Horn says ‘Hodes responsible for economic crisis’

Congressional candidate Jennifer Horn (R-Nashua) issued a press release that said her opponent has done nothing to deal with the current economic situation.

Horn said that U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes (D-Concord) has accepted $141,000 in campaign donations from financial service companies, which resulted in Hodes "looking the other way." The Hodes campaign responded that Hodes has fought for "tighter regulation and oversight."

"In 2006, Paul Hodes criticized Charlie Bass for sitting on the Energy and Commerce Committee and not protecting New Hampshire consumers while taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the very industries he is supposed to be regulating," Horn said in a press release. "In 2008, we are in an economic crisis and Paul Hodes sits on the Financial Services Committee.  He looked the other way, while taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the industries he is supposed to be regulating."

The Hodes campaign said that the freshman congressman has fought for oversight regulation.

"Congressman Hodes has aggressively pursued tighter regulation and oversight on the financial services industry.  He fought to end predatory lending in 2007 and this year he fought for common sense proposals like making sure lenders weren't overextending families and created the HOPE for Homeowners program that helps distressed families with their mortgages," Mark Bergman, Hodes spokesman, said in a statement.

Bergman also said Horn is using "Bush-like talking points."

"For a candidate that seems to deride finger pointing, she again pointed the finger and fired partisan Bush-like rhetoric with no plan and no new ideas to solve our economic problems," Bergman added.

Also this morning the New Hampshire Democratic Party issued a press release that alleges Horn is taking "backdoor contributions" by allowing the National Republican Congressional Committee to run campaign ads.

"While Jennifer Horn today stood in Concord to criticize Congressman Hodes for taking financial institution dollars, she took backdoor contributions from the exact same institutions," the release read. "Yesterday, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) donated Horn over $80,000 to run her misleading negative television attacks. The NRCC has taken over $400,000 from the same financial institutions that Jennifer Horn is attacking Congressman Paul Hodes for taking."