Kuster Targeted in Radio Ad

It’s peak leaf-peeping season in New Hampshire and the federal government is shutdown, meaning 22 privately run campgrounds in the White Mountain National Forest are closed, prompting one local politico to take to the airwaves to target U.S. Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, D-NH.

Andrew Hemingway, a Republican activist who narrowly lost the chairmanship of the state party last year, has purchased advertising time on a number of radio stations that broadcast in and around the 2nd Congressional District to criticize Kuster for her role in the government shutdown.

At issue is the closure of the campgrounds which are run by a private contractor that pays the federal government a fee to operate. The contractor takes no government funding for its operations. According press reports, the contractor said that the U.S. Forest Service was being pressured to close the campgrounds, so the full effect of the shutdown could be felt, as the contentious showdown in Washington, D.C., between the president and Democrats in the Senate and Republicans controlling the House continues. 

The shutdown of the campgrounds is expected to cost the state a lot of money this weekend in lost tourist revenue, which angers Hemingway, a Bristol resident.

“These campgrounds cost the Fed Govt nothing!,” Hemingway said in an email. “In fact they make money, and the operators who run them, the gas station, and restaurants etc.”

Hemingway said that lost money is going to hurt Granite State families and he made the ad buy to “point out the hypocrisy of Annie Kuster by vowing to protect middle class families and then repeatedly voting against them.”

The spot is airing on radio stations with relatively heavy coverage area in the central to northwest part of the state including WTPL in Bow, Mix 94.1 FM in Franklin, WNTK in New London, WSCY in Moultonborough, “and a few others,” according to Hemingway.

“Congresswoman Kuster had a chance to prevent this and she voted no,” Hemingway stated in the ad, calling on listeners to visit his website, AndrewHemingway.com to sign a petition “and demand Annie Kuster stop supporting partisan political games ahead of New Hampshire’s economy.”

Hemingway said he hoped the petition would motivate Kuster to get back to work and stop harming people she campaigned to help.

Robert Friedlander, a spokesperson for Kuster, did not respond to requests for comment about the ad.