Kevin Landrigan is a Nashua Telegraph columnist. His column appears in the Sunday paper. He is described by the paper’s website as “The Telegraph’s Eyes and Ears in Concord.”

Former Lowell Sun staffer Kevin Landrigan is one of my favorite Sunday reads in the Nashua Telegraph. For many years now he has written a lengthy, weekly political column about the goings-on in New Hampshire politics. He gets the scoop, the inside story and the back story information from the very local to the more national view. (He certainly honed his skills back in the hay-day of the Lowell Sun’s – The Column.)

Today he takes we political junkies in our part of the Merrimack Valley down memory lane with his piece on the current political fortunes of six-term Windham Rep. Anthony DiFruscia – one the principals in the famous multi-candidate 1972 Fifth Congressional District Democratic Primary and subsequent lection. Many will remember the brouhaha caused when John Kerry’s brother Cam Kerry and Viet-Nam Vet activist Tom Vallaley were found in the Lowell building basement shared by both the Kerry and the DiFruscia campaigns. Charges of telephone tampering and dirty tricks were bandied about.

Here’s the current scoop on Mr. DiFruscia:

Jumping ship

At least one targeted moderate Republican lawmaker beaten on Tuesday bailed his party by week’s end.

Six-term Windham Rep. Anthony DiFruscia fell into the cross-hairs of social conservatives for his support of the same-sex marriage law and abortion rights. “As of yesterday, I am officially registered as an Independent,’’ DiFruscia said. “It appears as if the Republican party is imploding.’’

DiFruscia already had a colorful history of party stripes, having been a Democrat activist during the 1970s in Lawrence, Mass., running for Congress in a primary won by Sen. John Kerry, a 2004 nominee for president.

A colorful speaker and trial lawyer, DiFruscia ran for speaker of the House, but his maverick nature got him few votes in the GOP caucus.

“This is just another example of the Republican Party pushing people out that don’t meet their extreme, right-wing litmus test,’’ said Harrell Kirkstein, spokesman for the New Hampshire Democratic Party

 Read the full Landrigan column from the Nashua Telegrah here – there’s lots of great insight in to the politics of our neighbors in the Granite State. Kevin – thanks for the trip down Memory Lane.