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New Hampshire Republicans’ messy primary keeps getting more chaotic — and the potential candidates are already starting to go after each other. Last week, Kevin Smith, who infamously skipped Colorado Corky’s Confab, openly mocked the meeting on Twitter — and then jetted off to meet with Mitch McConnell’s top lieutenant Rick Scott to discuss running for U.S. Senate.
A day after he skipped Corky’s meeting, Smith replied to a tweet that said, “Analysis: Messner’s Millionaire Meet Up May Hurt Morse” with a meme saying, “When you do nothing in the group project and still get an A.” After mocking Corky’s confab, he traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with Mitch McConnell’s top lieutenant, Sen. Rick Scott, and professional advisers and consultants.
Smith’s eyebrow-raising response shows how deeply fractured the New Hampshire Republican Party is. Last week, the conservative Union Leader editorial board, the far-right activist website Granite Grok, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley all criticized the meeting. Meanwhile, Messner lashed out at his conservative critics in a radio interview as “useful idiots.” Smith’s tweet and the reports that he was meeting with Washington Republicans is the latest indication that the NH Republican Senate primary will be a GOP civil war, filled with chaos and “bloodletting.”