When U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster announced she wasn’t running for another term and promptly endorsed Colin Van Ostern last April, New Hampshire politics was full of talk about a coronation.
Five months later, watching him get filleted by longtime D.C. resident Maggie Goodlander live on WMUR TV, the word is now “crap.” As in “Holy crap, she’s mopping the floor with that guy.”
Thanks to WMUR’s bizarre decision to limit the congressional debates to just 30 minutes, Van Ostern can be grateful that his beatdown was both efficient and mercifully short. In fact, the entire event was over in a single answer, when Goodlander accused Van Ostern of “attacking my commitment to reproductive freedom.”
“And he’s done this all the while knowing my record,” Goodlander said.
“He knows that I was a law clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the dissenting opinion the day that Roe v Wade was overturned.”
“And he knows my personal experience. He knows that last year, when I was 20 weeks pregnant, my husband, Jake and I lost our son, and I struggled to get access to the health care I needed,” she added.
“Nevertheless, he attacks my commitment [to abortion rights], and this is exactly why Gov. John Lynch and other Democrats across the state have said he’s running the most dishonest campaign they’ve ever seen.”
Then, like a contract killer putting one more round in the body before dropping the gun and leaving the scene, she concluded.
“Colin, you were the spokesman for an anti-choice congressman. I am not questioning your commitment to reproductive freedom. How dare you question mine?”
Game, set, and match.
In a fair fight, Van Ostern would have had plenty of ammo to fire back. Earlier that day, for example, news broke that Goodlander had finally filed the financial disclosures required by congressional ethics rules. Those disclosures were due nearly a month ago, but Goodlander failed to meet the deadline, instead filing a document that left most of the financial information blank, and New Hampshire voters in the dark.
Among the questions Goodlander claimed she could not determine the answer to: How much money is in your bank account? How much is your retirement fund currently worth?
It turns out Goodlander is a multi-millionaire thanks to her grandfather Samuel A. Tamposi’s vast wealth from real estate investments up and down the East Coast. Based on her filing, Goodlander may be worth as much as $30 million.
Asked about her incomplete ethics filing, Goodlander responded: “I’ve been fighting for transparency and accountability my entire career.”
She never explained why she didn’t originally disclose her vast wealth.
Goodlander was also asked why she was the best candidate “to unify Granite Staters?”
“I’ve been fighting for unity my whole life, my whole career,” Goodlander answered.
On issue after issue, Goodlander unleashed her inner “raging bull,” insisting she was “fighting” for every cause and concern. “I’ve been fighting on the front lines of the fights that are on the ballot,” Goodlander said.
But the fight appeared to have gone out of Van Ostern.
It was a tough week for his campaign. Perhaps it is the poor optics of a male candidate attacking a female in a Democratic primary debate, particularly over the issue of abortion. Or perhaps it was the pain of having his longtime friend and former employer Gary Hirshberg throw him under the bus and endorse Goodlander. Or perhaps it was getting publicly garroted by Lynch in Goodlander’s attack ads. Whatever the cause, Van Ostern appeared beaten before the debate began.
The Lynch ad is particularly brutal. Van Ostern was the first candidate to get hit with attack ads in the race, and his response has been relatively mild. And yet the popular former four-term governor pulled his support from Van Ostern and endorsed Goodlander, using his alleged outrage over Colin’s pillow-fight attack ad as an excuse.
If Democrats were really pulling support over negative attacks, nobody would be endorsing either Joyce Craig or Cinde Warmington in the gubernatorial primary, where the two have been throwing political fists like Rocky Balboa and Clubber Lang.
Van Ostern did try to neutralize the Lynch hit job.
“I think John Lynch was a good governor, but sometimes even someone like him makes an error of judgment, just like the error of judgment he made when he nominated Kelly Ayotte to be attorney general.”
It’s an OK line, but note that it was directed, not at Goodlander, but at her surrogate.
A rich D.C. insider who spent years working for the unpopular Biden administration, wrote checks to pro-life Republicans and who hasn’t cast a ballot in the district since at least 2008 appears to provide a target-rich environment in a Democratic primary. But in the identity-politics obsessed Democratic Party, could a guy like Colin Van Ostern take those political shots?
Not on Thursday night, he wasn’t.
Lynch’s decision to personally attack Van Ostern on TV tells discerning Democrats everything they need to know about this primary: The party has picked its nominee, and it’s time for loyal Democrats to either get on the bus or get left behind.
