Bass says constituent services is what it's all about

NASHUA, N.H. --U.S. Rep. Charles Bass and Mayor Bernie Streeter teased each other about who told worse jokes as they rode to City Hall, where Bass shook hands and handed out campaign fliers Thursday morning.

Bass said he once told a mother-in-law joke at an event and promptly got a call from his own mother-in-law. As a politician, bad jokes come with the territory.

And that's how Bass views the recent criticism he received over comments he made promoting a fellow Republican -- Vermont congressional candidate Martha Rainville, who's running for the seat being vacated by socialist-leaning Rep. Bernie Sanders, originally from Brooklyn.

"Bernie Sanders and his Sandernistas can go back to taxi-driving in the Bronx of New York City where they came from," he said at a Republican event in Fairlee, Vt. The recorded comments have since spread far and wide via the Internet.

"This is a bigoted racial slur," Harold Judd, of Bow, wrote in a letter to the Concord Monitor. "Shame on Mr. Bass for his intolerant hate speech."

"It's the silly season," Bass, 54, reflected Thursday. Bass has apologized if he offended anyone. "This emotion builds up approaching the election," he said. It passes just as quickly, he argued.

This is Bass's eighth congressional election and he's no stranger in Nashua.

Thursday morning, Bass helped cut the ribbon at the new Nashua Senior Activity Center, a project he helped fund with a $785,000 federal earmark.

Rhona Charbonneau, of Hudson, who served in the state Senate with Bass in 1988 and 1989, also attended the ceremony and was quick to advise Bass on where he could place some campaign signs in the area.

"He works for his constituents," she said, explaining why she supports Bass.

At City Hall, Bass was greeted warmly by Esperanza Ward in the city clerk's office. She assured him he had the vote of the city's Hispanics. Ward thanked him for all the work his Nashua staff had done to help the city's immigrants navigate the federal bureaucracy on their way to becoming citizens.

Bass, who's being challenged for the second time by Concord Democrat Paul Hodes, said he is proud of the attention he gives to his constituents and counts that as key to his political success.

"Government is bigger and bigger and bigger every day, and people need to feel they have a connection to it," he said.

Bass set up offices in Nashua, Concord, Littleton and Keene and hired six "case workers" whose job it is to help his district's residents. In contrast, 1st District Rep. Jeb Bradley has two case workers.

An act of kindness goes a long way in a state like New Hampshire, Bass said. "All politics is local," he noted.

It doesn't hurt to have a well-known family either. In just a few hours in Nashua, several people mentioned Bass's father, Perkins Bass, who served as congressman in the same district from 1955 to 1963. Charles Bass's grandfather, Robert P. Bass, was governor from 1911 to 1913.

Bass's earliest memories include listening in at dinner parties hosted by his parents. "I didn't understand why people were arguing," he recalled.

Soon, he'd come to see policy debates as a regular part of life, something that would eventually inspire him to follow in his father's footsteps, he said.

The political climate this fall has been hard on Republicans and someday he said he'll call it quits.

For now, though, there's energy policy, global warming and telecommunications legislation to prepare and still many constituents to help.

"I'll keep running as long as I'm excited about the contributions and the work that I can do," he said.