Impressed by Goodlander

I still remember the breakfast I had almost five years ago with Maggie Goodlander, where she wanted to talk more about my mental health awareness campaign than herself. I was finally able to steer the conversation to her and her background. She served for 11 years as a member of the Navy Reserve after graduating from Yale, worked for Sens. McCain and Lieberman, clerked on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.

She grew up in Nashua, a community she was proud to call home. Nashua formed her and her values. Her intelligence and drive took her to Yale and Yale Law School, to Washington and to enviable achievements anyone would be very proud to claim. They never changed who she was, nor made her forget where she came from. But they did allow her to see what was possible and uniquely prepared her represent the people of her home state in Congress. She knew them, they knew her, and she knew who she was. She was determined to make it all matter.

When she declared for Congress, I immediately told her she had my full support. She was different. She understood the wider world because she knew its paths and its players and she was all about solutions and principles; not about grandstanding and playing politics, not about pettiness. She strongly supported a woman’s right to choose, enacting a ban on assault weapons, advancing the needs and essential supports for a flourishing middle class, understood the imperative to strengthen and protect our democracy and ensure the rule of law against those who would bend it to their own interests. She epitomized integrity, decency and compassion and a fearless resolve to stand and fight when principled compromise was out of reach.

Maggie Goodlander is one of the most exceptional people I have seen in my 50 years of watching New Hampshire politics. Sending her to Washington to represent New Hampshire’s citizens would be in the interest of everyone who values smart and dependable public service. Maggie will make all of us proud.

John T. Broderick

North Andover, Mass.

The writer is a retired New Hampshire Supreme Court justice.

Goodlander an opportunist

As a citizen of New Hampshire, I am outraged at the onslaught of outrageously false and negative advertising being run by Maggie Goodlander and her backers, dark money PACS funded by wealthy people who have no connection to, nor interest in, the welfare of us here in New Hampshire. Aside from being native born, neither does she, not even bothering to vote here since 2008.

In my former life, I was responsible for a large company’s Washington office, so I can tell you from experience that these PAC funders expect something in exchange in the future from either Goodlander or her husband, Jake Sullivan, currently the President’s National Security Advisor, when he leaves office for another job in the world of DC lawyers and lobbyists.

There is no likelihood that this DC power couple will ever live in New Hampshire, so they will never be grounded in our local problems.

Goodlander is simply a D.C. carpetbagger, backed by D.C. interests and D.C. dark money. She should stay there.

Colin Van Ostern, the local candidate grounded in all of our issues, has my vote.

Frank Lesher

Hanover