOCRATIC TURNOUT WAS BETTER

“The Democrats did an unbelievable job of drilling down into the lower-tier GOTV universes,” Greg Moore, Executive Director of Americans for Prosperity-New Hampshire, told NHJournal. “Net-net, they brought out 320,000 of their folks and the conservatives brought out 260,000.

“To put that into perspective, Eddie Edwards in the NH-01 race got 6,000 more votes than Republican Frank Guinta did in 2014–and Guinta won by 9,000 votes. Edwards lost by 24,000.”

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT. AND MOSTLY DEMOCRAT.

Billionaire Tom Steyer has been bragging for more than a year about the $1 million or so he planned to spend in New Hampshire getting college students out of their dorms and into the polls. His organization NextGen America had almost 40 paid workers covering the campuses, and according to NextGen’s New Hampshire comms person Kristen Morris, it worked. She tweeted:

THE GOP NEEDED A BIGGER WIN BY SUNUNU

It’s easy after a wave election–and that’s certainly what happened in New Hampshire–to simply be grateful the party held onto the governor’s office. But several NHGOP pros have noted that the governor’s race was closer than it should have been, and the rest of the ticket suffered.

“With a popular incumbent governor running for re-election against a hitherto unknown former state senator, Molly Kelly significantly out-raised and outspent him,” veteran GOP strategist Tom Rath told NHJournal. “And that should never happen.  Keeping the governor’s race close allowed the Democrats to make big gains down ballot.”

SHOW THEM THE MONEY

Final numbers aren’t in, but it’s clear that New Hampshire Democrats had a huge financial advantage, in part because of a massive amount of money donated through the ActBlue program at a national level (more than $1 billion in small-dollar donations alone), some of which made its way to New Hampshire.  And in part because Republicans did not raise the resources they needed.

“We’ve been outspent in the past,” outgoing Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley told NHJournal, “but not like this. This time it would appear our Democratic colleagues had so much money that it almost didn’t matter how they spent it.”

“Drilling down as deeply in their GOTV efforts as the Democrats did takes tons of money,” Greg Moore notes.

And GOP strategist Mike Dennehy is even more blunt: “If New Hampshire Republicans don’t figure out fundraising, they can kiss this state goodbye.”

ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL, NH VOTERS WANTED TO VOTE DEMOCRAT. 

At the Union-Leader, Kevin Landrigan picks up on the fascinating story of Manchester Republican Ed Sapienza.

“A lifelong Democrat, Sapienza changed his party affiliation to the GOP last spring to run for Hillsborough County Register of Deeds,” Landrigan reported. When nobody filed to run as a Democrat, some friends of Sapienza wrote him in during the primary and so his name appeared on Tuesday as both the Republican and Democratic nominee.

“In rock-ribbed Republican Merrimack for example, Sapienza the Democrat got 500 more votes than Sapienza the Republican did,” Landrigran noted.

That’s 500 more votes simply for being a Democrat.  That number pretty much sums up the 2018 midterm election in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire is the home of the “First In The Nation” presidential primary, and on November 7th it will be home of the first event of the 2020 presidential election cycle when nationally-known conservative leader Bill Kristol joins a panel of Granite State GOP insiders on the day after the 2018 midterms.

This free event, hosted by NH Journal and the SNHU College Republicans, will feature a panel analyzing the results of the midterm elections and the performance of the Republican Party.  Did the GOP hold the House? How did Republican candidates fare in swing districts like NH-01? And is a serious GOP primary challenge of President Donald Trump more or less likely?

All these topics will be covered by a panel to include:

• Bill Kristol – Co-founder of The Weekly Standard
• Chris McNulty – Causeway Solutions, Former RNC Political Director
• Ovide Lamontagne – 2012 NHGOP Gubernatorial Nominee
• Sen. Sharon Carson – NH State Senator
  
• Daniel Passen – Chairman, NH Federation of College Republican

So make plans now to join NHJournal and the SNHU College Republicans on Wednesday, November 7th, noon-1:30pm at SNHU’s Walker Auditorium in Manchester, NH.

The event is free but seating is limited, so advance registration is strongly recommended. Click here to reserve your seats.

According to the attorney representing Rep. Frank Sapareto’s alleged assault victim, the reason behind the New Hampshire Republican’s violent outburst was his “poor performance” during his porn shoot the day before.

“He wasn’t performing very well in his scenes or with the adult film actresses,” attorney Eric Dubin told NHJournal. “He was apologizing a lot to the female talent and his frustration carried over into the attack.”

When asked what the nature of the performance issue was, Dubin told NHJournal: “It’s not that they were going badly. Apparently they weren’t going at all.”

Dubin’s client, Jonathan Carter, alleges that Sapareto broke into his apartment and assaulted him, beating him so badly that Carter lost consciousness. According to the emergency department report from Adventist Health Simi Valley, Carter suffered a “closed-head injury with LOC.” [Loss of consciousness].

“Pt [patient] has scrapes to right chest, arm, left knee. C/O dizziness, disorientation. Left mandibular pain, headache, neck stiffness and mid back pain following assault when a very large man broke into the patient’s apartment and started punching him in the face,” according to the emergency room report.

Rep. Sapareto was previously found guilty of assault in 2013 and ordered to take anger management classes. He denies that the assault took place and points to the fact that local authorities in California declined to press criminal charges. Sapareto also told NHJournal that, while he admits to being the man seen with an adult film actress in a video released by Carter’s attorney, he claims it’s been “doctored.”

“I don’t know how he did it,” Sapareto told NHJournal. “He just does it. This [manipulating video] is what he does. He said he was going to destroy my political career and that’s what he’s trying to do.”

Sapareto says he went into business with Carter to create tourism videos for a Japanese audience, even creating an LLC called Standard Video here in New Hampshire. But then, Sapareto says, he was “set up.”

“The guy had me shoot all this video, in unusual positions, I didn’t know why,” Sapareto said.

For example, Sapareto admits that he is standing in the doorway of a video clip released by his alleged victim, but says the rest of the shot was manipulated to make it appear that he’s speaking to an adult film actress as she exposes her breast.

In response, Carter’s attorney released another, more explicit, clip showing a nude Sapareto in bed engaged in sexual activity with an actress.

A screen capture from video viewed by NHJournal

“I’m only talking to the press to respond to what Sapareto is saying,” Dubin told NHJournal in response. “I have a duty to my client. It’s been shocking to listen to Sapareto lie about every single aspect, from never having met my client, to claiming he was only stopped for a traffic ticket, to making a tourism video.”

Dubin, who was involved in the successful wrongful-death lawsuit against actor Robert Blake over the death of his wife, said he thinks the sex element is a sideshow. “The porn part isn’t relevant to me. It’s his willingness to lie that relates to my client’s case.”

But, Dubin added “it is surprising to see how far someone like Sapareto has made it up the political ladder in New Hampshire, even with a previous assault charge.”

As for the claim that the video is fake, Dubin told NHJournal: “I have seven hours of film that includes four separate sex scenes with four different actresses.  It’s 1000% him.”

Documents, images and videoclips obtained by NHJournal appear to back claims made in a lawsuit against Republican state rep and House Speaker candidate Frank Sapareto of Derry, claiming he was involved in a video project to produce porn–and that the male lead in the movie was the Republican legislator himself.

“Yes, I have seen the video. There’s hours and hours of it,” Eric Dubin told NHJournal. Dubin is representing Jonathan Carter, the plaintiff in a lawsuit claiming that Sapareto assaulted him due to the representative’s displeasure over the quality of the filming.

“My client lost consciousness. He was treated for a concussion in the emergency room,” Dubin said. “The idea that an elected official would completely lie about this is very disturbing. I’m not judging anyone’s personal behavior, but there are jobs that require public confidence.”

Dubin supplied NHJournal with images and a video clip to support his client’s claims.

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING CLIP CONTAINS NUDITY:

Dubin also provided an extensive email chain of communications between his client, Rep. Sapareto and at least on other person involved in the porn project. Many of the communications involve potential female performers and their willingness/availability to participate in the movie.

As of late Tuesday morning, Rep. Sapareto was assuring NHJournal that he was the victim of a “scam.”

“The guy [Jonathan Carter] is a dirtbag. He’s making a living off scams like this,” Sapareto told NHJournal. “This is a political hit job. He said he would kill my political career unless I paid him $5,000. And now he’s keeping his word,” Saparto said.

According to email correspondence between Sapareto and another person involved in the project, possible titles considered for the porn film—based on the premise of Rep. Sapareto playing the last male on Earth available to continue the human race after a horrific disaster—were:

• Last Sperm on Earth
• Armageddon Sperm Donor
• Doomsday Babymaker

Rep. Sapareto’s choice: Creampie Apocalypse.