While putting in a few hours at the Concord GOP tent at Concord Market Days at the request of a fellow Team Lily member, I got to talk to several known people, like Reps Alvin See and Matthew Pitaro, and County Commissioner Lovlien. I also got to meet 2 of the 3 candidates for county attorney. Meg Hagaman wrote an article introducing and promoting her candidacy not too long ago, but I didn’t have much intel on Sarah Rogers and Jon Raiche. Meg appears to be “the establishment pick,” so to speak, but I learned that Attorney Raiche was recruited by Attorney Coughlin, and Sarah Rogers’s legal resume is very narrow and specialized as a prosecutor. I did not get to meet Sarah, but it sounds like she’s someone that Mrs. Sexton would like!
Attorney and Mrs. Raiche stopped by with some campaign swag. He introduced himself as he handed the swag to another volunteer. I vaguely remember some favorable things said about him in the NH Family Justice Signal group. Note that I mentioned Mrs. Sexton a moment ago. Attorney Raiche, when asked what makes him stand out from the other candidates, said he wants to eradicate money trails between NGOs and the courts, and between DC and the courts. I was ill-prepared to ask the kind of questions that Nurse Terese, Claire Best or Leah Cushman would want asked, but I did my best, and I encourage everyone tracking to the YDC dumpster fire or victimized by Mrs. Sexton and her operatives to make contact with him, even if they don’t vote in Merrimack County. Remember that there are a lot of places to vote in a county that need coverage while the polls are open.
At one point in the discussion, I asked if he was familiar with Howard Pearl’s baggage, seeing that he was taking the discussion in a direction that was germane to the dismissed charges against my senator and primary opponent. He was not, so I disclosed my candidacy, though he’s not a District 17 voter. I said that Judge Kristin Spath(a masker and a Lynch appointee who oversaw the arraignment of the executive council arrest victims) dismissed the charges against Howard because the “Prosecutor Countway”(now Judge Hicks’s replacement on the SC) tried a sloppy case. Attorney Raiche, a NH native, was in Florida at the time and didn’t return to NH until a few years after Howard’s charges were dismissed. I filled him in and said, “Imagine that, a sloppy prosecutor gets to be a judge in the highest court!” He sighed with a “It’s often not what you know but who you know in the courts that matters.” He then proceeded to say that prosecutors and judges often “get too comfortable” in their relationships, and he wants to change that. He spoke from out-of-state experience(Florida and Alaska), working in different capacities, pointing out that NH is a small state.
When he was talking about his time in Florida, he talked about libertarianism, and we circled back to that when he mentioned working with sheriffs. There are also 3 candidates for county sheriff, and we were paid a visit by Sheriff Croft during another part of our talk! Croft muttered something in Attorney Raiche’s ear, but I couldn’t make out what was said. We talked about Jason Gerhard and the Grand Jury and Ben Weir and his battle for ballot access in 2022. I wanted to ask which candidate he supported, but I didn’t have the opportunity to ask all the questions I wanted to cram into the time I had to share with my peers between the long and thorough answers to the questions that were asked. I’ll also add that it’s common for candidates to decline making endorsements, and that’s fair enough.
Attorney Raiche also talked about the city solicitor’s office and various inefficiencies in addition to appeals. He had a heart for victims of violent crimes, having the ordeal of a 2nd trial, and a disapproval of the public expenses involved in some such appeals. In a handful of reforms he wants to implement as Captain of the Ship, he wants to eliminate non-lawyer police prosecutors. My ears perked up, and I held up my hand to be recognized for a question. I asked if he was familiar with the “Colton and the dog incident,” and he was not.
Most Merrimack County voters are probably unfamiliar with that story, so I’ll make a few quick comments. In 2022, Colton Skorupan of Mason won his primary against Rep Flanagan, but lost in November for a newly redistricted seat that Flanagan was elected to in 2024. There was a voter whom I will call “MV.” MV was pathologically obsessed with the dog incident and wouldn’t stop talking about it before and after the 2022 primary. It was often insufferable, so much so that I asked Colton to please tell me the story. He told me the story, unedited, and he had/has no regrets for how he handled the situation, but he’s still waiting for prosecutorial reform today! In fact, he tweeted something about it not too long ago, and that story is part of the inspiration for writing this article.
Seeing that County Attorneys are not part of the legislature, I asked how he planned to “make that law happen,” and his answer included a list of ways to encourage and assist the representative or senator sponsoring the bill. I don’t know why Flanagan didn’t sponsor such a bill last year or this year. Maybe it’s resentment against Colton for winning the lottery for top billing on their primary ballot. Or maybe not, but Flanagan did sponsor a bill about names on primary ballots in 2025. Why didn’t Kevin sponsor it as a Senate bill? I don’t know the answer, but if I beat Howard Pearl in our primary and beat the Dem in November, I’d put that on a list of bills to sponsor in addition to a comprehensive audit of School Care.
I will conclude by noting that Attorney Raiche welcomes voter engagement and can be reached by phone or email. I plan to vote for him, and I hope my fellow voters will do the same.
