County Attorney Candidate John Coughlin Op-Ed Avoids Mentioning GOP
Evades Issues & Problems Inherited from Republican Dennis Hogan — OPINION
John J. Coughlin, the Amherst lawyer who is running for the Republican nomination for Hillsborough County Attorney, avoided addressing substantive issues in his manchesterinklink.com Op-Ed. The Coughlin “brief” that subsequently was picked up by the Union Leader was OK in terms of Coughlin’s self-promotion as it laid out the particulars of his extensive legal career. However, the Op-Ed essentially was a hit piece on incumbent Hillsborough County Aattorney Michael Conlon.
Portraying himself as running against Conlon, Coughlin’s utterly ignored the fact that he was facing a primary challenge from Dan Hynes. Hynes is a conservative, pro-life former state legislator with support from the gun lobby.
Surprisingly, Coughlin didn’t mention the GOP Primary that will be held on September 9th. He didn’t even identify himself as a Republican.
What I found troubling was that John J. Coughlin refused to talk turkey about the fundamental causes of the problems plaguing the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office. Coughlin avoided issues of public policy and the administration of justice. His greatest failure was evading the biggest issue facing the United States right now, systemic racism in the American legal system.
No wonder why John Coughlin is avoiding any identification with Republicans and refused to talk turkey about justice! This election year, state-wide, most political pundits believe the State GOP will prove a turkey and lay a turkey egg at the polls.
“Hold in Contempt”
The FreeDictionary.com defines “hold in contempt” as
An act of deliberate disobedience or disregard for the laws, regulations, or decorum of a public authority, such as a court or legislative body.
With a President at the head of the GOP ticket in November that many observers, including myself, believe is willfully inciting violence, perhaps we should expect that issues like how the County Attorney’s Office would treat firearms offenses, stand your grand, etc., let alone other important issues as bail reform, would not be addressed by a Republican candidate. In that, we were not disappointed by John Coughlin.
However, one would expect an attorney-at-law with such a large resume as the one Coughlin touts in his OP-ED to actually elucidate the issues and take a stand on them. But perhaps that is what John Coughlin was avoiding when he wrote this … “brief.”
Coughlin took the Republican line — the TRUMP LINE — of scapegoating a Democrat for systemic problems created by and allowed to flourish by Republicans. No wonder why, seeking to win an office in a year in which Republicans are expected to do poorly, John Coughlin ignores his own party and its legacy.
For Donald Trump is full of contempt for the rule of the law.
Is this how John Coughlin intends to run the County Attorney’s Office, by ignoring what is not exactly hiding in plain sight (the Republican primary) and creating an alternate reality? Mr. Coughlin is not running against County Attorney Conlon, he is running against Dan Hynes.
A reasonable person cold assume that the intent of his rhetorical strategy was to deliberately ignore the Republican Party all together. Hogan withheld information about the rape of a 14-year old high school girl for 16 months, incredibly justifying the omission, which helped Republican Mayor Ted Gatsas squeak by in the 2015 election, by saying he only reported his successes in court. Hogan also wound up being sued over his failure to disclose an investigation of a police officer.
Lack of Experience
John Coughlin focused his Op-Ed on his 40 years of experience as an attorney, putting himself on a pedestal from which he launched an attack on Hillsborough County Attorney Michael Conlon’s lack of experience. He then played have the Republican blame game, despite the fact that the problems Conlon inherited were the product of the poor management skills of the pervious County Attorney, Dennis Hogan, Republican.
Many observers of all political persuasions believed that the crackdown on the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office by New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon MacDonald shortly after Conlon took over was, in effect, a Republican scapegoating of a Democrat for the Republican Dennis Hogan’s failures.
MacDonald, who was appointed by Republican Governor Chris Sununu, was deemed unqualified by a majority of the Executive Council when Sununu nominated him to Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court. MacDonald was rejected by the three Democrats who comprise a majority of the Executive Council on the basis that he had never been a judge.
It has been over 100 years since the appointment of a Chief Justice with no judicial experience.
John Coughlin never mentions the lack of experience that held back Republican Gordon MacDonald. Nor does he mention the Republican Governor who has, incredibly, failed for over a year to nominate another candidate for chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
The Chief Justice serves as the managerial head of the Granite State’s court system, a state of affairs the Tea Party Republican General Court of 2010–11 tried to strip from the Chief Justice in a reactionary jihad against the rule of the law.
Contempt for the rule of the law seems to have been imprinted in the DNA of modern Republicans, whether at the national level, the state level, the local level — and the county.