Rubens on Brown Running: 'It's a Free Country'

When it comes to confronting the “rock star” coverage of former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown’s entrance into the New Hampshire 2014 Senate race, former state Sen. Jim Rubens, another candidate vying for the Republican nomination, says bring it on.

“It’s a free country,” Rubens said yesterday outside the Statehouse where he met with reporters to talk about Brown finally announcing his intentions. “We have a demanding, discerning primary voter in our state. We have seen Washington politicians sent into our state and dispatched, with haste, on some occasions.”

Other than that, Rubens had little else to say about Brown and instead, focused on why he was running – to bring new ideas to the Senate that both Democrats and Republicans could focus on together, in an effort to move the country forward, and bring an end to the party gridlock.

Rubens noted that he had been able to do that before, as a state Senator, bringing electric deregulation and charter school legislation, Republican ideas that were also supported by Democrats, into law. He said “new ideas” that would focus on “more freedom, more innovation in the economy, more private sector choices, that solves these problems and improve people’s lives” would be his focus if elected – keeping his Republican values while also garnering support from Senate Democrats who also care basic principles.

To combat Brown, who now lives in Rye, former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith, who also once held the seat, conservative activist Karen Testerman, and online columnist Andy Martin, Rubens has focused on creating a coalition of supporters that he believes will help him win the primary and ultimately, defeat incumbent U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, in November. He’s received the backing of former U.S. Sen. Gordon Humphrey, R-NH, the former holder of the Senate seat and a well-known social conservative while at the same time, getting the backing liberty-minded Republicans and independents that are moderate on social issues. Rubens said such a strategy was the only way a Republican candidate could beat the incumbent.

“We need to unite the Republican Party,” he said. “There’s a desire among some candidates to kick out parts of the party … some people don’t want Tea Party people or who don’t want Libertarians; some people don’t want moderates in the party. We are the only party that can solve these problems. Our country is bankrupt. Our economy is not working. The government is spying on our emails … I’m pulling together the parts of our party that will pull independents in and bring women and young people back to our party.”

On Sept. 9, he said, voters in the Republican primary will have to chance to decide whether or not they support new ideas and solutions to the country’s problems, or the candidate that Washington has coronated, taking a mild jab at Brown and many establishment Republicans in the state who think he is the only candidate who can win.

“This is what primaries are for,” he said.  

Other 2014 Senate coverage can be found online in the Patch Elections section.