Democratic Senate hopeful Paul Hodes is expected to weigh in definitively on the pending, national health care reform bill.

     Last week, the cautious, two-term Congressman Hodes said he’d take time to read the 1,900-page measure that his New Hampshire colleague, Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, had endorsed.

      Hodes has already embraced the concept of a public option and this latest version permits states like this one to opt out if its Legislature so chose.

      Anything short of support from Hodes would be a surprise and a big setback for the US House leadership that can’t afford many defectors.

      Meanwhile, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn, R-TX, said that for the time being he’s through picking primary winners and losers ahead of the vote after that nasty GOP skirmish that cost his party a New York congressional seat that it had held for a century.

      The committee has yet to endorsed in the NH Senate race but the PAC opened their headquarters for a major fund-raiser and kicked in $10,000 to former Attorney General and GOP Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte.