House candidate who called for military coup has long history of inflammatory remarks
Last week, a Republican House candidate from Laconia made headlines with his call for the military to take the president into custody and try him for treason – but that’s only the latest in a long history of inflammatory and controversial remarks from the 76-year-old retired truck driver.
In his September 23 letter to the editor published by the Laconia Daily Sun, Jim McCoole called Pres. Obama a “domestic enemy” and compared him to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed as Soviet spies in 1953. “Radical Islamic worldwide terrorists could not have a better ‘inside man’ in Washington than B. Hussein Obama,” McCoole wrote.
It’s not the first time McCoole has called for the president’s arrest. In fact, he is on the record calling for Obama to be removed from office just weeks after the country’s first African American president took the oath of office. “Obama needs to be taken into custody!!” McCoole wrote in 2009 in response to the president’s initial legislative initiatives. “I and others of my generation have worked too hard to allow this Marxist to destroy everything we’ve shed blood and tears for.”
It’s also not the first time the Laconia Republican has considered running for public office. McCoole, who spent years living in the Tampa area before moving to New Hampshire, emailed then-Gov. Jeb Bush in 2006 asking his advice on making a bid for the U.S. Senate. Describing himself as a “straight talking conservative” and a “gentleman legislator,” McCoole told Bush, “I have no money and no organization. All I have is a good mind, and an honest heart.”
A theocratic, Christian fundamentalist ideology
After abandoning his dream of running for the U.S. Senate, the self-described “Christian warrior” moved to the Granite State and began flooding the Laconia Daily Sun with letters to the editor in which he laid out a theocratic, Christian fundamentalist ideology.
“Yes, multiculturalism in America is a cancer! America was founded 239 years ago as a ‘Christian’ nation and culture,“ McCoole declared. "The American culture was not meant for every weirdo and pervert to look for and find ‘rights’ that allow them to do whatever they want, and completely undo the Christian values we’ve established, based on biblical principles that have been in place for generations, and which have always defined us as a nation!” he wrote.
In a series of wide-ranging missives, McCoole denounced Islam, rejected evolution, condemned marriage equality, criticized African American politicians and called for curbs on the First Amendment.
On Islam: “It is a matter of intellectual honesty, for example, that Islam is NOT compatible with the U.S. Constitution. The Framers knew that then, and most of us know it now. And prior to the 1960’s everyone knew it!”
On evolution: “using accepted scientific methods of observation and experimentation, you can’t provide one shred of observable evidence of evolutional change of kind. We don’t all get to have our own truth.”
On homosexuality and marriage equality: ”The inspired writers of the New Testament repeatedly tell us that homosexuality is an abomination to God… ‘Rights’ come from God, and civil laws are based on Christian values. Get over it! … [M]arriage was created by God, and was to be between one man and one woman”
On African American politicians: ”almost every major city in this country is headed by black leaders, black mayors, black police officials, etc. The problem is, all these young black youths hear from those ‘leaders’ is, ‘You are a victim, you have cause to be angry and violent.’ “
On First Amendment limits: “Congress must immediately pass laws that make it illegal to possess any Islamic jihadi material in this country, in any form, either by Muslim immigrants, or Americans who have become radicalized.”
‘I’m not a nut case’
In an interview with the Laconia Daily Sun that followed his most recent controversy, McCoole was unrepentant. "I realize I’m raising a real risk of being presented as a nut case,” he said. “I’m not a nut case, but I’m very outspoken. I am speaking out and I will continue to speak out, whether I’m in the Legislature or not.”
“Hopefully,” he added, “I can change a mind or two.”