Thursday afternoon update:The Sierra Club today formally endorsed former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen's bid to unseat U.S. Sen. John Sununu, citing her “excellent record on important environmental issues.”

Shaheen is among three U.S. Senate candidates being targeted for help by a coalition of five powerful environmental groups -- the League of Conservation Voters (which endorsed Shaheen earlier this year), the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, Clean Water Action, Environment America and the Sierra Club -- in an effort to “elect a veto-proof, 60-vote pro-environment majority in the United States Senate,” according to an announcement.

The five groups intend to launch “a coordinated effort to put a lot of resources on the ground” in New Hampshire to try to help Shaheen defeat Republican Sen. John Sununu, said Josh McNeil of LCV.

Sununu has a lifetime 35 percent LCV rating and “has been tied to a bad vote on the energy bill” and support for President George W. Bush’s “negative environmental agenda,” said Elise Annunziata of Clean Water Action. She said Shaheen, as governor, worked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In a telephone news conference, coalition officials would not say how much money they intend to spend to try to elect Shaheen. They said their activities will include paid advertising, having volunteers go door-to-door, telephone calls to voters, news conferences and “statewide polling and research.”

They said they also intend to help Democratic Senate candidates Mark Udall in Colorado and Tom Udall in New Mexico. The Udalls are cousins.

Sununu quickly responded, saying in a press release: “How fitting that endorsement being trumpeted by Jeanne Shaheen is from a Washington Interest Group that is trying to undermine New Hampshire’s 10-year forest plan for protecting, supporting, and managing the White Mountain National Forest. . . . Today, Jeanne Shaheen has turned her back on her own state, endorsing the tactics of a DC lobbyist group that is working to tear apart what was built through consensus and cooperation here in New Hampshire. When I wrote the New England Wilderness Act, I didn’t ask anyone from Washington how to do it. I worked closely with conservation groups here in New Hampshire, including the Forest Society, the Friends of Sandwich Range, and the Friends of Wild River.”

“NO EFFORT.” Barack Obama senior campaign adviser Jim Demers told the Status Thursday that the Obama campaign “has made no effort to encourage anyone to run” for a DNC post. (For earlier coverage, click here.)

“If there are some Obama supporters supporting Peter Burling, it has nothing to do with a coordinated effort from the campaign,” Demers said.

Demers also said the Obama campaign “is making no effort to sway the Edwards delegates and I haven’t heard that the Clinton campaign is doing that, either.

“Of course, I think both campaigns would welcome the support of the Edwards delegates. But I think the race will be decided before the convention takes place,” so it will be a moot issue, Demers said.

Thursday morning update: Former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen is among three key 2008 federal candidates being targeted for help by a coalition of five national environmental groups.

One of those groups, the Sierra Club, will officially endorse Shaheen at 2 p.m. today (Thursday) in Concord.

The five groups intend to launch “a coordinated effort to put a lot of resources on the ground” in New Hampshire to try to help Shaheen defeat Republican Sen. John Sununu, according to Josh McNeil of the League of Conservation Voters.

The LCV endorsed Shaheen earlier this year. Officials of that group are now being joined by represenatives of the Sierra Club, the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, Clean Water Action and Environment America in an effort “to elect a veto-proof, 60 vote pro-environment majority in the United States Senate,” according to a joint announcement.

The Sierra Club endorsement will be announced on the steps of the state library on Park Street.

The April 24 Granite Status column follows.

McCAINIACS IN CHARGE. State Board of Education Chairman John Lyons took himself out of consideration for governor yesterday. He told the Status that instead of becoming a candidate, he will be the finance chair of the New Hampshire Republican Victory Committee, the party's coordinated campaign program.

Lyons said the response to his late March announcement that he was considering a run was "very heartening and very, very encouraging, but my priority now is to get John McCain elected."

That leaves the GOP field where it has been for the past month, since Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta decided not to run. It's still a field of one, state Sen. Joe Kenney.

Is Lyons concerned about having a possible weak link at the top of the ticket with McCain and Sen. John Sununu?

"My position as finance chair of the victory committee is to concentrate on fund-raising efforts," he said. "I leave that question for others."

While the Republican State Committee continues to stock up on former Mitt Romney staffers, the John McCain campaign will run the victory committee, coordinating efforts to try to get Republicans elected this year.

Another top state McCainiac, former state GOP chairman Steve Duprey, is the victory committee's assistant finance chair.

The committee will have no overall chairman, but McCain national senior adviser Michael Dennehy will have a major role in how it is run.

Dennehy said, "The McCain campaign will be driving the agenda" and the Republican State Committee "is more of a vehicle to accomplish the goal."

Going local

McCain operatives have set up a new Web site in an attempt to generate local interest in McCain's gas tax holiday proposal.

A political action committee called It'sYourNH, created by Dennehy in 2006 and chaired by Lyons, is running www.cutthegastax.com, which says that "New Hampshire's leaders should follow (McCain) and suspend the New Hampshire gas tax for the summer months of June, July and August."

The petition will be sent to the State House and the state congressional delegation.

Big day for state Dems

By the end of Saturday, the state's full 30-member delegation (and four alternates) to the party's national convention in Denver will be finalized. The presidential candidate commitments of all but three of the delegates will be known.

The current delegates and candidates for open seats will meet on Saturday morning at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College, followed by a full Democratic State Committee meeting.

Although Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary, Barack Obama will hold a one-delegate lead among the New Hampshire group after Saturday's action. He will have 12 delegates, while Clinton will have 11. John Edwards, who has not officially left the race, will have four. The allegiance of three will be undecided or undisclosed.

A total of 68 party activists have filed for eight open delegate slots. State party chair Raymond Buckley will nominate one or more candidates for a ninth.

The presidential primary results produced 14 pledged delegates: six for Clinton, six for Obama and two for Edwards.

On Saturday, those 14 will choose three more from among 34 "party leader/elected officials" candidates. Each camp gets one.

The 14 delegates will then turn to a list of 62 candidates for five at-large seats. Many people filed for both positions, which is why the numbers add up to more than 68. This group of five must include two Clinton supporters, two for Obama and one for Edwards.

The 14 will also select one lone unpledged delegate from the nominations submitted by Buckley.

Already known are seven super-delegates: two for Clinton, three for Obama, plus Buckley and Gov. John Lynch, who have not yet pledged.

If one assumes that Lynch eventually commits to the former first lady -- the governor's wife, Dr. Susan Lynch, endorsed her and she did win the state -- then Obama and Clinton would have an equal number of the state's delegates. Buckley and his selected delegate would be the only uncommitted votes.

The delegates will then select four alternates: two for Clinton, one for Obama and one for Edwards.

The Edwards Group

There's more intrigue here. Where will the Edwards delegates go when the former senator finally releases them?

Merrimack County Democratic Chairman Rob Werner, for instance, is officially a candidate for an Edwards delegate slot on Saturday, but he said he would be, in effect, an Obama delegate.

He said he has been up front for many weeks about that because, he said, Edwards and Obama "match up on issues" and Obama "is the superior messenger for the Edwards call for political reform." Werner is just back from a quick vacation in Pennsylvania, where he campaigned for Obama.

Werner is national field director of the John Rauh-founded Americans for Campaign Reform, which promotes publicly funded federal campaigns. He said the Illinois senator supports the concept.

Another of the five Edwards delegate candidates, Sen. Peter Burling, said he is "not pledging to anybody else, and I've not contemplated which way I'm going to go. I'm running as an Edwards delegate because the values he spoke about need to be reflected in the final phase of the election process."

Edwards backers Reps. Sharon Nordgren and Gary Richardson and Effingham activist Michael Cauble are also running.

DNC races

After the remaining delegates are selected on Saturday morning, the state committee members will elect a successor to retiring Democratic National Committeewoman Anita Freedman and will select a national committeeman.

Former party chair Kathy Sullivan remains the lone announced candidate for the Freedman post. Burling is challenging incumbent national committeman Gaetan DiGangi.

Nominations may be taken from the floor, which has sparked speculation that the Obama backers on the state committee will want one of their own to challenge Clinton supporters Sullivan and DiGangi and Edwards backer Burling. That is, unless they can convince Burling to commit to Obama.

The current terms of Freedman and DiGangi run through the national convention.

Spending cap initiative

A conservative group is coordinating efforts in four cities to cap municipal spending at the rate of the consumer price index beginning in 2010.

The New Hampshire Advantage Coalition is working with activists in Manchester, Concord, Merrimack and Rochester to put proposed changes to those communities' municipal charters on the ballot in November.

Coalition chairman Mike Biundo said the effort was sparked by "legislative overspending" last year and by the recent initiative by the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition "to strip away our (anti-broad base tax) pledge and strip away what New Hampshire is, a low-tax, low-spending state."

Biundo said that by tomorrow, language for charter amendments will be filed in the four municipalities. He said plans call for similar filings shortly in Londonderry, Conway, Portsmouth, Keene, Somersworth, Lebanon and Bedford.

"When you add up the 11 communities, this is over 30 percent of the electorate in the state," he said.

Biundo said state law requires the proposed petitions for the charter amendments to be reviewed by the Attorney General's Office and Department of Revenue Administration. He said that when the language is approved, organizers will have 60 days to gather petitions signed by at least 20 percent of the number of local residents who voted in the last municipal elections.

Biundo said his coalition has hired former Ron Paul field director Jared Chicoine and brought back former coalition executive director Tammy Simmons. He claims that such an effort "has never been done before on this scale in this state."

Bob Smith and McCain

A Washington Post story last weekend on McCain's sometimes volatile temperament quotes former New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith as saying McCain's temper "would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him."

He was quoted as saying McCain has a "sneering, condescending attitude" and as saying that McCain many years ago insulted him and accused him of "masquerading about my Vietnam service."

But following up on the Post story, Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron, who covered Smith during his days with WMUR, reported that Smith told him the references to him in the story were exaggerated.

McCain strategist and book co-author Mark Salter also called the overall story inaccurate and the reference to Smith "entirely fictional."

John and Jeb

The latest in the Republican U.S. House 1st District primary has John Stephen planning a formal announcement on May 12 during a district-wide tour.

Stephen's campaign has moved into its new Manchester office in the Jefferson Mill building at 670 Commercial St., with a grand opening slated for May 1.

Stephen has hired a new field director for Carroll, Belknap, Grafton and Coos counties. Dan Auger held a similar post for Rudy Guiliani's campaign during the presidential primary.

Bradley's campaign today will announce endorsements by 11 county commissioners, including Maureen Barrows of Rockingham, David Sorensen of Carroll, Chris Boothby of Belknap, Toni Pappas of Hillsborough and J.D. Colcord of Merrimack.

John DiStaso is senior political reporter of the New Hampshire Union Leader.