Letter: Can’t support your dubious CD1 endorsement

Posted 9/7/23

To the editor: By your receipt of my letter, the 1st Congressional District special primary will still be underway. Presumably, the glut of Democrat candidates scrambling for a special election …

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Letter: Can’t support your dubious CD1 endorsement

Posted

To the editor:
By your receipt of my letter, the 1st Congressional District special primary will still be underway. Presumably, the glut of Democrat candidates scrambling for a special election betokens a lively, unified party, and not a muddled power-brokerage splintering among its ulterior interests.

Either way, despite candidates galore, there being no opposition party votes to count, we should know the Democrat winner by the time this prints.

I watched your interview of Gabe Amo. While I’m sure those six long months he spent as a lobbyist for Home Depot gave Amo, who has otherwise worked in government his whole life, vital business experience (like wearing an apron!) and real-world knowledge, I still have reservations about your endorsement.

For example, Amo calls himself a “classic liberal” in your interview but nevertheless, on Twitter, he supports radical pinups like Justice Ketanji Brown and Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. His Twitter’s fun, by the way, especially that cute photo-op with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Do you know if it was taken outside Bailey’s Beach Club?

For another, in your interview Amo called the Inflation Reduction Act “transformative.” While I’m taking out a mortgage for milk and bread, I’d like to know what Amo imagines that act transformed: certainly not confidence in the government.

Last but not least, Amo received an endorsement from the Collective PAC who claims he’ll protect “the rights we hold dear” like “the right to retire with the dignity and the benefits you earned.” Did Amo, a former aide to Gov. Gina Raimondo, only learn about this right after Raimondo gutted the state employee pension system?

That said, I’m heartened to hear Amo, a man in his thirties, who talks so much about “extreme weather,” like “tornadoes” and “floods,” expressing such an interest, too, in keeping Social Security going. But I wouldn’t dream of challenging Amo’s bipartisan feeling to stretch so far across the aisle as to work on such a project with a Republican like Mitt Romney.

Zachary Cooper
48A Sherman Ave.
Bristol

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Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.