Van Ostern Talks Geography, Goodlander Plays Gender Card In Radio Debate

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

It was geography vs. gender when Democrats Maggie Goodlander and Colin Van Ostern faced off on Jack Heath’s radio show Wednesday morning in their race for the Second Congressional district nomination.

Van Ostern continued his strategy of painting Goodlander as a carpetbagger, noting that most of her financial support comes from Washington, D.C., where she spent most of the past 20 years. He’s spent most of that time living and working in New Hampshire, he noted.

“Maggie has taken, I think it’s about four times as much money from the D.C. area as she has from people here in New Hampshire,” Van Ostern said. “I think it’s bigger than money. I think that the way to be a great representative for people is not based on how close your connections are to people in power in Washington, D.C,, or how many years you’ve spent in the halls of power with the big special interests.”

Goodlander argued it’s important for New Hampshire to send a woman to Congress.

“I believe a woman’s place is absolutely in the House of Representatives, and it’s also in the White House, and we need to work really hard to make that happen,” Goodlander said. “I think representation matters. The House of Representatives is less than 30 percent women.”

The Granite State’s federal delegation is currently made up of three women and one man.

On the issues, the two candidates largely agreed: They support raising taxes on both businesses and individuals, they back a federal abortion law overriding New Hampshire’s late-term ban, and they both expressed their support for Israel in the current conflict with Hamas.

Asked by Heath how they would have voted on a House resolution passed earlier this year condemning as antisemitic the popular “From the river to the sea” chant heard on college campuses in New Hampshire, both said yes.

“Our enemies are Israel’s enemies,” said Goodlander, who is married to President Joe Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan. Goodlander also served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve.

They were also both in agreement on Biden’s departure from the presidential race: It was his choice to go, and he’s a hero for making the decision.

“I think what he did was an act of patriotism and statesmanship,” Goodlander said. “What we saw from President Biden was a willful decision to pass the baton on his own, it was his prerogative. It was his decision to make… and I think he’s a patriot for having done it.”

Van Ostern said that, despite the president’s debate performance and public displays of infirmity, “there’s no question in my mind that Joe Biden has been a far stronger candidate than Donald Trump, and I’m impressed with his selfless and historic decision to pass the baton to Kamala Harris.”

Multiple media reports say Biden was forced off the ticket by his fellow Democrats, a fact he has acknowledged himself.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.