Brown Hints at Another Senate Race â€" in New Hampshire

If the special Senate election in Massachusetts has put the political cognoscenti to sleep, a possible race in neighboring New Hampshire may wake them up.

“I don’t think I’m done with politics," Scott Brown said Thursday at an event in Nashau, N.H., commemorating the anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination.

Scott Brown, who just turned down a chance to run again for the Senate in Massachusetts, is hinting that he might hop over the state line and challenge Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat who is up for re-election in 2014.

Asked Thursday if he might consider challenging Ms. Shaheen, Mr. Brown said, “I don’t think I’m done with politics, but I’m not going to rule out anything right now because I really haven’t thought a heck of a lot about it.” He spoke to reporters after delivering a speech in Nashua, N.H., on the anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination.

“New Hampshire’s like a second home,” Mr. Brown added. “I was born at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. My mom and sister and family live here. Spent summers here growing up. Have a house here. Been a taxpayer for 20 years.”

While any politician who appears in New Hampshire, which traditionally holds the first presidential primary every four years, is presumed to be running for something, Mr. Brown may just have been having a little fun with reporters who wondered why they had traipsed to Nashua to hear him give a speech.

“I think it’s just as plausible to think that Mr. Brown is trying to scare up some publicity for himself than that this was the opening foray into running against Ms. Shaheen,” Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire, said.

After all, Mr. Brown decided in February to opt out of the special election in Massachusetts to succeed John Kerry, now the secretary of state, saying he was exhausted from last year's Senate campaign, and he has just signed on with the law firm Nixon Peabody, in its Boston office. Mr. Brown is also a Fox News contributor.

But the Shaheen campaign is not waiting for any clarification of Mr. Brown’s intentions. On Friday morning, the campaign shot out a fund-raising letter warning supporters that Mr. Brown could try to run the kind of race he ran - and lost - last year against Elizabeth Warren in the most expensive Senate race in the country.

“This is serious,” the letter said. “Brown’s campaign spent $40 million in 2012. Most of it went to lie-filled attack ads.”

The campaign hopes that the mere threat of a Brown candidacy will prompt potential donors to open their wallets for Ms. Shaheen, who so far has no major Republican opponent. The fervent progressives nationwide who flocked to Ms. Warren have not been a natural base for Ms. Shaheen, but such activists might be persuaded to donate if it means stopping Mr. Brown from returning to the Senate.

And Mr. Brown may have concluded that it would be easier for a Republican to get elected in purple New Hampshire than in deep blue Massachusetts. He noted to reporters that he would be coming back to New Hampshire for several more speaking engagements over the next few weeks. The next is a luncheon on April 20 for the Grafton County Republican Committee, which is likely to draw an inordinate amount of news coverage.

Brown Hints at Another Senate Race â€" in New Hampshire

If the special Senate election in Massachusetts has put the political cognoscenti to sleep, a possible race in neighboring New Hampshire may wake them up.

“I don’t think I’m done with politics," Scott Brown said Thursday at an event in Nashau, N.H., commemorating the anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination.

Scott Brown, who just turned down a chance to run again for the Senate in Massachusetts, is hinting that he might hop over the state line and challenge Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat who is up for re-election in 2014.

Asked Thursday if he might consider challenging Ms. Shaheen, Mr. Brown said, “I don’t think I’m done with politics, but I’m not going to rule out anything right now because I really haven’t thought a heck of a lot about it.” He spoke to reporters after delivering a speech in Nashua, N.H., on the anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination.

“New Hampshire’s like a second home,” Mr. Brown added. “I was born at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. My mom and sister and family live here. Spent summers here growing up. Have a house here. Been a taxpayer for 20 years.”

While any politician who appears in New Hampshire, which traditionally holds the first presidential primary every four years, is presumed to be running for something, Mr. Brown may just have been having a little fun with reporters who wondered why they had traipsed to Nashua to hear him give a speech.

“I think it’s just as plausible to think that Mr. Brown is trying to scare up some publicity for himself than that this was the opening foray into running against Ms. Shaheen,” Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire, said.

After all, Mr. Brown decided in February to opt out of the special election in Massachusetts to succeed John Kerry, now the secretary of state, saying he was exhausted from last year's Senate campaign, and he has just signed on with the law firm Nixon Peabody, in its Boston office. Mr. Brown is also a Fox News contributor.

But the Shaheen campaign is not waiting for any clarification of Mr. Brown’s intentions. On Friday morning, the campaign shot out a fund-raising letter warning supporters that Mr. Brown could try to run the kind of race he ran - and lost - last year against Elizabeth Warren in the most expensive Senate race in the country.

“This is serious,” the letter said. “Brown’s campaign spent $40 million in 2012. Most of it went to lie-filled attack ads.”

The campaign hopes that the mere threat of a Brown candidacy will prompt potential donors to open their wallets for Ms. Shaheen, who so far has no major Republican opponent. The fervent progressives nationwide who flocked to Ms. Warren have not been a natural base for Ms. Shaheen, but such activists might be persuaded to donate if it means stopping Mr. Brown from returning to the Senate.

And Mr. Brown may have concluded that it would be easier for a Republican to get elected in purple New Hampshire than in deep blue Massachusetts. He noted to reporters that he would be coming back to New Hampshire for several more speaking engagements over the next few weeks. The next is a luncheon on April 20 for the Grafton County Republican Committee, which is likely to draw an inordinate amount of news coverage.

Two More Democrats Switch on Same-Sex Marriage

Two more senators announced their support for same-sex marriage Friday, becoming the latest in a flood of lawmakers switching their positions on the issue.

Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana â€" both Democrats elected in November who will not have to face voters again until 2018 â€" released brief statements Friday morning reversing their previous position on same-sex marriage.

“In speaking with North Dakotans from every corner of our great state, and much personal reflection, I have concluded the federal government should no longer discriminate against people who want to make lifelong, loving commitments to each other or interfere in personal, private, and intimate relationships,” Ms. Heitkamp said in a statement on her Web site.

Mr. Donnelly posted a statement on his Facebook page, citing his earlier support in the House of Representatives for repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” and prohibiting discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation.

“With the recent Supreme Court arguments and accompanying public discussion of same-sex marriage, I have been thinking about my past positions and votes,” he said. “In doing so, I have concluded that the right thing to do is to support marriage equality for all.”

Lawmakers have rushed to ally themselves with supporters of same-sex marriage in recent weeks, and this week has been no exception.

Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, kicked off the week with his announcement Monday, followed by Senator Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois, and Senator Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware, on Tuesday. Most recently, Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, changed his position Thursday.

The latest announcements leave just four Senate Democrats who oppose same-sex marriage: Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

Clinton Continues Her Advocacy for Women’s Rights as Private Citizen

Hillary Rodham Clinton offered a glimpse on Friday of how she will fill her at least temporary role as a private advocate for women and girls, walking arm in arm with Tina Brown at the Women in the World Conference, an annual women’s rights event sponsored by Newsweek and The Daily Beast, which Ms. Brown oversees.

“I have been challenged in boardrooms and official offices around the world, but fighting to give women and girls a fighting chance isn’t a
nice thing to do,” Mrs. Clinton said. “It isn’t some luxury that we get to when we have time on our hands to spend doing that.”

Mrs. Clinton does have time on her hands now as she transitions to her post-government life and faces constant speculation about whether she still has presidential ambitions.

A crowd of women waiting to get in to see Mrs. Clinton speak moved rapidly, shoving their way into the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center to see the former secretary of state speak. The enthusiasm immediately prompted chatter about whether Mrs. Clinton and her team could bottle that enthusiasm for the 2016 presidential election. The crowd let out a huge cheer as Ms. Brown introduced Mrs. Clinton by asking “The big question about Hillary is, what’s next”

Mrs. Clinton has said she will carve out a role for herself in the Clinton Foundation, the global charitable organization started by President Bill Clinton after he left office. Her speech on Friday gave a glimpse into what that advocacy will look like. Mrs. Clinton evoked her role as the nation’s chief diplomat, but also drew on earlier experiences as first lady.

“It is past time to embrace a 21st century approach to advancing the rights and opportunities of women and girls,” she said. She referred to Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot by the Taliban for trying to get an education, and a gang-rape victim in India.

“When women are liberated, so are entire societies,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We must understand this, too, and not only understand it but act on it.”

Mrs. Clinton also touched on domestic issues, like equal pay and the importance of training women in math and science, that she had championed as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2008. She referred to a “Glass Ceiling Index” published by The Economist that ranked countries based on opportunities for women and other factors. “The United States was not even in the top ten,” she said.

The gender gap in American politics became stark during the 2012 presidential election. Some 55 percent of women voted for President Obama, compared with 52 percent for Mitt Romney. In the 2008 presidential election, Mr. Obama beat Senator John McCain among women by 13 percentage points.

As soon as Mrs. Clinton left the stage, her daughter Chelsea took a seat to host a panel called “Grooming Titans of Tech” about women in
technology.

App Smart Extra: More Point-and-Click Adventure Games to Try

My App Smart column this week was about point-and-click adventure games. These apps build on a long tradition of computer-based adventures. Great graphics and touch screens on today’s tablets and smartphones make these games much more fun to play than before. The idea is that you interact with items in the game’s various scenes by tapping on the graphics, solving puzzles as the game’s story progresses.

For super-simple click-adventure fun, Mystery Lighthouse 2 and Spooky Manor are big favorites of mine. These games have very basic but charming graphics, and while the puzzles are tricky in some places, there aren’t too many of them and they’re very satisfying to solve. This makes these games, which are light-hearted in tone, great for spare moments for adults, as well as for playing with younger children. Mystery Lighthouse 2 is $1 on iOS and Android, as is Spooky Manor (iOS, Android).

Far stranger than these simple games is the surreal app Year Walk, which costs $4 on iOS. The story is set in mysterious woods and has unique graphics that look like an animated painting. Its puzzles are cryptic and complex, and the app is designed to not give you too many hints or even overly complex controls. It’s beautiful if confusing to play, but it’s worth sticking with it until you appreciate its look and feel. Occasionally, the app’s interface doesn’t work how you’d expect it to. For example you may find yourself, like I did, tapping or swiping on a part of the game’s images to move in a particular direction, only to find the app requires you tap on the opposite side of the screen to make that move.

The Room, a $2 iOS app uses more complex 3-D graphics for a very different look and feel from Year Walk, but it’s equally surreal. Whereas Year Walk is about roaming a strange landscape, the Room is more about interacting with complicated puzzle objects â€" all of which are activated with taps or gesture-swipes on the screen. It’s more of a brain teaser app, and it will take you a long time to work out some of the puzzles.

The Lost City, a $1 Android app, is another point-and-click adventure game that comes with impressive graphics â€" its imagery looks just like paintings. The plot has you lost in the jungle, needing to solve puzzles in the Lost City to escape. This app also has great sound effects and music. Its one problem is that you wish there were more of the game to play when you finish it.

Perhaps the most famous point-and-click adventure game is Myst, which was converted from its original Mac edition into a $4.99 iOS version some time ago. It’s an amazing game full of tricky puzzles and wonderful graphics. The storyline is compelling too. But stay away from this app if you don’t like spending hours deeply absorbed in game playing. Keep away too if you’re quickly irritated by seemingly impenetrable logic puzzles because some of the ones in Myst really are strange. It’s also a big app, with the download taking up over 500 MB on your device, which may be a problem for some users.

Happy adventuring!

Quick call: Evernote, the popular note-taking and list-making app, has just been updated to version 3 for Windows Phone. It’s a major overhaul, bringing several new features to the app, along with a new home page that’s designed to be easier to use.

Q&A: Cleaning Up Outdated Gmail Contacts

Q.

How can I get rid of old e-mail contact information Gmail keeps offering these as suggested addresses every time I text or e-mail my family and friends, long after they’ve stopped using those accounts.

A.

Each time you reply to or forward a message, Gmail automatically creates a new contact for those addresses that are not already in your Contacts list. While helpful in some situations, this feature can lead to outdated or unneeded entries that pile up quickly as suggested addresses for new messages.

To delete the unwanted addresses from the Contacts list, log into your Gmail account. Click the triangle next to the word “Gmail” on the left side of the page and select Contacts from the menu. (You can also go right to the Contacts page at google.com/contacts.)

When you land on the Contact Manager page, select the entries you want to delete from the list by turning on the checkboxes next to the names. Once you have the outdated addresses selected, click the More button at the top of the list and choose Delete Contacts from the menu. Google has more information about managing contacts (including removing them from Google Plus and from contact groups) on its site.

The Early Word: Risk

In Today’s Times:

• In a politically risky move, President Obama will present a budget next week that proposes cutting some entitlement programs in line with the compromise he offered to Speaker John A. Boehner during negotiations last year, Jackie Calmes reports.

• Long a reliable source of funding for tough campaign battles, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York has taken on a less combative role as an important emissary for the Democrats, building legislative bridges through his connections with Republicans and the White House, Jeremy W. Peters reports.

• Administration officials and some members of Congress have rushed to show solidarity with federal employees suffering from the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester, announcing they will voluntarily take pay cuts, Jeremy W. Peters reports.

• Mr. Obama described the difficult politics confronting him on the environment to donors on Wednesday, appearing to lean toward approving the Keystone XL pipeline, Michael D. Shear reports.

Washington Happenings:

• Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will speak at the annual Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House on Friday.

• The Labor Department releases its March jobs numbers on Friday at 8:30 a.m.