Fake Twitter Account Calls State Senator a ‘Fraud’

A Concord restaurant owner who also serves as a state Senator in the southwestern part of New Hampshire calls a new Twitter account attacking him “silly.”

Sometime in the morning of Aug. 26, an unknown political entity started a Twitter account called “Fraud Andy Sanborn” (@FraudSanborn) and began sending out Tweets about the Sept. 3, Senate President election. The first Tweet mentioned a Nashua Telegraph story from last week quoting unnamed political sources that Sanborn had yet to agree to back State Sen. Chuck Morse, R-Salem, in his effort to become Senate President in the wake of Peter Bragdon’s upcoming resignation from the post after taking the executive director's position at the Local Government Center. The article suggested that Sanborn may be willing to team up with Democrats to keep Morse from attaining the post, a move that happened in 2005 when then-Sen. Ted Gatsas teamed up with Dems to oust then-Senate President Tom Eaton, R-Keene. Other Tweets questioned Sanborn’s conservative credentials and questioned whether he really believed in Ron Paul’s principles.

The Twitter account was following about 90 different other Twitter accounts and had posted six Tweets by the early afternoon.

In a short interview on Aug. 26, Sanborn found it interesting that he was consistently getting attacked from both sides of the political aisle these days.

“I find it silly that on one day, they call me the most conservative senator in the state, and then the next day, they are calling me the most liberal senator in the state,” he said. “If they are going to attack me, they should probably pick one side or the other, and leave it at that.”

Sanborn added that he believed that most people in the Granite State knew the issues he stood for.

“The people of NH know that I became a state senator to make sure everyone has a job, to cut your taxes, and make sure government is being efficient with your money,” he noted.

A search of chatter about the Twitter account only yielded one response and a counter response. 

Political consultant Christopher Stewart of BFresh Consulting queried, "What's the over-under that @FraudSanborn is a Dem controlled Twitter account?" Harrell Kirstein, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire Democratic Party, countered: ".@FreshBuzz way under, that is so lame it has Pat Hynes name all over it."

There hadn’t been any mention that Sanborn was thinking about running for Senate president until the Nashua Telegraph offered its story last week. While he wouldn’t comment on his political future, press reports have stated that Sanborn had been thinking about a gubernatorial run in 2014.

Parody or fake Twitter accounts are a relatively new phenomenon in New Hampshire with, most recently, the former legal counsel of Gov. Maggie Hassan being targeted online with a phony account. Two years ago, former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown’s top political strategists admitted to having a phony account, targeting a potential Democratic rival.