Letter: Answering questions about Goodlander

Colin Van Ostern’s latest campaign literature lists four reasons why Maggie Goodlander’s candidacy is “troubling.”

They are that she gave thousands of dollars to pro-life candidates, she was a senior adviser to an anti-abortion Republican senator, she is backed by a Washington super PAC and she rents an apartment in the district but hasn’t lived there since 2008. He urges us to “check the facts.” So I did.

She gave $2,000 to a classmate and military veteran running in North Carolina for Mark Meadows’ House seat. She was briefly a foreign policy adviser to John McCain years after he opposed Roe v. Wade as a presidential candidate. She is supported by Washington insiders, including Hillary Clinton. She is hardly a carpetbagger, having been born and raised in Nashua and living in Portsmouth.

I consider Van Ostern’s accusations to be deceptive, dirty politics. Once undecided, I am no longer. I will vote for Maggie Goodlander. Goodlander’s qualifications are impressive. She is a foreign policy expert, having served in the Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer. She clerked for Merrick Garland and Stephen Breyer and worked in the antitrust division of the Justice Department. She was a lawyer in the first impeachment of Trump. Her positions on women’s reproductive rights are unequivocal, as she makes clear when discussing her struggles with childbirth. The House is a national office, and Goodlander’s experience in foreign and domestic national affairs makes her the best candidate for the 2nd Congressional District seat.

Peter Toumanoff

Hancock