Transcript - Ep 18: Make Room

Note: This transcript was adapted from a radio script.

Previously on Stranglehold…

Jack Rodolico: Does it affect your life at all that you are in New Hampshire and you get to vote before other people? Would it affect you if the primary went away from New Hampshire? Like, do you think about it– ?

Richard Simmon: It wouldn’t affect me at all, I’ll tell you that. It’s– I do what I wanna do. And that’s the whole thing of New Hampshire — Live free or die, right?

Donald Trump: Our hearts beat to the words of the New Hampshire state motto: Live free or die.

Bill Gardner: It’s a story of inclusiveness…

Rob Tully: Basically, it came down to this: This is bullshit. We're New Hampshire. 

Bill Gardner: …the American dream that anyone’s son or daughter could grow up to be president. 

Sen. Carl Levin: I will pledge to the death to protect the New Hampshire primary, so help me god. It’s a reality we gotta change!

Tarazha Jenkins: I mean, it just seems like nobody has a true answer why New Hampshire is still first in the nation when you guys are just not diverse enough to represent America as a whole!

Kathy Sullivan: The most important thing that we can do is to save the New Hampshire primary, because without the primary, what is New Hampshire? 

Jack Rodolico: What do you think it would be like if we didn't have the primary here? Interviewee: I think we'll be, we’ll be forgotten.

Joe Biden: It’s an honor to be able to come to New Hampshire again.

Josh Rogers: Joe loves you. Joe loves the first-in-the-nation primary. You know, meanwhile, when it doesn’t look like it’s gonna go his way, he’s on a plane to South Carolina.

Joe Biden: You have no idea how great it is to be back in South Carolina! (cheering)

We haven’t released an episode of Stranglehold for three years. Back then, we figured we’d said just about all there was to say about New Hampshire’s lock on the presidential nominating calendar. If we ever come back, we figured, it’d be because there’s something worth saying. 

Leah Daughtry: Mr. Chairman, I’ve worked on my first presidential campaign in the state of New Hampshire when I was a student at Dartmouth College, and I worked on the presidential campaign of the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

That’s Leah Daughtry. She’s speaking on February 4 to a room of hundreds of Democrats — true believers, all: people who work for the party in every state and U.S. territory are in this room.

Leah Daughtry: New Hampshire is one of my favorite places. I go every year. I have the granite of New Hampshire in my muscles and my brain. 

Leah is speaking in the moments before the room votes. The Democratic National Committee is about to decide to either hang on to tradition, or to create a new way to nominate presidential candidates.

Leah is a pastor. The room hangs on her every word. 

(applause)

Leah Daughtry: Folks, I'm an oldest child. It was just me and my parents for a long time. And so I was always at the head of the line. And then my sisters arrived, and my brother arrived, and I had to make room. I would submit that family requires — we like to say we're a family – it means that some folk got to shift to make room at the table for others. (applause) We cannot say that Black voters and Latino voters are important and matter and make us wait. 

[theme music in — drums]

I’m not gonna bury the lede. The reason I’m here right now with you is because New Hampshire’s “stranglehold” on the way we pick presidents, it looks like it’s losing its grip.

[theme music — sting]

From New Hampshire Public Radio, this is Stranglehold. I’m Jack Rodolico. 

[theme music up and down]

What happens when an unstoppable force slams into an immovable object? 

The demographic shift in this country—and especially within the Democratic Party — that’s the unstoppable force. If you’ve been following this news at all, you know the party finally shifted its presidential nominating calendar to give voters of color more sway. For Democratic White House hopefuls, New Hampshire is no longer the first official primary. 

But the New Hampshire primary — or at least the people who see it as their job to protect it — that’s the immovable object. New Hampshire is refusing to back down, saying it’ll hold a Democratic primary first, even if the national party punishes the state for it.

It’s a major test of the stranglehold and its power. 

And it was all set in motion by President Joe Biden. Which is funny because it’s a shift for Biden himself.

Joe Biden: Oh, yeah. Well, I tell you what. You guys are going to determine who the next President of the United States is going to be. 

Sen. Joe Biden, in 2007, at a campaign stop in New Hampshire. He’s doing the thing presidential candidates do: pandering to the almighty wisdom of Iowa and New Hampshire voters.

Joe Biden: Seriously? I mean, no. No matter what big states move up, no matter what happens, the truth of the matter is, if you can't cut it in Iowa, New Hampshire, you're not in the game. 

Thirteen years later, Biden proved himself wrong. Because in 2020, he navigated a path to the White House around New Hampshire and Iowa, not through them — a path that started in South Carolina. And once he was in the White House, Biden set a process in motion that dethroned those two states. 

Josh Rogers: So are you intending to use this tape or this is just to chit chat? 

Jack Rodolico: Yes. 

Josh Rogers: Okay.

Jack Rodolico: I might. Did you have enough coffee? 

Josh Rogers: Yeah. 

Jack Rodolico: Okay. 

[music in]

Josh Rogers, senior political reporter. Josh remembers that no matter how many times Biden tried, he could not win in the primary in New Hampshire. 

Biden first ran for the White House in 1987. He stopped in New Hampshire to campaign on the heels of a ballooning plagiarism scandal.

Josh Rogers: He ended up quitting the race after getting into an awkward confrontation…

Voter to Biden: What law school did you attend and where did you place in that class? And the other question is…

Voice: Who cares?!

Joe Biden to voter: I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect…

Josh Rogers: He was kind of a blowhard. I mean, in his younger days, certainly the first time he ran…

Joe Biden to voter: And I'd be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours if you'd like, Frank.

In ‘87, Biden dropped out before the Iowa caucuses. 

[mux up and down]

Joe Biden: There'll be other opportunities for me to campaign for president.

Then, 2008. Biden’s second run.

Josh Rogers: The timing was tough. I mean, he was going against, like, you know, Obama and Clinton.

This time, Biden lost badly in Iowa, and drops out the same night. 

Joe Biden: And let me make something clear to you, I ain't going away.

Then 2020, Biden loses the Iowa caucuses, limps to New Hampshire and loses here — badly.  

Josh Rogers: He came in fifth.

Jack Rodolico: Fifth, he was fifth?

Josh Rogers: Well, it’s like Bernie, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Warren, Biden. That was at a real low ebb. I mean, everyone knew he was going to lose the primary. And it was tough, because, you know, his whole campaign was in some sense predicated on get to the big voting states in the South.

The night of the 2020 New Hampshire primary, Biden made a strategic choice. He left. When the results were announced that night, he was already in South Carolina.

Joe Biden: I– We just heard from the first two of the 50 states. Two of them. Not all the nation. Not half the nation. Not a quarter of the nation. Not 10%. Two! Two! Ha, so when you hear all these pundits and experts, cable TV talkers talking about the race, tell them it ain't over, man. We're just getting started.

He was right. Black voters, the party’s base, in South Carolina propelled Biden to the nomination, and then the White House. 

[music up and down]

As president, Biden controls the Democratic National Committee. And the DNC controls the presidential nominating calendar. 

For decades, many Democrats pushed the DNC to break Iowa and New Hampshire’s lock on the calendar. To prioritize more diverse states. Then, Biden comes along and wins the nomination and the White House doing just that. 

For politicos, the next primary is always right around the corner. So pretty soon after Biden’s elected, Democrats start looking to 2024. And early last year, the DNC makes an announcement: The old calendar is scrapped. They’re making a new one, and it will prioritize three things: 

One, diversity.

Two, competitiveness in the general election. Democrats want to hold presidential primaries in swing states.

And three, they want to hold early primaries in states where they feel elections are open and trustworthy. 

With those criteria in place, the DNC opens an application process. They encourage local Democratic parties to make their case. Why should you vote for presidential nominees before other states? 

The DNC sends a crystal clear message to Iowa and New Hampshire: If you want to stay first in the nation in 2024 and beyond, you have to fight for it. 

The DNC gets 20 applications. They hold a slew of hearings in 2022. 

Minyon Moore: Uh, New Hampshire has entered the room. 

And look, I recognize that the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the National Democratic Party doesn’t sound like an awesome place where you wanna spend a lot of fun time. But there are gonna be some fireworks. 

First, let’s listen in to the exchange between the committee and New Hampshire. 

Minyon Moore: OK, we’re going to go ahead and get started. I know that they have thrown the committee off a little bit with the goodie bags. So… ladies and gentlemen, if you can look in your goodie bags a little later. 

The goodie bags actually represent pretty well what New Hampshire is clinging to. 

• There’s maple syrup and chocolate in the shape of the state. 

• A mug from the Red Arrow Diner, a greasy spoon and legendary campaign stop. 

• A book written to celebrate the centennial of the New Hampshire primary. 

It’s all very nostalgic. 

Minyon Moore: You see they get very excited about trinkets. (laughs)

After the goodie bag ruckus settles, New Hampshire Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan lean hard into the stranglehold mythology.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen: From our earliest days, New Hampshire has helped build American democracy.

Sen. Maggie Hassan: New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary forces candidates to talk to and listen to voters directly, making better candidates and making better presidents.

If you listened to this whole podcast you know these are the classic New Hampshire primary talking points: We do retail politics better than anyone! New Hampshire voters take their job seriously. 

New Hampshire also said, despite how the state is characterized, it’s diversifying. Has been for years. Joanne Dowdell, one of New Hampshire’s reps to the DNC:

Joanne Dowdell: The face of New Hampshire is changing.

The committee is complimentary of NH and it’s presentation. But they also push back. 

Like, on voting rights. They say: Republicans in New Hampshire’s gerrymandered State House have tried again and again in recent years to restrict voting access.

Donna Brazile: You guys used to be the gold standard.

And the committee really took issue with New Hampshire’s particular line of argument. Because New Hampshire dems weren’t saying New Hampshire should be an early state. They were saying New Hampshire must be first.

Committee Member 1: It's still not clear to me why, why you guys have to be number one as opposed to early on.

Committee Member 2: The retail politics, the one on one. I don't think that will change if one or two states go before New Hampshire.

[music up and down]

Throughout this whole application process in 2022, the White House is pretty much silent. 

Then, in December, at the last possible moment, President Biden weighs in. In a letter to the Rules and Bylaws Committee the night before they’re going to vote on a new calendar, he lays out the primary calendar he thinks they should adopt. Here it is:

First, South Carolina votes. 

Then, Nevada and New Hampshire on the same day. 

The week after that, Michigan and Georgia together. 

New Hampshire would go second – and it would have to share.

Jim Roosevelt, Jr.: All those in favor of the motion, please say “aye.” (“Aye!”) Oppose say, “nay.” (“Nay!”) So the yays clearly have it. And congratulations to all of us.

Those two nays that were outvoted? Committee members from Iowa and New Hampshire. 

Now, the calendar isn’t official yet. It’s just a committee vote to send it to the full DNC to vote on in February 2023. 

Still, the die is cast. This big change is underway. 

And after the committee vote, the chair of the DNC, Jaime Harrison, tries to put a pleasant spin on the whole thing.

Jaime Harrison: I just want to say thank you to all of you, because even despite the raw emotions, we have carried ourselves in the most dignified manner that I've ever seen.

Well, up to that point at least. 

[music in]

Here’s the problem:

The DNC awards New Hampshire this spot in the calendar along with an ultimatum. The Committee wants New Hampshire to expand early voting, and to repeal an old state law that says New Hampshire’s presidential primary must be first. 

That’s a very bitter pill for national Dems to serve up to New Hampshire Dems. Because this ultimatum isn’t going to fly in the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature. But the DNC also isn’t about to carve out a special status for New Hampshire.

Now, on top of all that, the DNC gives this new calendar some teeth. If any state jumps the line, then the DNC will strip that state of half its delegates to the next national convention. If a candidate campaigns in a state that jumps the line, the candidate’s punished, too: If they win that state, the DNC won’t award them any delegates. 

Basically, for states that don't follow the rules, it could be as if their primary never happened.

Here’s what it all adds up to. The DNC lays out this ultimatum to New Hampshire: Get these things done or you’re out of the early window entirely. 

Gov. Chris Sununu: (applause) I have a very clear message for President Biden. You can come and try and take it, but it is never going to happen. 

This plan becomes an easy target for New Hampshire Republicans. (To be clear, the DNC plan has no impact on the Republican presidential primaries.) New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who is currently flirting with his own presidential run, he frames the whole thing like President Biden is tossing the primary into a sack and running away with it. 

Gov. Chris Sununu: (applause) It is just not in our DNA to give it up and take orders from Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, New Hampshire Democrats are in an unenviable position. They’re defending themselves from Republican attacks — sometimes by blame shifting to the DNC. 

Ray Buckley: Well, we certainly were surprised. 

That’s Ray Buckley, chair of the state Democratic Party. He was “surprised,” despite the fact that the DNC was working on this calendar for almost a year. New Hampshire Dems like Buckley and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen also kept using this particular imagery about the national party. 

Ray Buckley: This looks like a plan that was put together by some D.C. power brokers…

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen: We don't think these decisions should be made just by party bosses…

Ray Buckley: …it brings back politics of the smoke-filled rooms... 

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen: …in back rooms someplace. The voters need to have a chance to weigh in. 

Here’s what’s confusing about this argument from New Hampshire Dems. 

“Smoke-filled back rooms” — that’s a metaphor now, but it used to be a real thing. It’s a reference to party bosses picking their general election nominees. It’s a callback to a time when voters had no say over who a party nominated for the general election. 

The DNC did not cut out voters. They simply changed the order of who votes when for the party nominee. Even that word “smoke-filled” – it sounds sketchy and secretive. This was all live streamed on YouTube, and I didn’t see a cigarette burning.  

New Hampshire dems get a little petty. A former house speaker says he’ll abandon Biden if he runs again, and a former governor predicts the entire state would turn on Biden. Both these guys are Biden loyalists. 

Steve Shurtleff: I’ll look for another candidate before I support Joe Biden if he should go so far as to take away the first-in-the-nation primary. 

John Lynch: Now we have four electoral votes, small number of votes, but we are a purple state and our four votes matter. And I think President Biden is putting those four electoral votes at risk.

At the next meeting of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, committee members go off.

RBC Member 1: The recent press coverage coming out of New Hampshire is disturbing. It does not help us to have this divisiveness and share it in public.

RBC member 2: What New Hampshire is now arguing is that they can never, ever, ever change. And no one else in this wonderful country of ours can ever actually be in that mix at the beginning.

They start to say the quiet part out loud: New Hampshire, we know you always like to say you’re first, but you’re not. For decades, Iowa was first, you were second. And we voted to keep you second!

Mo Elleithee: We have maintained the tradition that New Hampshire has asked us to maintain.

Donna Brazile: Twenty-six presidential cycles. Twenty-six — we know your story. Let us allow another group of Americans to tell their story. 

And here’s where New Hampshire Dems really get in trouble with their party. It’s with this old law that says New Hampshire must vote first. 

Yes, it is true that New Hampshire Dems can’t change this law with Republicans in control of the statehouse. But it’s not like they’re saying they’re willing to change it. In fact, they say the law guarantees the state will defy the DNC’s plans. The law tells the Secretary of State to go seven days before any similar contest. So, if South Carolina is scheduled for Feb. 3, 2024, you can be sure New Hampshire is gonna hold a primary in the last week of January. 

Here’s Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. 

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen: Now, we have a state law that says we're gonna go first. So, we're gonna go first! (applause)

[music in]

To many Democrats, especially people of color outside of New Hampshire, this argument is ignorant. 

Leah Daughtry: Hanging their argument on this 100-year-old privilege is really for me, as an African American woman, quite disturbing, in as much as this law that they passed was passed even before Black people had the right to vote.

[music up and out]

=========MIDROLL============

[ambi up]

It’s the first week of February, and the Democratic National Committee meets up at a hotel in downtown Philadelphia. This is the big meeting where the full party leadership will vote on the new primary calendar. I want to be there to see how it all goes down, so I get my press credentials and fly down from New Hampshire. 

DNC member: Mr. Chairman, the floor is yours. (cheers, applause)

The day I show up, I follow the Democratic Party Chair, Jaime Harrison, as he hustles from room to room. Democrats break out into regional caucuses: Midwest, West, North, South. Harrison drops in on all of them, gives them all the same stump speech.

Jaime Harrison: Kevin McCarthy is just Airbnb in the house right now, y’all. (laughter) // Right now, Kevin McCarthy is just Airbnb’in’ it, right? (laughter) // Yeah, but he's one of those Airbnb tenants that just messed your place up. You've got to pull the carpet. You got to paint the wall. You'll funk it all up. // My grandma said, “You got just bleach everything down,” and we probably have to do that after Marjorie Taylor Greene…

He pats them on the back about the midterms, braces them for fights ahead. My ears perk up when he says this one thing to the Southern caucus. 

Jaime Harrison is from South Carolina, he ran the Democratic Party there before Biden tapped him to run the DNC. And he talks about himself as the kind of person his party has always relied on, but long ignored: born Black and poor in the South.

Jaime Harrison: We are going to vote this weekend on a primary schedule that allows the South to stand up to be heard. (applause, cheers) And I am proud of that. You know, I just had an interview with a reporter just recently and he was talking about it. And the reporter asked me was, like, “What will they add to the mix?” I said, “Have you ever heard about the infant mortality rates of Black women? We would not have known about that on the presidential level but for Vice President Kamala Harris going into South Carolina campaigning, President Biden going into South Carolina, campaigning, talking to Black women about the health disparities. We all know about ethanol, and we know about it because of Iowa's prominence in the presidential primary, right? And that influenced in the policies that came out of the Democratic nominee.”

[crowd ambi]

Jack Rodolico: Test, test…

Party loyalists are lock-step supporting this new calendar. They’re taking their lead from President Biden and Chairman Harrison. 

And that makes New Hampshire’s position all the more noticeable. Take Artie Blanco. 

Jack Rodolico: Hi, Ms. Blanco?

Artie Blanco: Yes…

Artie represents Nevada on the Rules and Bylaws Committee. She’s not crazy about the idea of Nevada sharing a date on the calendar with another state. Still, she supports the change. 

I ask what she thinks of the threats from New Hampshire — that regardless of the process, New Hampshire’s just gonna jump the line in 2024. 

Artie Blanco: And yes, it's definitely… inconsiderate, to be quite honest with you. It's definitely more of a we're-better-than-everyone kind of attitude, which is not a value of the Democratic Party.

Jack Rodolico: That word “inconsiderate.” You searched for that word carefully, but it seems like that lands.

Artie Blanco: I think that landed because there is no consideration for any progress. 

I wander the lobby, snagging interviews where I can. What do you think about the calendar, I asked. What do you think of New Hampshire? 

John Graham: I guess they're hurt, you know? It always gave New Hampshire its identity.  

This is John Graham, a delegate from New Jersey. To me, he represents a political reality in the party: It’s not only people of color, or people from states who have something to gain, who want this change.

John Graham: I loved goin’ up to New Hampshire with Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and everyone when they went up and when I was handling their campaigns, but sometimes change like this is important.

In my unscientific, hallway polling about the calendar and New Hampshire I came across just one person who was all in on New Hampshire being first. His name is Samay Sahu. He’s young, just 18, the national chairman of the High School Democrats of America. 

And guess where he’s from? New Hampshire!

Samay Sahu: I totally agree with the DNC’s messaging and goal of promoting more diversity in our primary process. It just makes sense. But I think that it doesn’t have to be one way or the other with an ultimatum of New Hampshire not being first. 

Samay is an impressive young man. He’s a high school senior, more engaged in politics than most of us ever will be. And I have to say, it’s a bit surreal to hear all of the New Hampshire talking points coming out of the mouth of an 18-year-old. In fact, I think Samay’s bluntness clarified for me what is so frustrating for national Dems. 

Here’s the best analogy I can come up with: The Democratic party is a big extended family, and the primary calendar is Thanksgiving dinner. The party says, “Everyone has a seat at the table. New Hampshire, you sit right up here; here’s a great seat, just for you, one of the best!” And New Hampshire’s like, “I’m not sitting here. I’m sitting at the head of the table!” And then, instead of sitting at all, New Hampshire flips the table and walks out. 

Samay Sahu: I think it’ll be alright. At the end of the day, I’d like to believe that the DNC is going to realize that there’s nothing that they can do regarding moving New Hampshire because we can’t change our state law. 

Jack Rodolico: You think New Hampshire is going to stare them down and the DNC is going to buckle?

Samay Sahu: That's what we've been doing, and I think that's what's going to happen.

[ambi up and down]

Crowd: Joe! Joe! Joe! Joe!

Vice President Kamala Harris: And I present, President Joe Biden!

Crowd: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

President Joe Biden: Hello, Democrats!

That night the president and vice president drop in. It’s not officially a campaign stop, but it sounds like practice to me. 

President Joe Biden: Some of you, although you've been good to me, I don't think you've really believed (laughter) that we were going to do as well as you did in the off-year election. But we got a lot more to do…

Crowd: Yes, we do! Four more years!

President Joe Biden: We’ve got a lot more to do.

Biden doesn’t mention the primary calendar, but he doesn’t need to. Everyone in the room knows he endorsed it. And he knows the next day, everyone in the room is gonna vote on it. 

President Joe Biden: So, let me ask you a simple question: Are you with me?

Crowd: Yeah! (cheers)

(fade down ambi)

Jack Rodolico: Sorry. Excuse me… Gotta get the fuck out of here. It's too hot. 

I don’t normally go to these kinds of political events. By the time the secret service allows people to start leaving, my ears are ringing and the air just tastes stale. 

Jack Rodolico: It's so much cooler out here, holy crap! It all kind of puts New Hampshire's position into perspective because what a political party is about, above all else, is unity. So when you have one state kind of throwing’ up their hands being like, “But our law!” Nobody here gives a damn about that law. And it doesn't feel like a real obstacle to change, or at least that it shouldn't be. But it is… 

[ambi up and down]

Jaimie Harrison: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America… (fade down)

The convention room is as big as an airplane hanger, with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and rows and rows of folding tables labeled for each state and territory. I’m up on a press riser in the middle of the room, and on either side of the riser, down on the floor, there’s a microphone with people queuing up to speak about the calendar. 

Jaime Harrison: The Rules and Bylaws Committee has presented its report and it’s moved its approval by the membership. Is there any discussion? [Second!] We do have discussion. I see…. Let’s hear from…

New Hampshire makes its case one last time. They don’t go so far as to ask people to join them in voting against the calendar, but they do want everyone to know they feel their hands are tied and they’re being treated unfairly. 

Ray Buckley, Chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party:

Ray Buckley: The RBC knows full well that New Hampshire Democrats could not possibly unilaterally change state laws. They knew that the Republican leaders in the state would not bend to their will. And even knowing this, the RBC still decided that New Hampshire Democrats should be set up for failure.

Everyone knows how this vote is gonna go. And still, comments like this from New Hampshire seem to raise the temperature in the room. Many of the next speakers look in the direction of the room where New Hampshire is sitting as they speak. 

John Verdejo: Be careful. All respect to the past and what you guys have done, we can do it, too. Just be careful.

Congresswoman Debbie Dingle: Here's a reality. No one state should have a lock on going first! (applause)

Artie Blanco: Fellow Democrats, you can't say you're for elevating this coalition's voice, but still ask us to wait our turn. I'm done waiting!

Leah Daughtry: I've heard a lot about this being about punishment. This was not about punishment. This was about acknowledgement. 

One of the last speakers was that voice you heard up at the top of the show: Leah Daughtry. The pastor who went to college in New Hampshire, who said she’s got New Hampshire granite in her blood and her brain. 

Leah Daughtry: Now, the Supreme Court has been clear that the party has the right to set its rules. And you can have a law that says you're first. Well, then I'm from New York. I'm going to petition my governor that we should be first and you petition your govern– so we're going to have 56 state parties that all have a state law that says they should be first. It's not fair. It's not right. And so I want to urge you to vote for change because change is overdue. But change is now. Thank you. (cheers)

Jaime Harrison: With that, we will move to a vote on the motion to approve the report of the Rules and Bylaws Committee. All those in favor of approving the report say “aye.” (“Aye!”) All opposed, “nay.” (“Nay!”) The ayes have it and the report and the Rules and Bylaws Committee has been adopted. 

[theme music up and out]

So, the stranglehold enters uncharted waters. 

Think about it like this. The New Hampshire primary always had two halves: Democrat and Republican. One half is being rewritten as we speak. The other half remains unchanged. 

In 2024, the GOP still plans to caucus first in Iowa, then primary in New Hampshire, on down the line. As of the day I’m recording this, the only Republicans who’ve declared their candidacy, they’ve already dropped in. 

Trump: You have it. You’re first and you’re gonna remain first, OK? (applause, cheers)

Nikki Haley: You have a beautiful state. You have an even more beautiful motto: To live free or die. (applause, cheers)

[theme music out]

So New Hampshire maintains its grip on the GOP. For Democrats, though, it’s murky. Again, my colleague, Josh Rogers. 

Josh Rogers: I believe state election officials when they say they're going to be holding a primary.

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee gave New Hampshire until June to comply with its ultimatum… which seems unlikely. 

So, looking down the line, whether 2024 or 2028, let’s say New Hampshire election officials do what they say they’re gonna do: They hold a primary for both parties ahead of South Carolina. Democratic candidates will have a choice to make. 

Josh Rogers: The only thing that's ever made the New Hampshire primary what it is is the fact that people have chosen to compete here, candidates want to run here. Like, there are worse things to do than win a state primary that people have heard of, regardless of how many people vote here, regardless of whether it's fully approved of by the party.

Maybe there are Democratic candidates who still see a path to the White House through New Hampshire — maybe a win here doesn’t get them any delegates, but it garners them a whole bunch of national media attention, and the momentum that comes along with that attention. Maybe.

Or maybe candidates decide to go straight to the state that, for the time being, seems to pick presidents. 

(phone ringing)

Deyaska Spencer-Sweatman: No more callin’! Have a good day! I'm so sorry. You… you took a little bit longer, so my client...

This is Deyaska Spencer-Sweatman and I called her up because she lives in the bluest county in South Carolina. 

Deyaska Spencer-Sweatman: And I am county chair of the Richland County Democratic Party.

Richland County is already very plugged in. The city of Columbia is there, the state capital, and it overlaps with the district of Congressman James Clyburn. He’s an elder statesman of Democratic politics in South Carolina, and his endorsement was crucial to Biden carrying the state in the 2020 primary. 

Deyaska Spencer-Sweatman: We do our job here in Richland County. We turn out the vote.

Deyaska is going to be at the crossroads of everything that lays ahead in Democratic politics. And whatever mythology New Hampshire has about its place in presidential politics, here’s the story Deyaska tells about South Carolina:

Deyaska Spencer-Sweatman: We've been called and we're answering that call. It was a crowded field in 2020 – super crowded Democratic field. And South Carolina, and because of Congressman Clyburn and because of our excellent discernment and judgment, decided that we needed someone to save the country.

Jack Rodolico: Like, you frame it sort of like a superhero origin story. Forgive me if that seems a little overblown.

Deyaska Spencer-Sweatman: Yes, Jack! Jack, Jack, I think we were the firewall between good and, you know, a slippery slope back into more extremist Trump-like, January Sixth, insurrection-style politics.

Jack Rodolico: How do you feel personally?

Deyaska Spencer-Sweatman: I feel responsible. It's a tall order and South Carolina is ready to fill the order. Remind me, who was it that New Hampshire– out at the New Hampshire primary, who was it that you guys nominated to become president?

Jack Rodolico: Which time? Are we talking last time?

Deyaska Spencer-Sweatman: Yeah, last time, 2020.

Jack Rodolico: It was Bernie. Biden was fifth.

Deyaska Spencer-Sweatman: See?! Oh my god, you guys are so progressive in New Hampshire! And I love New Hampshire. Quaint, cute, tuned in. But that's not palatable to the whole of America. And I don't see New Hampshire not supporting South Carolina when South Carolina has always supported New Hampshire.

Jack Rodolico: I think you underestimate or overestimate New Hampshire a little bit. (laughter)

Deyaska Spencer-Sweatman: Oh no! Don’t tell me that!

Jack Rodolico: Sorry to say, I mean, you know, that's just my opinion.

[theme mux up]

This episode of Stranglehold was reported and produced by me, Jack Rodolico. 

It was edited by Katie Colaneri.

Dan Barrick and Rebecca Lavoie are Executive Producers. 

Additional editing by Casey McDermott, Jason Moon, and Josh Rogers. 

Mixing by Rebecca Lavoie. Music by Jason Moon and Lucas Anderson. Graphics by Sara Plourde. 

Stranglehold is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio. 

[theme mux up and out]

Previously on Stranglehold… Previously on Stranglehold…Previously on Stranglehold… muah-ah-ah-ah!

Transcript - Ep 10: The Moldy Cookie

Note: This transcript was adapted from a radio script. It may contain grammar errors and format quirks that certain readers find offensive.

From New Hampshire Public Radio, this is Stranglehold - an investigation into the power and people behind New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary. I’m Jack Rodolico. 

CLINTON: Let me say that, while the evening is young and while we don’t yet know what the final tally will be, I think we know enough to say with some certainty that New Hampshire, tonight, has made Bill Clinton the comeback kid. 

This is a speech that made political history. It was 1992, and Bill Clinton came in a surprise second place in the N.H. primary. And those words - the comeback kid - they did as much for N.H. as they did for Clinton. They further cemented this little state’s reputation as a place that can catapult a candidate to the White House. 

But that story - it has been told. There’s another part of the speech I wanna tell you about. A part that’s proforma - something your ears are trained to tune out. 

CLINTON: I want you to let me thank just a few people. 

This bit coming up. It’s an important part of the primary machinery. Thanking the local officials who endorsed Clinton - the people who helped him claim that title - the comeback kid. 

CLINTON: First my state co-chairs… 

So this night was kind of a high water mark for what a N.H. politico could get in return for endorsing a presidential candidate. A small handful of these people went on to pretty plumb assignments in the Clinton administration. In this crowd at a N.H. hotel in 1992 - there are two future U.S. ambassadors to tropical countries. Not a bad return on investment for endorsing a candidate in the N.H. primary. 

CLINTON: This has been a tough campaign. But at least I’ve proved one thing. I can take a punch. 

[DRUMS] 

This time on Stranglehold, we’re gonna take a look at one of the most purely transactional parts of any political campaign. Endorsements. One politician vouching publicly for another. We wanna know: what does an endorser really get for their support? Because ambassadorships? That’s the exception, not the rule. This transaction isn’t always so black and white. 

HELMS: I don’t think endorsements generally make much of a difference. 

///

CASEY: Why do you think the campaigns spend so much time courting you then? 

CALLI-PITTS: Because they want a good show from the state they’re in. It’s like guilt by association. 

///

CASTILLO: You really work hard for somebody and then win or lose they just send you to the curb. And then two years later they bring you back to life. 

///

RODOLICO: Well this whole wall is Kennedy. 

D'ALESSANDRO: Right. I would have endorsed him. He would’ve gotten my endorsement!

[MUSIC]

Let’s start where a lot of great stories from the N.H. primary start - memory lane. 

D’ALLESANDRO: I was in the audience there when John Kennedy was speaking at UNH when I was an underclassman. I met him, he shook my hand he said hi I’m John Kennedy. I said hi I’m Lou D’Allesandro! I’m Lou D’Allesandro. 

MUSIC?

Lou D’Allesandro. He’s 81 years old and currently the longest serving state senator in New Hampshire. And his office -- it’s like a monument to his own political durability. 

D’ALLESANDRO: This is an example of the tough part of politics. That was a cartoon that was in the Union Leader that my kids had to see. 

JACK: “D’Allesandro decapitated.” 

D’ALLESANDRO: Right, right. 

JACK: My god. That’s brutal. 

D’ALLESANDRO: Is that pretty vicious? I would say. 

JACK: Do you even remember what that was over? 

D’ALLESANDRO: Yeah I was running for governor. And they didn’t like me. 

JACK: Yeah, they’re calling you Liberal Lou. 

D’ALLESANDRO: Liberal Lou. My social agena. How bout this one? They were bashing me over the head? 

At the time these editorial cartoons ran in the ‘80s, Lou was a Republican. Now, he’s a Democrat.

D’ALLESANDRO: You gotta be tough in this business. [speaks Italian] You gotta be tough. If you’re not you’re in trouble. That’s how I’ve survived I think in this business. 

JACK: And when you find yourself standing next to Joe Biden, or previously Hillary Clinton, do you pinch yourself and say, “How did I get here?”

D’ALLESANDRO: I pinch myself all the time. I walk into this building, I pinch myself and I say, I’m a N.H. state senator. How good does it get? How good does it get? I’m one lucky guy.

MUSIC 

D’ALLESANDRO: It is my privilege to introduce to you, my friend, Senator John Edwards!

///

D’ALLESANDRO: It is an honor and a privilege to introduce the United States Senator from Delaware, Joseph Biden. 

Lou D’Allesandro has never been named an ambassador. He’s never been handed a White House job. But he has been courted - for years - by presidential hopefuls looking for his endorsement. In 2008, Bill Clinton personally called him to ask him to support Hillary. 

And why do they call him ? Perhaps it’s because D’Allesandro can give them access to a city - a city he has lived in since the 70s and represented as a senator since 1998.

LOU: The Queen City, Manchester, New Hampshire! Let’s not forget that. 

Manchester, New Hampshire. Biggest city in the state. Traditionally, pretty working class. And it’s got a fair amount of swing voters. 

ROGERS: Ya know, Lou D’Allesandro is somebody who really came up in Manchester politics and that informs his approach to doing what he does. 

Josh Rogers is NHPR’s Senior Political reporter and he’s covered N.H. politics for a long time. He’s watched D'alessandro in action for years. 

ROGERS: He’s somebody whose politics are very tactile. 

RODOLICO: What does that mean? 

ROGERS: He’s a very sort of physical guy. He’ll clap you on the back. He’s eager to shake hands. He /// you know he notices who walks into the room and you can expect him to acknowledge them in some way. 

///

D’ALLESANDRO: Willie, and Marissa, and Pat, so wonderful to see you. /// Joyce who’s the Mayor of Manchester who… /// Billy who played for me at Bishop Bradley High School. /// Start mentioning names and you get in trouble. /// Helen Chi-pop-polous. /// Jimmy Ja-joo-gah. /// All of you have a place in my heart, the beautiful June Craig. 

///

ROGERS: And I don’t know if we need to describe him. I mean it’s like a thick former college football player. He’s got a broken finger from playing football. His pinky is out at some weird angle. Don’t know what happened to it but it doesn’t look like -- it must not have been pleasant when it did happen. You know, he was a basketball coach for years so he can really flip into this kind of yelling mode. 

///

D’ALLESANDRO: Business and industry has said to us without equivocation: we need workers!

///

ROGERS: It’s a more bull-necked brand of Democratic politics is typical these days. 

///

D’ALLESANDRO: Anybody hired a plumber lately? Hundred bucks an hour. One hundred dollars! I couldn’t debate the issue. If he comes back tomorrow it might be a hundred and ten!

///

ROGERS: He’s someone who works to deliver policies that benefit the people who he really sees as his true constituents, which are middle and lower middle class people from his district and from the city of Manchester.

///

 JACK: Tell me about his stance on endorsing. How does he view his role? 

ROGERS: He views a role significantly seriously enough that he actually - I’m not sure he’d say he authored this book, I’m holding, it’s called Lou D’Allesandro. Lion of the N.H. Senate. Thoughts for Presidential Hopefuls. It’s kind of a mouthful. 

Lou D’Allesandro. Lion of the New Hampshire Senate. Thoughts for Presidential Hopefuls. It was published in the spring of 2018. 

ROGERS: This was kind of an as-told-to book compiled after conversations at a Dunkin Donuts equidistant between Manchester and Leominster, Massachusetts where the book’s author lived. 

JACK: Ok…

ROGERS: And he’s someone who takes his public discernment process quite seriously. In the book and as he said kind of what put him on the map as an endorser was 2004 - there was a profile of him written in the Washington Post by reporter Mark Leibovich that talked about essentially when is Lou D’Allesandro gonna make up his mind that his endorsement was coveted. I mean, 2004 was a crowded year in the Democratic primary. Ultimately Senator D'Allesandro went with John Edwards. 

Josh went to one of Senator D’Allesandro’s book signings, where he talked about this profile in the Post.

D’ALLESANDRO: So Leibovich writes that if you’re gonna be the president, you actually gotta get Lou D’Allesandro’s endorsement in New Hampshire 

////

D’ALLESANDRO: It’s interesting to think about that we’re talking about somebody who was deep into his 60s by the time his endorsement was perceived as being significant. And if you actually read the article that the Senator would cite as what set him on his path as being perceived as kind of a kingmaker -- ya know it’s an article that seems to convey that he’s a likeable guy but also mocks him as a kind of archetype of early voting states, the courted local official, whose significance is probably ultimately pretty small. 

///

JACK: What’s Lou discernment process like? 

ROGERS: I mean he would tell you he spends a lot of time thinking about who to endorse and viewing it from the outside it seems pretty clear when he makes a case for whomever he endorses, what it tends to boil down to is, I believe this candidate, I believe that he or she could best represent the interests of the people I represent. The candidate he tends to gravitate towards is the candidate who has the coalition that includes working class, lower middle class voters. 

///

D’ALLESANDRO: But the Senator is without question one of the real rising stars in politics. Great public policy person. Person who cares about you, cares about what your life is gonna be all about. And without further ado, Senator John Edwards. 

///

ROGERS: And when he campaigns with these individuals that’s the message he hammers home. You could see it - Hillary Clinton when he’s campaigned with her in 2008. Ya know, took her door to door on the west side of Manchester, his district, freezing day. 

///

CLINTON/D’ALLESANDRO: [Laughing] Mountain climbing…. 

///

ROGERS: Taking her into the houses of normal voters. Not terribly well heeled. 

///

CLINTON: Thank you I’d love to have your consideration for the primary. 

D’ALLESANDRO: Take care.

That was back in 2008. And then in 2016, he endorsed Clinton again. 

CLINTON: And I thank him very much for his support and his friendship. Thank you Lou. [applause]

GPS: In 1,000 feet run left. 

ROGERS: This just doesn’t look - oh Biden, there it is. Let’s just park here. 

This time around, for the 2020 primary, Lou D’Allesandro is endorsing Joe Biden. Shortly after making the announcement this summer he told a local paper he felt endorsements still matter. “Local politicians feel the pulse of the people,” he said.  

JACK: You went to see Lou in action working for the Biden campaign. 

ROGERS: Yea. 

///

ROGERS: So are there any particular sorts of voters that are being targeted this evening?

STAFFER: I don’t think so. I could be wrong. 

///

ROGERS: This was an event where he was headlining a phone banking. I think there were maybe 12 volunteers of the campaign in all with flip phones provided by the campaign. 

///

SFX: phone bankers talking over each other

///

ROGERS: This was taking place on a weeknight at around six o’clock. 

///

D'ALESSANDRO: Thank you, Happy Thanksgiving to you John and take care. Bye bye. 

STAFFER: That one felt good. Was that a good one? 

D’ALLESANDRO: Yeah that was strong. 

ROGERS: How many times do you think you’ve phone banked in your life. 

D’ALLESANDRO: Well it started in like 1975 so I’ve phone banked a lot. Yeah a lot. A lot. When we actually had phones. [laughs]

///

ROGERS: You know the campaign said they weren’t targeting anyone on particular but I was looking over his shoulder at the list and lot of these people were older voters. 

///

D’ALLESANDRO: If you made this page you’re 60. That’s it. You had to be 60 otherwise I won’t talk to you. 

ROGERS: Well we got a 41 year old there. 

D’ALLESANDRO: 41. He’s out on the town. Out on the town living it up. 

ROGERS: Will you take a crack at one of these so we can see how persuasive you are this evening.

D’ALLESANDRO: How well I do it. Ok. Suzanne. Should have got my last one. Cuz he was really with us. 

MESSAGE: When you’re finished recording you may hang up or press one for more options. 

D’ALLESANDRO: Everybody’s got you on their machines. Hello? They’re not answering. 

STAFFER: It’s usually better luck. I don’t know. 

D’ALLESANDRO: These are dead ends. 

///

D’ALLESANDRO: Hello? This is Lou D’Allesandro calling on behalf of the Biden campaign. How are things? With less than 100 days left before the primary we’re reaching out to hear what your thoughts are with regard to the primary. What do you think? How’s Senator Biden fit in your list of candidates. Sure, Senator Biden - running for the presidency. The primary’s 100 days out. What are you thinking about in terms of your voting in this primary? Good. Well we want you to think about Joe Biden. And tomorrow night Michelle Kwan is coming to Goffstown. You might want to drop in and see her. She’s the Olympic figure skating champion. Well, ok, well thanks a million and appreciate your thinking about us and we’ll look forward to seeing you on the road. Bye. We’re second choice. 

///

ROGERS: These are the sort of voters that Joe Biden will need to have in order to win and I don’t know if this is true but he believes that these people are best reached looking them in the eye at senior centers, at subsidized apartment complexes, at nursing homes. Looking them in the eye and saying, Joe Biden is the kind of guy who understands us, who will do what ought to be done. 

///

D’ALLESANDRO: They’re gonna vote, not by calling them, but by going to the Pariseau Apartment Building, by going to the Burns Apartment Building, by going to the Carpenter Center, and meeting these people like we used to in the old days, one on one, and asking for your vote. That’s where they congregate. That’s where I think these key votes are. But the whole - the world’s changing as you know. And this -- this is different. 

///

ROGERS: I think it’s an open question what local endorsements have ever meant to presidential campaigns. At least if we’re talking about within the political lifespan of somebody like Lou D’Allesandro. Any serious campaign has all sorts of sophisticated digital tools to micro target and really drill down on who they think they can persuade using more algorithmic approaches then like Lou D’Allesandro looking people in the eye and saying Joe’s a great guy. 

///

ROGERS: I mean obviously you weigh your decisions very seriously, a soberly when you’re trying to figure out who to support. I mean, do you think endorsements matter in this day any age. 

D’ALLESANDRO: No I don’t. No I don’t. The one on one situation is so important. And we’re losing that. The great thing about the N.H. primary was that fact. And we’re losing that. 

/// 

D’ALLESANDRO: We’ll be there. Take care. Ok Josh.

ROGERS: Make it across the river.  

D’ALLESANDRO: We gotta go across the river. We need a passport. Usually it’s a police escort but we’ve given that up. They’re too busy chasing crime. 

D’Allesandro makes endorsing during the primary a big part of his political brand. But not every here who’s in a position to endorse feels the way he does. 

CASTILLO: I’ve seen it all my life here and finally i said, you know what if I don’t speak up, people are not really gonna change and take us seriously. So I think right now it’s just my role to call it for what it is. 

We’ll be right back. 

MIDROLL ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So if you’re talking about endorsements in New Hampshire, it’s worth noting in the last primary - 2016 - two people who won here did so without any major local endorsements. Senator Bernie Sanders and now-president Donald Trump. 

But that hasn’t stopped many of the 2020 candidates from fishing for endorsements here. 

As evidenced by my colleague Casey McDermott’s inbox:

MCDERMOTT: This is kind of like a week in the life of a political reporter in New Hampshire. So Wednesday, November 20. Fifty Granite State legislators declare support for Elizabeth Warren. 

///

MCDERMOTT: We’ve got Monday December 2, Dover City Councillor Michelle Muffet-Lipinsky endorses Cory Booker for president. 

/// 

MCDERMOTT: We’ve got December 3. Cory Booker earns his 100th New Hampshire endorsement. 

Ok, so you get the point. This is happening all the time. There’s a race behind the scenes of the 2020 primary to secure endorsements in the early states. Some people call it the  invisible primary.

MCDERMOTT: What is really important to understand is that New Hampshire has the largest legislature in the country. And what that means is that there are 424 state reps and state senators. 400 state reps. 24 state senators. Not to mention the fact that we have hundreds of towns and cities across the state… 

Casey did some reporting on what state reps make of all this. Like, do they think they’re worth all the attention and the press releases? 

MCDERMOTT:  Can I ask you a few questions as we wait for the elevator here? 

BACKUS: Sure. 

///

MCDERMOTT: I asked around if I saw lawmakers at candidate filing events. 

///

MCDERMOTT: Excuse me representative, have you endorsed the vice president? 

Here’s the first thing that stands out in the tape Casey brought back - the campaigns clearly value the endorsements of state lawmakers. Because, they are working for them. 

TUCKER: Oh, close to fifty between email and phone. 

MCDERMOTT: That’s a lot. 

TUCKER: It’s a lot. Yeah. Because as you know there are 400 house members so presumably all of them are getting this kind of attention. 

///

MCDERMOTT: Have you heard from a lot of campaigns? 

SCHULTZ: Yeah, phone calls, emails. I got a text from one of the candidates when I was in the hospital this summer. That was very nice. 

At the height of the summer there were 20+ Democrats running for president - competing for the endorsements of 400+ state lawmakers. A text from the candidate? Nice touch. 

Casey asked all the reps she spoke with: what value do you think your endorsement brings to the campaigns. And the answers you're about to hear are pretty consistent across the board. And they were surprising. 

CALLI-PITTS: I think what the state reps bring is negligible. I mean, the state reps - I always felt that endorsements weren’t that important anyway. 

///

MCDERMOTT: What do you think your endorsement brings to a presidential campaign? 

BACKUS: Frankly, not much. I don’t think endorsements generally make much of a difference in campaigns overall. 

///

MCDERMOTT: Why do you think the campaigns spend so much time courting you then?

CALLI-PITTS: Because they want a good show from the state they’re in. From the people who supposedly the people have already trusted, so now they, ya know -- it’s like guilt by association. 

So most local politicians say they’re ambivalent about the endorsement transaction. A few admitted they liked the attention. It’s worth noting N.H. has a volunteer legislature. Lawmakers earn 100 bucks a year - before taxes. 

But at least one person Casey spoke with - a person who’s in a position to endorse - seems jaded by endorsements.

MCDERMOTT: One of the most interesting conversations I had was actually with someone who said that she no longer endorses. So Eva Castillo is a local activist who does a lot of work around immigration issues. 

CASTILLO: Or are we gonna stand up against xenophobia, and racism, and bigotry. 

Here’s Castillo in 2015, protesting in front of the N.H. state house.

CASTILLO: So let’s shove it in their faces. We are home of the free. And we’re gonna remain that way. 

///

CASTILLO: I’ve gotten calls from a few campaigns, yes. 

Casey interviewed Castillo at a union breakfast. She’s originally from Venezuela and she’s been in the U.S. since 1975, most of that time in New Hampshire. 

MCDERMOTT: She has endorsed in the past but has felt that she’s been taken for granted, that she’s been used as a press release.

///

CASTILLO: We tend to be just used as a face and so that’s why I don’t endorse anybody personally because I’m not the token anything for anybody. I’ve seen it all my life here and finally I said, you know what if I don’t speak up, people are not really gonna change and take us seriously. So I think right now it’s my role to just call it for what it is. 

So Eva has been in one of those endorsement press releases that the campaigns send out. And she didn’t like it 

CORY BOOKER: And so New Hampshire, will you stand with me? 

But Casey also talked to another local politico who sees power in the presidential endorsement.

CANNON: I was scared at one time to do any sort of public service. I’ve also been someone who’s been eating cheese and peanut butter crackers for lunch and dinner because I was so poor. 

///

MCDERMOTT: That is state rep Gerri Cannon. Gerri is really well known for her activism on trans issues. She is transgender. 

Gerri Cannon was an activist before she was a lawmaker. She’s also been a master carpenter and a long-haul truck driver. And she says she’s still facing discrimination all the time. She recently wrote an editorial about how, twice in a year, she was called a nasty slur while standing in front of her own home. 

CANNON: Many transgender people and their supporters who have told me right outright I have become a role model for them. And so it’s because of leaders like Cory that believed in me and I have reconnected with people and find that I have a voice. 

Gerri Cannon endorsed Cory Booker - and she feels good about it. But she shares that same concern with Eva Castillo - she doesn’t wanna be some symbol, or token. 

CANNON: I’ve already let them know. I said I don’t want them to overuse me as a transgender representative. On the other hand, I know that’s important. There are transgender people who need to know they can stand up for a candidate. That they can be public.

MUSIC

So here’s one thing that pretty much every endorsement buys: proximity to power. Proximity to someone who, within a year, could be in the White House. It’s the kind of thing that can feel like a lot, without actually meaning a lot in practice. And it especially feels like a lot if you perform what amounts to a political ritual every time your party is selecting a nominee…

ROGERS: New Hampshire’s a place where, as somebody who covers politics here, it’s always remarkable what people, be they industry groups or lobbyists, or by extension, like a presidential candidate can get people to do for free. We have a legislature were people are willing to serve for like a hundred bucks a year, which, I don’t know if that predisposes our political culture to be one where the quid pro quo kind of stuff doesn’t really happen as much. Or the stakes are just incredibly low and parochial and provincial. Somebody will endorse you and if you get on their Christmas card list and they get to the White House that can be plenty. 

There was one very well known Democratic party activist who my understanding kept a moldy cookie from a Christmas party they attended at the White House on their kitchen counter for months after the fact. It’s moldy, it’s in plastic and I do think that’s in some way emblematic of our political culture prizing access and putatively intimate relationships with people running for president or people who become president and really kind of leave it there in some ways. I mean some people may leverage it into business opportunities or the perception that they’re a needed person or a wise person. But by and large it’s hard to see real transactions beyond the conceptual when it comes to local politicians endorsing would-be presidents here. 

[THEME MUSIC]

This episode of Stranglehold was reported by Josh Rogers and Casey McDermott. It was  produced by me, Jack Rodolico and Maureen McMurray.

Edited by NHPR’s news director Dan Barrick and our Director of Content, Maureen McMurray with help from Casey McDermott, Josh Rogers, and Jason Moon. 

Mixing by Rebecca Lavoie. 

Original music also by Jason Moon and Lucas Anderson

Podcast graphics by Sara Plourde

Our website is strangleholdpodcast.org

Stranglehold is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio. 

ROGERS: Lou D’Allesandro. Lion of the N.H. Senate. Thoughts for Presidential Hopefuls. Written by Mark C. Bodanza. From interviews and personal conversations. “Lou’s rough and tumble was not limited to the football field that fall. He took up his duties on the lunch line with the cafeteria staff. When an insolent student made a disrespectful remark about the appearance of a lady staff member, Lou jumped over the counter and exacted some immediate justice. The unhesitating action won Lou great favor with the cafeteria staff. It was something they never forgot. Later those same ladies helped in Lou’s campaigns and joined with him in sponsoring a bill: The School Feeding and Nutrition Act. 

Transcript - Ep 7: The Office

Note: This transcript was adapted from a radio script. It may contain grammar errors and format quirks that certain readers find offensive.

From NHPR, this is Stranglehold, a podcast about the New Hampshire primary. I’m Jack Rodolico. 

MUSIC IN

Lately, our team of reporters has spent a lot of time in this one office in the statehouse. This office -- it’s about the size of a large bedroom. Dark carpet, whitish walls. A couple desks where state employees work. A book shelf covered with dated phone books. 

Normally, this office ... it’s not a place to be.

But -- that all changed about two weeks ago. That’s when the 2020 campaign wormed its way right through the doors - and turned this office into an all-but-necessary campaign stop - just like it does every four years. 

BIDEN: Reporting as ordered. [Welcome back.] Good to be. 

Vice President Biden stopped by this office. So did Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, on down the line...

BIDEN: It’s an honor to be able to come to New Hampshire again and ya know this is … this is the ultimate democracy. 

As I speak, we’re in the final hours of what’s known as the filing period: it’s a deadline for candidates who want to get their names on the primary ballot here in New Hampshire. And this office is where that all goes down. 

Really, filing for the New Hampshire primary is the smallest of bureaucratic hurdles - sign a form and cut a check to the Secretary of State for a thousand bucks. Candidates don’t even have to do it in person - they can just mail in their paperwork. But most candidates DO show up in person. It’s a photo op - one of many on the campaign trail. 

But it’s an even bigger opportunity for the man they’re all coming to see. This is a chance for New Hampshire’s Secretary of State, Bill Gardner, to take the stage for a moment too. 

GARDNER: Perfect opportunity to let them know the tradition here, how it happened, why and /// but I’ve always done that over the years when candidates have come in. 

ROGERS: Once every four years this two-week period is really were Bill Gardner’s going to get uninterrupted time in front of the national press, in front of a potential president. 

Josh Rogers is the political reporter I go to when I don’t understand something about politics. He’s covered the New Hampshire statehouse since 2000. And this is his fifth primary. He’s seen a lot. 

And Josh says, when it comes to Bill Gardner and this filing event that happens in his office every four years, it’s a chance for Gardner to define the primary as he sees it. 

GARDNER: It’s a story of inclusiveness and helping to keep the American dream that anyone’s son or daughter can grow up to be president. 

New Hampshire does make it easy for candidates to get on the ballot here. There aren’t many hoops to jump through. And the reasons that they show up in person to do just that -- well that speaks to how much sway this little state has in the 2020 race.

But this cycle, not every candidate is making the trip. And that reasons they are skipping out might tell us something about how the race to the White House is changing. 

LET MUSIC PLAY OUT A BIT AND FADE

Gardner has held his office for 43 years, making him the longest serving Secretary of State in the country. Our whole first episode was about Gardner - how he built his power, how he uses that power, and how some would say he misuses it. Go check it out. 

But for now all you need to know is that he’s in charge of the state’s elections and that means he’s been holding these public filings in his office for decades. There is a stagecraft to what happens here. 

It starts in the hallway that leads to the Secretary of State’s office. Often hours before a candidate arrives at the statehouse, supporters start lining that hallway. And at the moment they catch their first glimpse of the candidate, everyone starts chanting . 

Pete chant

The candidate walks down through the corridor, slapping backs, shaking hands. 

Andrew Yang chant 

They take selfies. There are campaigns signs everywhere. 

Tulsi chant 

ROGERS: I mean I wouldn’t say walking down the aisle exactly but they’re walking down the corridor, often being presented to the Secretary of State, to the officiant of the primary.

The bigger the candidate, the bigger the crowd that tends to greet them. This mass of people pushes down the corridor, with the candidate in the lead, and then it kind of narrows and funnels through a pinch point - the door to the Secretary of State’s office. 

ROGERS: When a candidate enters the Secretary of State’s office, the Secretary of State is typically standing at the door. He greets them. 

BUTTIGEIG: Hello. Sir.  

In there, sometimes a staffer has to stand on her desk just to glimpse the candidate, who’s maybe ten feet away. 

ROGERS: He’s ya know kind of a clerical looking man… and he has props that he’s using to make this case why what we do here in New Hampshire is special in his estimation. 

That prop might be a desk - a really old desk, used by the lawmaker who created the primary. 

GARDNER: ... who sponsored the legislation. 

KLOBUCHAR: This guy, well this is his desk? 

GARDNER: And this is his desk. 

Another prop Gardner likes - ballot boxes. He points out that some towns in New Hampshire have been using the same ballot boxes for 100 years. 

YANG: These things look very hard to tamper with or hack. 

GARDNER: You can’t hack a pencil. 

YANG: Yeah you can’t hack a pencil and wood ballot box. 

ROGERS: He’s in front of a bank of cameras. News organizations are streaming this live. Remember we’re in a room where the walls are decorated with photos of past primaries, sometimes shots from within this office. So there’s this kind of hall of mirrors effect in a way. 

RODOLICO: He seems to be making the case to the cameras through the candidate that New Hampshire is a great place to have the first primary because we’ve got this history here and because we take it so seriously.  

ROGERS: Absolutely. 

MUSIC

So the image Gardner is creating for the press is the master imparting a teaching to a presidential disciple. This whole scene is great for him politically. He’s standing next to EVERYONE. They’ve all come TO HIM. 

And these candidates - senators and governors and mayors and vice presidents - they go along with it. 

Do they really care about the history of the New Hampshire primary? Maybe. Do they care about appearing to be deferential to the New Hampshire primary? Probably.

GABBARD: Ooooh ok. 

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard punctuated each of Gardner’s lessons with a superlative. Incredible. 

GABBARD: Incredible. 

Amazing.  

GABBARD: It’s amazing history. 

KLOBUCHAR: Uh huh. Uh huh. [GARDNER: So in 1952…]

Senator Amy Klobuchar delivered a steady stream uh huhs. 

KLOBUCHAR: Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. 

Uh huh. 

KLOBUCHAR: Uh huh. 

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg kept repeating this little zinger. “How ‘bout that.” 

BUTTIGIEG: How ‘bout that. / How ‘bout that. / How ‘bout that. 

So the cameras are clicking away, Gardner takes each candidate through the history of the primary from 1913 to today. And then, they hand over the money, sign a form - and it’s official...their name will be on the New Hampshire ballot. 

And what exactly are the candidates getting out of this...beyond the photo opp? Like I said,  they don’t have to do this in person. They can send their check in the mail. But if they did it that way, they wouldn’t get Gardner’s public seal of approval.

GARDNER: You’re all set. You’re official. You’re officials. [Cheers]

///

ROGERS: They may have been running for mo nths or even years, but at this moment, it is new again. 

MUSIC

Maybe this sounds to you like some kind of parochial tradition that candidates just grin and bear through. Or maybe you see some kind of deeper meaning here. Either, let me tell you something indisputable. 

There is a leveling effect at play here. By recreating this moment again and again, Gardner is knocking big candidates down a peg - and he’s giving a little lift to the candidates whose campaigns are flailing. 

Not in a way that will swing or even nudge the race. It won’t. But the imagery he creates is powerful. Every candidate who chooses to walk through Gardner’s door - they all seem to stand shoulder to shoulder - just for a moment. And that’s by design. 

GARDNER: This primary has always been about the little guy. /// And we make it as easy as we can and it gives the person who doesn’t have the most fame or fortune to have a chance. 

New Hampshire does make it easy to get on the ballot. And that means Gardner’s doors are open to not just the little guy, but also the littlest guy. What does that mean? I’m not talking about a congressman who isn’t polling high enough to make the debate stage. I’m talking about candidates on the fringe.  

DE LA FUENTE: You do not know how difficult it is, ballot access United States. New Hampshire is the easiest state in the country. 

Like Rocky De La Fuente, a California man who says he got rich selling cars. He’s gonna be on the Republican ballot in the New Hampshire primary - listed there with Donald Trump. And when De La Fuente had chance to bend Gardner’s ear, he spent a chunk of time talking about this picture of him that he didn’t like on Wikipedia. 

DE LA FUENTE: And he put the stupid picture for two years in a row and I couldn’t do nothing to remove it. I would remove it from Wikipedia, put it back in, remove it….

There are a lot of guys like De La Fuente - candidates with no real campaign or supporters, who come into Gardner’s office prepared to spend a thousand dollars of their own money, just to be listed on the ballot. 

And some of these fringe candidates are fringier than the rest. Like the conspiracy theorist who showed up just before Joe Biden filed and insisted on being listed on the ballot as “Rod Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself Webber.”

WEBBER: R-o-d, Epstein, didn’t, d-i-d-n-t, kill, k-i-l-l...

REPORTER: Roderick or Rod? 

WEBBER: I go by Epstein didn’t kill himself...

Gardner did not let him on the ballot. Can’t use a multi-word nickname. That’s state law. 

These moments in the Secretary of State’s office can be absurd. I mean, a dozen T.V. cameras waiting for Biden, filming this instead...

WEBBER: If you turn me away a second time I will file a lawsuit! I filed a lawsuit against Trump... 

But they are proof that Gardner keeps his doors WIDE OPEN to anyone who wants to run for president. And once they’re through his doors, and they’ve signed the forms and paid the fee, he directs the candidate to a back room. Gardner has national reporters stand while local reporters get prime seats at a table with the candidate. 

NHPR is almost always at that table too. We play the game. And often the first question, inevitably from a local reporter, is some variation on, so, you gonna win the primary? 

DISTASO: So mayor, are you gonna win the NH primary

BUTTIGEIG: We’re counting on it. Well I think it’s all about speaking to New Hampshire voters about … FADE

And then, they’re done. They leave. They’re on the ballot. 

If they’re lucky and they’re riding high in the polls, the chaos follows the candidate outside, where campaign staff have spent hours preparing a stage for a rally. 

That’s a really great photo op - cheering supporters, with the capitol’s gold dome looming above them. 

BUTTIGEIG: We've been at it for a good year or so, but this this feels different. We are officially a candidate in the New Hampshire primary for President of the United States.

MUSIC SWELL

So we've been talking about the candidates who made the trip to Bill Gardner's office. But there are a few who've skipped the pilgrimage this time around. Senator Kamala Harris and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, they are running for president. They got their names on the New Hampshire ballot, but they did it by mail or having a staffer drop it off. They skipped the Gardner show. So if it means something when candidates show up, what does it mean when they don't?

JOSH ROGERS: The notable thing about Castro is he's not filing here, not doing terribly well in the polls here or in Iowa. But he's making the case that, you know, perhaps Iowa, New Hampshire have had a good run being the leadoff states. And, you know, we ought to move to states that are more demographically and ethnically diverse.

JULIAN CASTRO: We can't say to black women, oh, thank you, thank you. You're the ones that are powering our victories in places like Alabama and in 2018 and then turn around and start our nominating contests in the two states that have barely any black people in them.

JOSH ROGERS: It’s an argument we're familiar with. It's interesting to hear it out of the mouth of a candidate in the heat of a campaign. 

JACK RODOLICO: Why is that interesting?

JOSH ROGERS: Well, you know, maybe it's a sign of desperation, but it's somebody willing to go there who still hopes to win support of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. And, you know, there is a diversity issue here in his mind.

JACK RODOLICO: Castro makes these comments in Iowa and immediately it gets a reaction here in New Hampshire. There are local politicos who play the role of primary defenders and they felt the need to push back. Let me just read you these quotes. Here's one from Ray Buckley, longtime chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. 

Quote, “I can imagine he,” - Castro - “is frustrated, but blaming his campaign's challenges on the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire is a bit much.” Now, here's a Republican. This is Tom Rath, a bit of an elder statesman in New Hampshire politics, as you know, Josh.. Quote, “It is not geography or demographics, but your lack of relevance that brought you” - Julian Castro - “to where you are or aren't.”

JOSH ROGERS: I mean, you could see these comments as being protective of the primary of, you know, kicking somebody when they're down, of taking offense at something that they believe besmirches the state's reputation. But it's also hard not to see it as, you know, a warning to other candidates. You know, watch your step if you're going to go there.

JACK RODOLICO: So what is the risk to New Hampshire in that scenario?

JOSH ROGERS: Well, I mean, the demographics of the state are the demographics of the state. And, you know, if you have a candidate running in a Democratic primary, I mean it’s less of an issue for Republicans, frankly. But if you have a candidate running the Democratic primary making that point and that argument takes hold and becomes more regularly vocalized, particularly by candidates, you know, that could be bad news for New Hampshire.

JACK RODOLICO: So, Josh, to your point, what we've had here is Castro makes a comment that's not exactly complimentary of the New Hampshire primary. The New Hampshire defenders sort of send a shot out over the bough and then reporters start going to the top polling Democratic candidates and asking them, hey, what do you think about New Hampshire and Iowa?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, you know, I think that the role of all four early primary states really creates that balance and makes sure that candidates have to visit different kinds of states and speak to diverse constituencies.

JOE BIDEN: They are first. That's what they are now. It's not going to change. I've got to win them both. 

REPORTER: But should it change? 

JOE BIDEN: No, I don't think so. I'm I'm not going to get into that discussion.

ELIZABETH WARREN: Let me just before you finish. Are you actually going to ask me to sit here and criticize Iowa and New Hampshire? 

REPORTER: No, I'm asking about the order. 

ELIZABETH WARREN: No, that is what Iowa and New Hampshire are all about. 

JOSH ROGERS: Well, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren are all doing pretty well in New Hampshire. And Buttigieg is rising in the polls? I mean, he was perhaps had the most nuanced argument about, you know, an overall balance between the four early states, meaning Iowa, New Hampshire, and then a little bit more diversity in terms of Nevada and South Carolina.

PETE BUTTIGIEG: But I'd really valued, especially in the context of this bus tour, the special role that New Hampshire plays.

JOSH ROGERS: And Joe Biden. He's certainly not going to, you know, say anything critical of New Hampshire.

JOE BIDEN: The people of Iowa are extremely informed as other people in New Hampshire. Are they representative of historically and practically based on race and creed and color of the nation? No, they're not. But that doesn't mean they don't they shouldn't play a major part. Look, one of the reasons why…

JOSH ROGERS: And you know Warren. She's riding high in the polls. She's from a neighboring state, she stands to benefit here.

ELIZABETH WARREN: I'm just a player in the game on this one and I am delighted to be in South Carolina. Thank you.

JACK RODOLICO: So, Josh, putting all that aside, here's another person who will not be coming to New Hampshire to file for the New Hampshire primary. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. What do we know about him?

JOSH ROGERS: Well, we know that he said to be looking very seriously at a run. 

REPORTER: Now, new reporting says Bloomberg plans to skip the first four states Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, and instead focus on March 3rd, known as Super Tuesday.

JOSH ROGERS: Certainly the idea of a vastly wealthy candidate deciding I don't need to go through the states to get elected and I have the means to potentially run a truly national campaign. You know, that's another threat to life as we've known it in New Hampshire. We have no idea what the threat is meaningful at this point. But certainly conceptually. 

JACK RODOLICO: You know, anyone who's listened to this podcast for a while knows that there are a couple things that come up again and again throughout history in terms of the threats or the perceived threats here in New Hampshire and early states. One is the idea that a national primary would be very bad for a small state like New Hampshire, that we wouldn't get the recognition from presidential candidates. Also, the idea that New Hampshire doesn't have a very good answer to the question, what about diversity? Right. Both of those things are at play in an active way in the presidential campaign right now.

JOSH ROGERS: I mean, it's when the candidates stop showing up in my mind, is it true is barometer of whether New Hampshire has lost any relevance? And, you know, we're in no position to know that right now. But we do have candidates who didn't show up to file. And we now have at a potential candidate who's saying his plans don't include New Hampshire, period. And we don't know where he's going to end up running. But it is the failure to show up that will ultimately determine the relevance of New Hampshire. As soon as candidates don't see the need to come here and to participate and to honor the traditions of the primary. That's going to be a problem for the future of the primary.

MUSIC

This episode of Stranglehold was produced by me, Jack Rodolico. 

Stranglehold is edited by NHPR’s Director of Content, Maureen McMurray, and News Director, Dan Barrick. 

Additional reporting and editing in this episode by Casey McDermott, Josh Rogers and Lauren Chooljian. 

Sound mixing by Rebecca Lavoie. And Sara Plourde made our beautifully aggressive podcast graphics.

Original music composed and performed by Jason Moon and Lucas Anderson. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Stranglehold is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Transcript - Ep 6: Manipulate the Manipulation

Note: This transcript was adapted from a radio script. It may contain grammar errors and format quirks that certain readers find offensive.

JOHN MCCAIN: Thank you for that kind introduction. Please sit down and relax and those in the balcony remain standing! Thank you... (laughing)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: You’re listening to Stranglehold - I’m Lauren Chooljian -  and THAT is Senator John McCain.

JOHN MCCAIN: It’s wonderful to be back. Thank you so much

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:I want to tell you a quick story about McCain from 2007 - it’s a NH primary classic.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: He was holding this town hall style campaign event -  the idea is, voters who show up can ask the candidate anything they want.

JOHN MCCAIN: Yes sir could I go over here and then you ma'am

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:McCain did a LOT of these- this particular one is at a World War II museum - and he took questions for about an hour… and one of them comes from this mom - she’s standing in the second row. Clutching the microphone with both hands.

MOM: Good evening senator Today unfortunately, I wear a black bracelet in memory of my son who lost his life in Baghdad. I would like to know, sir, if you would wear this so that you could remember your mission and their mission in support of them.

JOHN MCCAIN: Um I would be honored. 

MOM: Thank you sir

JOHN MCCAIN: And greatful.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Someone in the audience that day told me McCain’s reaction felt so authentic - and you can see if you watch the CSPAN video of this event - he’s very emotional.

JOHN MCCAIN: May I ask how old Matthew was? Twenty two. Thank you for his service. Yes ma’am I will wear this, thank you.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: John McCain would wear that bracelet until the day he died…

And this story - it gets held up as like this perfect, unscripted moment between a candidate and a normal NH voter. 

There are tons of other stories of this - some show off a candidates’ humanity - others are not as flattering...

CLAREMONT VOTER: Senator I have one real quick question. What law school did you attend and where did you place in that class? And the other questio is, quite quickly. 

JOE BIDEN: I think I tend to have a much higher IQ than you do. I suspect. I went to law school on a full academic scholarship, the only one in my, in my class.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: If you were thinking to yourself - is that Joe Biden - yes, that was Joe Biden in 1987, the first time he ran for president.

CLEARLY that voter touched a nerve - law school was a sensitive subject for Biden - there was news before this that he failed a class because of plagiarism… and then here comes THIS voter. 

JOE BIDEN: And I’d be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours if you like Frank.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And so the takeaway from these stories - these moments - was look what NH can offer - we’re a place where these REAL, unscripted moments can happen -  our voters reveal unique perspectives on political leaders, potential leaders of the free world…

But that leaves me wondering - is that still the case?

LAUREN: OK. You ready? 

JASON MOON: I'm ready.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Jason Moon is actually where I got this whole idea from. He's a reporter here at NHPR and he's been out on the trail lately and he told me, he’s been seeing something different, something that makes him think, are these authentic moments really still possible?

JASON MOON:  It can seem like that interaction between the voter and the candidate is kind of getting co-opted, manipulated by outside forces.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So, Jason. 

JASON MOON: Yes, Lauren.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: I don't think we can really start this without defining for people what bird dogging is.

JASON MOON: Right, so birdogging is something we see a fair share of here in NH with the presidential primary and all the candidates that come by but it’s not unique to the primary certainly, it happens in politics everywhere and basically, it's when a voter comes to an event, prepared.

BIRDDOGGER 1: Hi, I'm Alison. I'm with Rights in Democracy, New Hampshire. And as a young voter, one of my major concerns is climate change.

JASON MOON: It's kind of like a professionalized question asking of candidates by voters.

BIRDDOGGER 2: Will you take the no fossil fuel money pledge? Will you do this with us?

JASON MOON: But that can mean a lot of things. It can mean, you know, just as a voter who, like, really knows what they want to ask and does it everywhere

BIRDDOGGER 3: It’s a simple, one sentence pledge to refuse any donations by fossil fuel companies or executrices. 

JASON MOON: Or it can be like a paid staffer at an advocacy group. And so to them, the town hall is like a great way to get access to these candidates and to get their issues out in front of all the TV cameras and all the voters and the candidate themselves. It's not like what we think of maybe as like the typical voter who is like, oh, I'm just running to this event after work. And like maybe I think of a question on the way there or maybe you don't think of a question at all.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  And you've seen a lot of this because I think this is your second primary? Right?

JASON MOON: Yes. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: But you also had kind of - shall we say - I don't know, a good hunting metaphor behind the curtain. That's not hunting at all. But you got to peek behind the curtain at how bird dogging works. Please enlighten us

JASON MOON: Yes. So several months back, I got a chance to witness some of that preparation to see bird dogging training

ISSAC: So we might get through this before 8:30 but we have about an hour and a half blocked up...

JASON MOON: It was in this little office, conference room type space. There were maybe a dozen people sitting in a circle of folding chairs.

LAUREN: Yeah what kind of people do this training?

JASON MOON: Well it was an interesting mix from what I could tell. All age ranges, one person was a state rep, another person looked like they were maybe in their 20s and they all kinda had, like, here’s what I think I would want to ask a candidate about but they kind of wanted to workshop their questions and figure out like how do i really get the most out of seeing so and so at a town hall

ISSAC: Super excited to be in the room with you all. We have just a really, really incredible opportunity this year to change the narrative. By getting up close and personal with these candidates.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: I'm sorry. Change the narrative?

JASON MOON: Yeah. That's the name of the game here, Lauren. I mean, this training is being led by two people from a group called Rights and Democracy, the liberal activist group, advocacy group here in New Hampshire. And basically what they're teaching people here is how to deconstruct the town hall and then kind of reverse engineer it for your own aims.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  How do they do that? 

JASON: Well, they role play and they act it out. So they even have like a fake candidate comes by for the training

LAUREN: No - no. 

FEMALE TRAINER: Oh, here he is. Roosevelt Abraham! Wow. What an opportunity!

JASON MOON: Oh, yeah. Gives a stump speech and everything. 

ISSAC AS CANDIDATE: And actually, my second cousins, third wife's son is from Manchester. So coming here, I really feel like I'm coming home.

JASON MOON: And then he takes questions from the trainees and easily wiggles out of their questions because, you know, they haven't been trained yet. So they don't know how to ask a good birddog question. Not yet.

TRAINEE: How do you feel about Medicare for all. 

ISSAC AS CANDIDATE: I think Medicare for all is crucial. I think, of course, we all need health care. Thank you so much for your question. Other questions 

TRAINEE: I’d like to follow up. Sorry. I just wanna make sure we can hear from everyone. Thank you, maam.

JASON MOON: And then they get down to how to workshop questions - how to do this better.

FEMALE TRAINER: So what do you think makes a good birddog question?

TRAINEE: Specific questions would be a good specific question. 

ISSAC: The more specific, the better, the more specific your question is. I know how to spell fansites, the harder it is for a candidate to wiggle out of answering it. And if they do wiggle out of it. If your question is, you know, tell me yes or no and then tell me why. And they don't do that. Then everyone in the audience is going to have the same thought you just did: They didn't answer that question.

JASON MOON: They even do fake interviews with fake reporters. So they handed out these like dry erase markers. They split the group into two lines and one line was the reporters and one line was the voters. And they, like, practiced how to talk about. The candidate they had just seen to the reporter.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: What are the markers for? 

JASON MOON: Oh - the markers are the microphones!

TRAINEE: I worked on kind of a sound soundbite process because I'm really concerned about disability rights. OK. So in general, I like to say disability rights are human rights because it's true and it's striking. And hopefully it's something that people remember 

FEMALE TRAINER: I like that. that's memorable. So anybody else remember have a memorable soundbite that they heard?

JASON MOON: And then, of course, I'm there. With the microphone 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Oh so meta. Yeah. So you're there recording the them practicing how to be recorded by a reporter. I mean, what was your observation of all this like dDid you feel like you were being, I don't know, cheated in a way, people were practicing how to talk to you?

JASON MOON:  Well, in that moment, I was more happy than anything that I was being able I was able to see this because you have a sense that this stuff is happening. And you know that both campaigns and activists, they're trained, they prepare, the way they talk to media is a whole different way. But just to be able to be in the room and to and to see this playing out and to hear them talk so openly and earnestly about what they were doing. There was no shame to it.

ISSAC: Elizabeth Warren is doing raffle tickets for questions. So. So the whole thing about being up front and center raising your hand doesn't really matter when they do that. But if you go with a bunch of people and you get a whole bunch of people to get raffle tickets and then you all give them to like one person who really wants to ask a question and they have, you know, like you can take turns that can be another way to just try to increase the odds that you will get be able to get called on.

FEMALE TRAINER: Just get tickets. I mean, there are other there are ways to manipulate, you know, manipulate the manipulation.

JASON MOON: Basically, the feeling in this room is that they're tired of feeling like they're manipulated at presidential candidate events. You know, the candidate comes in and gives a stump speech and maybe someone asks them some questions. But, you know, they pivot out of it and switch, get back to the things they want to talk about and maybe don't answer the tough questions. And you know, the people in this room, their feeling is, wait a minute. The town hall, it's not it's supposed to be for us. Right. It’s supposed to be our chance to meet the candidate, vet the candidate, ask them the tough questions. And it's gotten so airbrushed by the campaigns and the candidates that they've decided, you know, we need to up our game to match their game. So if they're going to manipulate, well, we're going to do the same thing.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Yeah. It's just so funny because maybe you've also had this experience like as a reporter. I mean, when I see these people coming up to the mic, and they say, you know, I'm from so-and-so advocacy group, I don't take as serious notes because I feel like it just it just doesn't feel as authentic to me.

JASON MOON: Well, yeah, it can feel very inauthentic. And a lot of times that doesn't get acknowledged in the room. There's this dance going on and everyone kind of knows it, but no one tips their hat to it. But occasionally candidates will call it out. I was at an Amy Klobuchar event a couple of months back and she started to get birddogged.

BIRDDOGGER 4: So coming from a legal background, you understand perhaps more than other candidates what Trump is doing to our courts.

JASON MOON: This guy is like sitting in this folding chair outside under this big tree. And he starts asking Amy Klobuchar about the Supreme Court and whether she would consider adding seats to it, something like that. And he is like filming her with his phone, like he's holding his phone up like just beneath his face as he's asking the question, which is, you know, right away, is not like the way humans talk to each other

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Turns out.

JASON MOON: Yeah. And she just calls it out she's like, look, hey, like whoever you're filming me for, like, hi.

AMY KLOBUCHAR: And since you're recording me for someone, hi person that's trying to get me on tape, how are you? Thanks for sending your guy to two events, but I called on him anyway.The, the other thing that I would. The other thing that I would add.

(music)

JASON MOON: So I went to this training. I saw the bird divers like getting ready, like sharpening their knives for the candidates. You know, then I'm out at these campaign events. I'm seeing, you know, instances here and there. Bird dogging. I'm seeing candidates call out bird doggers. And I'm just going to say I'm just kind of fascinated by the whole thing. But I wanted to get a sense of like what other people think about it. Is it like is it totally ruining town halls for like, quote unquote, normal voters or, you know, what's what are other people thinking about it? So we went out recently. Should I go all the way through? 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Well, let's take a break. 

JASON MOON: OK.

—— BREAK 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So. You went to see Vice President Biden when he was New Hampshire recently. 

JASON MOON: That's right.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So tell me about it.

JASON MOON: So I went with our colleague Josh Rogers, a reporter in the newsroom who's been covering politics in Hampshire for many years. And we were we actually got kind of looking for string on a couple different stories. So we were talking to voters. Well, the idea was we're gonna talk to voters about a lot of things. But, you know, I had these bird dogging questions on my mind.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: As you would

JASON MOON: As I would. And so we get. It's at this ski area in New Hampshire, like of course, like it was, can I just say, it was like it was so very New Hampshire. It's like fall. There's like all the TV trucks are like parked at the bottom of ski hill with the foliage happening on the hill. The WMUR Channel Nine truck had like foliage design on it. It was like you couldn't be more New Hampshire

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Oh that’s classic.

JASON MOON: Anyways, so we go to this Joe Biden event and we, we kind of set up our gear for the speech and then start chatting with voters. And the first woman we talk to, she's sitting up, you know, up close, like she got here early for the event.

JOSH ROGERS: What brings you here?

KATHY HOEY: I’m here to see all the candidates. This is my second time seeing Biden 

LAUREN: And what's her name? 

JASON MOON: Kathy Hoey. 

KATHY HOEY: I'm a Democrat, but I saw all the Republicans pretty much last time when they were here because they're here. And it's the thing to do when you're here. If you enjoy politics, which I do.

JASON MOON: You know, since she had been to all these events and see all these candidates, I thought she was the perfect person to ask about bird dogging because she's probably seen it. And sure enough, she has.

KATHY HOEY: I know the Alzheimer's lady and the HIV lady and the gun guy 

JASON MOON: Which I just love because like, so do I, right? But the more we talked about it, the more I asked her about it. She didn't have a problem with it. You know, I asked her, like, do you get tired of hearing the same questions again and again? And she's like, no, it's you know, it's good to get them on the record, to get him on the record early.

JASON MOON (in interview): Because some people might say, well, like, you know, leave it to like, quote unquote, normal people to ask their questions.

KATHY HOEY: They’re normal people, too, they just are invested in the process more than other people might be, but they're just as normal and they represent, I think, a constituency of their own, which is great.

JASON MOON: So she really sees the value in it. And I thought that was really interesting that that here she was, someone who's like, really connected to these events, going to lots of them. Is is well aware of the bird dogging phenomenon. It has no problem with it is not cynical about it being fake or false or phony or anything like that. She just sees it as like a good, healthy part of the process. And then 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And then what?

JASON MOON: And then eventually Josh asked her if she was affiliated with any particular organizations. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Stop.

JOSH ROGERS: Are you affiliated with any advocacy group? 

KATHY HOEY: I can’t really say 

JOSH ROGERS: What do you mean you can’t really say. 

KATHY HOEY: No, no because I’ve talked too much, but I am really here for myself. 

JOSH ROGERS: OK. But I would take that as a yes. I see you winking.

JASON MOON: Yeah. So

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: No freaking way. 

JASON MOON: Birddogger. Right in front of us! That's the thing. You can't spot em till it's too late.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Oh, my God. I can’t believe it. 

JASON MOON: Yeah, it was great. She was like unmasked as a birddogger like right in front of us. And it's like almost the same experience as a candidate might have. Right. Like you go into a room you don't know, like which of these people are like, 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: quote unquote, regular people or not.

JASON MOON: Yeah, it's hard to know. Right? So so I'm I'm literally I'm scanning the audience at this Joe Biden thing. Who can be a birddogger? So it's probably not the the firefighter guys in the union who've endorsed Joe Biden 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Because why, because they're wearing like a pro candidate look?

JASON MOON: Yes. It's like firefighters for Joe. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Oh got it. So what are the details that you're looking for to try and suss them out? 

JASON MOON: Well, that's a good question. It's hard to know sometimes right? But one thing I did notice, sitting near the back, handful of younger people, they just don't seem  that interested in what's going on. Once, like the surrogates begin their speeches and they're introducing like, you know, ‘Joe Biden is, he's gonna be the next president and we're all gonna go vote for him,’ you know, these like little mini rah-rah warm up acts. Right. And like there's always like a lot of like polite applause for them. And these people weren't applauding him. Hint number one, dead giveaway. Sure enough, Joe Biden starts speaking.

JOE BIDEN: And if you choose to go into public service, national service, national teachers from AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, become a paramedic, counseling victims of domestic violence, or working on the front lines against above climate change.

JASON MOON: The second he gets on a stump speech, in the words climate change, leave his lips by. 

CLIMATE ACTIVISTS: Mic check! Mic check! 

JASON MOON: So this is a this is like a demonstration. This is, this is like bird dogging, like turned up to eleven because they are not just here to like ask Joe Biden a tough question. They are here to disrupt 

CLIMATE ACTIVISTS (chanting): Joe Biden our planet is dying

JASON MOON: And then they get the rest of the audience led by the firefighters. They get they have like a counter chant.

BIDEN SUPPORTERS (chanting): We want Joe, we want Joe

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: It's a chant off! 

JASON MOON: It's a chant off! Anyway, it's like the Biden staff comes and they're like kind of like ushering them out of the room, like, yeah, great, you had your moment, like, get out. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: What did you do

JASON MOON: I'm like, I gotta follow these people. I’ve got to talk to them about bird dogging and what they're doing, because this is all I can think about. Like, you know, Biden, it might be impeachment central happening in there with Biden. But, you know, I'm going with the birddoggers. Besides we had Josh in there so he could stay. Anyways. So I grabbed the mic. I'm like trying to follow them outside and there and they're like chanting like protest songs. And and the Biden staff were like, you know, it's private property. You’ve gotta get out of here.

CLIMATE ACTIVISTS (chanting) Which side are you on now, which side are you on. 

JASON MOON: And, you know, I started to try to interview some of these activists and like as soon as we started talking, like all I could think about was the training because it was like, here it is. These people are using all of the tricks.

CLIMATE ACTIVIST: Well we just took action against Joe Biden because he is not a climate champion and we need a climate champion to be our next president.

JASON MOON: For instance, every question, nearly every question got back around to their answer to the idea that they needed a climate champion.

CLIMATE ACTIVIST:  We're here because we need Joe Biden to be a climate champion and he won't even talk about the issue. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So when you hear that 

CLIMATE ACTIVIST: Climate champion 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Repeated over and over again,

CLIMATE ACTIVIST: Climate champion

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: What does that say to you?

JASON MOON: They were prepared. That was the soundbite again, that reverse engineering of the process. They knew that a reporter would come talk to them and they wanted to have control over what part of what they said would end up in a story that would be at the end of this process.

JASON MOON: Some people might take issue with tactics like, you know, interrupting an event like that. What would you say to them?

CLIMATE ACTIVIST: So Joe Biden is kind of notoriously known for a kind of not answering our questions. And we have asked questions over and over again. He either has denied our request or denied our ask or he just doesn't give a clear cut answer. So this is our last resort, but it is necessary for everyone to understand that this is the fight for our lives.

 (music)

JASON: You know, there's two ways to see it. You can you can see the bird doggers preparing and coming up with their soundbites and planning everything and see that as very invented and not spontaneous. And that's true. But there's also something real about the fact that these people feel so passionate about these issues that they're willing to go through all that trouble, you know, to go to a training event and and practice with a mock candidate or to go to a Joe Biden event and interrupt a former vice president of the United States and get shouted down by hundreds of people. You know, there's passion behind that. So there is something real at the root of that. The way they're going about expressing that. Can feel and arguably is quite manufactured. But you could say the exact same thing about what's happening on the other side of the equation. With the candidates and the campaigns. You might the candidate might, you know, ex-presidential candidate deep down might really want to be president for all the right reasons. But they're still giving the same stump speech they've given 50,000 other times. And, you know, if for five minutes they're giving this stump speech and they're like on autopilot, they don't really realize what they're saying. I mean, you better believe that happens. But it’s still the way we do it. So it’s up to each person to decide, right, it’s what is authentic to you, it’s - what is the authentic experience to you? 

CREDITS:

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  Jason Moon is a reporter for NHPR.

He also is the host of the Bear Brook podcast - which if you haven’t listened to Bear Brook yet, I’m so happy for you and the listening experience you’re about to have. 

Jason and Lucas Anderson created most of the music you’ve heard in this podcast - including this tune. 

Other music from Blue Dot Sessions.

This episode was produced and mixed by me Lauren Chooljian.

Stranglehold is edited by NHPR’s Director of Content Maureen McMurray and News Director Dan Barrick. 

Additional editing help came from Executive producer Erika Janik, Senior Producer Jack Rodolico and reporter Josh Rogers. 

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Digital Director and Sara Plourde made our beautifully aggressive podcast graphics.

And additional thanks to Casey McDermott, Issac Grimm, Heather Stockwell, Josie Pinto, Lila Kohrman-Glaser, Sophonie Pierre-Michel.

And My dad - Barry Chooljian - who helped us name this podcast.

Stranglehold is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Transcript - Ep 5: The Weekend

Note: This transcript was adapted from a radio script. It may contain grammar errors and format quirks that certain readers find offensive.

Before we get started, just a quick warning. Politics is a dirty sport and there’s some foul language coming your way. Enjoy the show. 
---

[YVETTE LEWIS SINGS STAR-SPANGLED BANNER]

You know by now that presidential candidates swing through New Hampshire all the time. They go to diners, high school gyms, main street walks, stuff like that. It’s run of the mill here. 

But even by New Hampshire standards, the scene that unfolded on a recent sunny Saturday in downtown Manchester was pretty intense. 

MAUREEN MCMURRAY: Oh, wow. So there are a ton of people here...

Nineteen candidates were all under the same roof. And thousands of people were lining up to be a part of it. We sent producer Maureen McMurray down there with NHPR’s senior political reporter Josh Rogers.  

MAUREEN MCMURRAY: So there are a ton of people. Describe what’s happening here.

JOSH ROGERS: This is what they call sign wars, kind of pre-event pep rallies. Some of these people have been here since 4:00 in the morning to get the prime position…. We’ve got Beto. You've got Amy Klobuchar. We've got Bernie. We've got Biden. We’ve got Yang.

This is the pregame show - kind of like a pep rally before a big game. Everyone’s hoisting signs and chanting competing slogans. They’re just getting pumped for the day. 

JOSH ROGERS: I mean, you have to imagine some of these people have been drinking heavily. 

In the crowd, candidates for president start popping up. Joe Biden walks by. 

MAUREEN MCMURRAY: Who is that? 

JOSH ROGERS: So you can see Elizabeth Warren right there. I mean, there's Elizabeth Warren's husband right there. 

[MUSIC brass band from street]

So in its most authentic moments, this is what the New Hampshire primary is all about. Voters rubbing elbows with some of the most powerful people in American politics. This doesn’t happen just anywhere. 

REBECCA MCWILLIAMS: Politics is my sport, and that's one of the reasons I love New Hampshire, because we really get involved in politics like other people get involved in football.

New Hampshire is in the thick of the 2020 campaign right now. And when that campaign is unfolding, it can feel like this state is the center of the political world. 

[FADE brass band]

I mean, three weeks before Democrats gathered here, President Trump held a rally in the same place. 

DONALD TRUMP: Our hearts beat to the words of the New Hampshire state motto:”Live free or die.”

But… New Hampshire’s relationship with the primary is more complicated than a couple big rallies overflowing with energized voters. Because you don’t have to go too far from a campaign stop to find people who really don’t care about this sacred institution. 

JACK RODOLICO: Do you follow the primary at all? INTERVIEWEE 1: Not really, man. /// INTERVIEWEE 2: I don't pay much attention, you know, as long as I'm able to go to work and still make a paycheck.

[DRUMS]

There’s a mythology about the New Hampshire primary and it’s important role in American politics. And central to that mythology is the New Hampshire voter. A person who’s more engaged. Who pays close attention to politics. Who every four years trudges through snow wearing plaid and flannel to cast a ballot. Because they know their vote just might be worth votes in other states. 

But if you look a little bit closer, you’ll find voters here who say that New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary? It’s not special. It’s no different than any other part of America politics. 

PATRICIA HICKS: Oh yeah and I think it’s all … bullshit!

[GUITAR]

From New Hampshire Public Radio, this is Stranglehold. I’m Jack Rodolico. 

In just a few months, voters in New Hampshire will once again send some presidential candidates limping out of the Granite State and maybe propel others to victories in other states. 

But do New Hampshire voters value that privilege? Do they deserve it? Are they as engaged as they are made out to be? Are they doing the hard work it takes to vet candidates?  

Those are the exact questions we proposed to the voters themselves. And that’s what this episode is all about. 

INTERVIEWEE 1: I’m happy we have it. I think it’s unfair. But I’m happy for the unfairness. 

INTERVIEWEE 2: I mean it’s pretty awesome. You open up the paper and you see virtually every national candidate showing up in a place that’s no more than 25 minutes from your house. 

INTERVIEWEE 3: Working people are not able to go see candidates and go to demonstrations and all that because they’re working all the time. 

INTERVIEWEE 4: No, I do I think it’s all bullshit. It’s all -- oh we’ll do this, oh we’ll do that. But when it comes down to it they don’t do crap. 

[MUSIC OUT]

We wanted to give you a sense of what it’s like to live through a raucous weekend in New Hampshire in the thick of primary season. 

So we sent a team of reporters across the state, from Friday to Saturday night. We gave them an assignment. Talk to as many different voters as you can. People inside the political bubble, and outside it too. 

And before I tell you how we found the cynics, let’s go back to the true believers. 

RAY BUCKLEY: Are you ready to win in 2020? Are you ready to win in 2020? 

This rally for Democrats in Manchester was a big deal, both for voters and the candidates. As you probably know -- Democrats have A LOT of choices about who they’ll send to the general election to try to unseat President Trump. So the state Democratic party invited all those candidates to address New Hampshire voters directly. 

And virtually all of them accepted the invitation. Inside the arena, nineteen candidates took turns at the mic. It took hours. 

JOE BIDEN: Hello, New Hampshire!

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Hello, New Hampshire Democrats!

ELIZABETH WARREN: Hello, New Hampshire Democrats!

BERNIE SANDERS: Thank you, New Hampshire!

For voters in most states, presidential campaigns are reduced to sound bites and viral social media moments. Maybe they catch the debates before they vote. Watch a stump speech on YouTube. But in this room, voters are having a very different experience. 

KAMALA HARRIS: Hiiiiiiii! What’s up?

Tickets to get in here cost 20 to 35 bucks. For that price they get to size up the whole field in person. See how the candidates perform, back to back, in real time. 

And that’s only part of the experience. 

[CHANTING: I believe in Beto! I believe in Beto!I believe in Beto!…]

One of our reporters, Casey McDermott, was walking through a hallway as it turned into a kind of informal red carpet walk. Just listen to this woman as she completely loses it over a Beto O’Rourke sighting. 

[CHANTING: I believe in Beto! I believe in Beto! I believe in Beto!]

Marianne Williamson’s surfaces too. 

[CHANTING: Hey-hey, ho-ho! Marianne will steal the show!]

It seems like in every corner of this building, you can find a gaggle of Democrats breaking out into a new chant. Like up in a suite rented by the firefighters union, which has endorsed Biden. 

[CHANTING: Go Joe…]

Down near the stage, the convention floor is clogged with local politicians. Cory Booker is speaking. 

JOSH ROGERS: There are people holding up the letters C-O-R-Y including a state senator in the middle with the baseball hat on. One could argue that it is beneath his dignity, but who’s to say…. I mean it’s really that part of politics that I just don't get at all. Like I just don’t have that in me. Sort of religious ecstasy... 

The New Hampshire Democratic party claims this is the largest event Democrats have ever held in the state. And everywhere you go in this arena, you find a sense of pride and privilege. A sense that every vote counts. Even the voters up in the nosebleed seats seem to feel that they have real power. 

MARCUS PONCE DE LEON: Oh 1000 percent I consider being in New Hampshire at this time in history to be a great privilege to have this kind of access to the candidates. 

///

JANE COVIELLO: I mean, we've been watching the debates on television following the newspaper reports. But this is up close and personal and it's very electric. 

///

CARLOS CARDONA: At the end of the day New Hampshire will have a big say as to who the next president of the United States of America will be. And we will be in the history books because we will be the ones that have led to get rid of Donald Trump.  

New York has Broadway and the Met. California has Hollywood. The Live Free or Die State? We’ve got this. 

TOM PEREZ: We’re gonna show him that he has no choice but to pack his bags and get his ass out of the White House. 

But on the same weekend, in the same state, in the midst of what everyone considers to be a monumental presidential campaign, thousands of people were gathering for something else. Something that had nothing to do with politics. 

[CHEERING: COME ON DEREK!!!!]

We’ll take you there, in just a minute. 

MIDROLL

[BOY SINGS STAR-SPANGLED BANNER]

A massive political rally is an obvious place to find highly-engaged voters who’ll say the New Hampshire primary really means something to them. But we know those voters don’t speak for the whole state. And we wanted to reach others voices too. 

[One, two, ready go… MARCHING BAND…] 

The same weekend that Democrats were rallying in New Hampshire, it was opening weekend for highschool football. 

[DEFENSE!! DEFENSE!!]

We figured - football, right? What a great place to meet people right where they’re at. Hanging out on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon, eating hotdogs, cheering on their kids. 

So we sent reporters to games across the state.

JACK RODOLICO: Alright. It’s Jack. I’m in Concord. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: It’s Lauren. I’m in Manchester under the lights. 

ANNIE ROPIEK: I’m Annie. And I’m in Farmington New Hampshire. 

JASON MOON: It’s friday night. Hanover, New Hampshire. Heading to the football field. 

That last voice was Jason. And we also sent out Sarah. 

SARAH GIBSON: It’s an amazing sunset. The cheerleaders are freezing. 

Each reporter had the same set list of questions. Our goal was to get people chatting about the primary to see if we could draw any conclusions about New Hampshire voters. How engaged are they? Do they really care about the primary? 

And look, we know that this is hardly scientific. This isn’t a Pew poll.

But here’s one thing that became clear right away. Forget the primary -- a lot of people just don’t want to talk about politics. Period.

ANNIE ROPIEK: Do you wanna talk about politics for a couple minutes? 

INTERVIEWEE 1: No. 

ANNIE ROPIEK Not at all? 

INTERVIEWEE1: Not at all. 

SARAH GIBSON: Do you pay attention to politics at all?

INTERVIEWEE 2: I don't even vote. 

SARA GIBSON: Well, can I ask you about that? 

INTERVIEWEE: No. 

ANNIEROPIEK: So what do you think about the primary? Do you follow it at all? 

INTERVIEWEE 3: No. 

INTERVIEWEE 4: I voted once since I've been able to vote. 

INTERVIEWEE 5: I think they’re all full of crap dude. I really do. 

[CROWD CHEERING]

That was a sizeable group of people we interviewed. People who have the power to vote but are outright disengaged. We didn’t get far with them. 

But most people did have an opinion about the primary. One of the questions reporters were armed with had to do with a common criticism of the New Hampshire primary: Is it fair for New Hampshire to vote for presidential candidates before voters in other states?  

INTERVIEWEE 1: Fair? I mean, I think it's neither fair or not fair. It's just that's how it works. And so that's how it is. 

INTERVIEWEE  I don’t know. I don’t think it matters if it's fair or not. It's just kind of the way it's always been. 

INTERVIEWEE 3: There's so much in politics that’s unfair. This is so low on the spectrum. 

INTERVIEWEE 4: Someone has to go first. Why not New Hampshire? 

Clearly, they’re not losing sleep over that question. 

But here’s where things get more nuanced. We wanted to get to the heart of the thing that so many powerful people in New Hampshire have fought against. The threats to the primary. The states that wanted to jump the line. The party bosses who tried to shake up the calendar. The idea that New Hampshire could lose this thing that’s a part of its identity. 

JASON MOON: Would you be upset if New Hampshire lost the first-in-the-nation primary? 

I just wanna warn the primary guardians who have suffered through this podcast. Some of this tape is gonna hurt. 

INTERVIEWEE 1: No, I wouldn't be upset. 

INTERVIEWEE 2: No. 

INTERVIEWEE 3: No, I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. 
INTERVIEWEE 4: As long as I got to vote...I don't think it really would matter. 

JACK RODOLICO: What do you think it'll be like if we didn't have the primary here? 

INTERVIEWEE 5: I think we'll be forgotten. 

INTERVIEWEE 6: Well, I think we would become like every other state, which means we’d become virtually insignificant. 

INTERVIEWEE 7: Personally, I want to be upset. I don't think. But I think in the long run residents would regret it. 

[WHISTLE]

When we were done with this weekend, we had about 18 hours of tape. I  listened to all of it. And I have to say what you just heard was surprisingly consistent. A lot of people just don’t care if we had the primary first or not. 

JACK RODOLICO: Hey folks. Hope you don’t mind. I want to ask… [laughs] They’re both like, no, no no. Can I just tell you what I’m doing?

One of them warmed up pretty quickly. Richard Simons. He’s a Trump supporter. 

JACK RODOLICO: Did you vote for him in the last primary?

RICHARD SIMONS: I sure did. 

JACK RODOLICO: So was that like pretty cool to be on the ground level of -- I mean, that's one thing about being in New Hampshire. You get to vote before everybody else and kind of catapult somebody towards the White House. Was that like -- did you feel like you were part of something? 

RICHARD SIMONS: Not really. I just like the way that he does it stuff. He's right to the point. He doesn’t beat around the bush. He just mows the bush over. Ya know what I mean. Gets right to it. That's what we need in this world, I think. 

JACK RODOLICO: Would it affect you if the primary went away from New Hampshire? Like, do you think about it?

RICHARD SIMONS: Wouldn’t affect me at all. Tell you that. It's just -- I do what I wanted to. And that's the whole thing about New Hampshire. Live free or die, right? I do what I want when I want to do it. 

This guy supports the president, plans to vote for him again. But it’s not like he’s gone to a Trump rally or anything. He doesn’t engage in the primary in that way. 

Although we met plenty of people who do… 

INTERVIEWEE 1: My mom saw Corey Booker. 

INTERVIEWEE 2: Let’s see - saw John McCain. 

INTERVIEWEE 3: I've gone out when Obama first ran. 

INTERVIEWEE 4: You know the president. I saw Hillary. Chris Christie. 

INTERVIEWEE 5: Lyndon Johnson at the Manchester Airport met him. You know, Nelson Rockefeller and John Kennedy. 

SARAH GIBSON: Where did you meet Jeb  Bush? 

INTERVIEWEE 6: At the airport diner. Did I vote for him? Well, no. But it was nice.

[CHEERLEADERS]

PATRICIA HICKS: Watch out honey. Oh we got a radio person here. 

That’s Patricia Hicks. Aka, Nana. 

PATRICIA HICKS: I’m the nana!

SARAH GIBSON: You’re the nana? 

PATRICIA HICKS: I’m the nana.  

Nana did this thing that so many people we interviewed did. At first, she did not want to share her views about politics. As though her opinion was so volatile, we couldn’t handle it. 

PATRICIA HICKS: You don’t want an answer from me. 

But once she opened up, she was a good contrast to the mythological primary voter. She’s engaged. She votes. She watches the news. 

But she doesn’t believe in that core pillar of the New Hampshire primary: that retail politics makes for better presidents. 

SARAH GIBSON: So does it matter to you to be able to meet a presidential candidate?

PATRICIA HICKS: No. No, I would not…. No, I know I'll do my voting, but it's gonna take a lot. And I know I won't vote for Trump.

And then, as the marching band jumps into “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen, Nana looks down at the field … and she starts to cry. Her grandson plays drums. 

PATRICIA HICKS: I’m gonna cry. 

SARAH: Why just seeing him play? 

PATRICIA HICKS: Oh I love watching him play. 

[ANNOUNCER The winner of the 50/50 raffle is…]

I want you to hear one of my favorite pieces of tape from the football games. It starts with Lauren as she accidentally scares the life out of her next interviewee. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Hi…

CAMELLIA: AHHH!

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Oh my god. I’m Lauren I scared you to death. What’s your name? 

CAMELLIA: Camellia Bagley-Anderson

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Oh, thank you so much for the full beautiful name.

Camellia tells Lauren that’s she’s here to see her son play. She’s got six kids. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Are you one of them? What's your name? 

HELENA: Helena. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: How old are you? 

HELENA: Seven. 

So this family moved here from Texas ten years ago. Camellia, her kids, and her husband Alan. 

ALAN: We come from the Bible Belt where there is politics and political decision making that’s going on, but nothing in comparison here.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Do you think New Hampshire is representative of the rest of the country?

CAMELLIA: No. 

ALAN: No. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So in that way, does it make sense in New Hampshire's first?

CAMELLIA: No.

ALAN: No, it doesn't. But I noticed that... 

CAMELLIA: I think it should be like a like Florida, like Florida or California or Massachusetts. A bit more diversity. 

ALAN: Yeah. Yeah. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Living here, I don't know if this is like an extra perk that it's like super political. 

ALAN: Not so much. We we do care about the decisions that are made, but we're not, we're not into politics, per say. I mean, we go out and vote. We haven't missed an election. But as far as beyond that, no, we're not we don't even go to the rallies or anything like that. That's not us. 

CAMELLIA: Right. I want it to be my decision. I don't want the crowd to be my decision. 

ALAN: And I'm not going with the crowd just because that's the popular thing.

[MUSIC]

There are a lot of great things you can say about New Hampshire voters. They are engaged. They get they have a privilege. And they try to use their power wisely. That’s all true. For some people. 

But it’s also true that a lot of them don’t think or care much about it at all. That one election every four years doesn’t define their lives, or their communities. When the circus comes to town, not everyone buys a ticket. 

[MUSIC SWELL]

There’s a class of politicos in New Hampshire who have long made the case that this state deserves to have the first primary. They say New Hampshire is special. And they use a data point to back that claim up. They say voters here show up at the polls in higher numbers than other states. And that’s true. 

During the 2016 nominating cycle, you know which states had higher voter turnout rates than New Hampshire? None of them. New Hampshire topped the list. 

But here’s a caveat. Voter turnout in New Hampshire drops in virtually every election other than the presidential primary. 

In the most recent midterm election, ya know which states had higher voter turnout than New Hampshire? Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana,  North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. New Hampshire tied with two other states … for 15th place. 

So is it true that New Hampshire is first because it’s special? No. 

But it does seem to be true that New Hampshire is special because it’s first. 

[GAME SOUND FADE UP]

I wanna tell you about this one last person I met at the football game. Her name is Carolyn Kershaw. We had a nice chat. She was actually the first person I interviewed.

And then at halftime I walked by her again. 

CAROLYN KERSHAW: So based on what we talked about. What's the feeling?

JACK RODOLICO: In terms of what exactly?

She wanted gossip. She wanted me to tell her how the people from her town vote. I told her mostly Republican (like her) mostly didn’t think much about the primary (like her).

And then she seemed really curious when I told her I was gonna walk to the bleachers on the other side of the field to talk to folks from the Catholic school.

CAROLYN KERSHAW: You going on that side? 

JACK RODOLICO: Yeah. 

CAROLYN KERSHAW: All right. Let me know before you leave. I'm just curious. Yeah, I just want to know.

So I did. An hour later, Carolyn was still in her lawn chair, watching her team get crushed.

JACK RODOLICO: I would say folks over there, a lot more folks over there, I met several folks who go out and see candidates. Like that's what they do. They go out. Even if they're Republican, they go out and see the Democrats. They shop. 

CAROLYN KERSHAW: So here’s a thought for you. 

JACK RODOLICO: Yeah, please. 

CAROLYN KERSHAW: Those are private school parents. So you're talking about a totally different demographic. 

JACK RODOLICO: Tell me more about that. What do you mean?

CAROLYN KERSHAW: They're probably from a richer demographic because their kids go to a private school versus the people that go to public school. So, of course, you would see that they go out to candidates. So they probably host them because they're in that group…. Where working people are not able to do to go see candidates and go to demonstrations and all that because they're working all the time so.

JACK RODOLICO: Do you think that's true to politics in general and how people follow politics. Or is it -- are you making an observation about  the primary itself? 

CAROLYN KERSHAW: No, I think it’s in general. I don't think it's just the primary.

And it turns out … she’s right. She’s speaking from her gut here. But there’s research to back this up. In America, people with more money tend to vote more. People with less money tend to vote less. That’s true just about everywhere - in states that are pretty much ignored in presidential campaigns, and in states that are constantly told how special they are. 

JACK RODOLICO: Thank you very much. 

CAROLYN KERSHAW: You're welcome. 

JACK RODOLICO: You have a good night. And you said your husband's coach, right? 

CAROLYN KERSHAW: Yeah. It's not going to be a good night at home.

JACK RODOLICO: Yeah because we’re dealing with a score 50-20 right now? 

CAROLYN KERSHAW: Yeah. 

JACK RODOLICO: But I heard that had a great season last year... 

By the end of this long weekend, a few things were clear. 

Candidates are still willing to com here - and that means they want they attention of New Hampshire voters. 

And those “mythological” New Hampshire voters...they’re just that. Some people are engaged, others don’t give a damn. Some believe in the primary, others don’t spare it a thought. 

And when you sweep aside the myth, you’re left with a powerful reality. New Hampshire is still first - and that’s not changing in 2020.

[THEME MUSIC]

Over the past few episodes we’ve tried to explain the stranglehold as best we can. How New Hampshire got it. How we’ve kept it. The ugly fights. The changing identity of this crucial state. And the tectonic shifts in presidential primary politics.

But we’re not finished yet. We’re gonna take you to the front lines of the race to win the New Hampshire primary in 2020.

And we are going to show you a side of the primary that rarely makes it on T.V. We will not obsess over polling or debate performances. We will not attempt to predict who’ll win here. Instead… it’s gonna sounds something like this…

VOICE 1: I think I said he not only touches the third rail, he dry humps it and French kisses it. I think I added a French kiss. 

JOSH ROGERS: What do you guys think about Trump? 

VOICE 1: Only white people like him

VOICE 3: Why is there -- why is there no black people here? 

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Have there been any drink orders that surprised you? 

VOICE 4: Marianne Williamson came and all our chamomile tea got sold out.

JOSH ROGERS: What’d you think?

VOICE 5: Absolutely amazing!

We’ll drop you into the middle of the race to the White House - in all its glory and gore, in its grace and awkwardness. That’s next time on Stranglehold. 

This episode was produced by me Jack Rodolico, Stranglehold’s Senior Producer. 

But I had tremendous help from all the reporters who gathered tape over that long crazy weekend. The names of those talented people are… Lauren Chooljian, Sarah Gibson, Casey McDermott, Maureen McMurray, Jason Moon, Josh Rogers, and Annie Ropiek. Thank you all. 

Stranglehold is edited by NHPR’s Director of Content, Maureen McMurray, and News Director, Dan Barrick. 

Additional editing help from Lauren Chooljian, Casey McDermott, Jason Moon, and Josh Rogers. 

Sound mixing by Jason Moon, who, along with Lucas Anderson, created the Stranglehold’s theme song, which I honestly listen to when I’m driving in my car by myself. 

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Digital Director. And Sara Plourde made our beautifully aggressive podcast graphics.

Stranglehold is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Transcript - Ep 4: The Identity Crisis

Note: This transcript is adapted from a radio script, and may contain grammar errors and formatting quirks that some readers might find objectionable.

FEMALE VOICE: Hi, Lauren, I have Senator Gramm on the line.
LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Senator Gramm, can you hear me?

SENATOR PHIL GRAMM: Yes, ma'am.
LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Political courage is one of those cliche phrases people in politics throw around a lot. 

Here’s a guy who might have a claim to it - you can decide for yourself. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Oh, good. How are you?

Senator Gramm: Well, it's pretty hot in Texas.

His name is Phil Gramm. 

He was a US Senator in Texas .

And listen to this - he started his career as a Democrat - he got elected to Congress and everything - then he resigned - and ran for reelection as a REPUBLICAN.  And he won!

So yeah - that might take political courage. 

There was also another thing he did while he was running for president in 1996. 

President Bill Clinton was running for a second term - so Republicans were choosing who would run against him.

And they had a lot of options - like Bob Dole, Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, Llamar Alexander... 

And then - there was Senator Gramm. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Well, as far as I understand and from what I've read, when you ran for president, you chose to campaign in Delaware. Do you know where I'm going with this?

SENATOR PHIL GRAMM: Yeah...yeah. it’s one of those tough deals.

(music) 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN It was a tough deal for Senator Gramm. That year - while plotting his campaign -  Senator Gramm was forced to make a big decision. He decided to defy New Hampshire.

And how did New Hampshire respond?

With political blackmail. 

[THEME SONG]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN I’m Lauren Chooljian and from New Hampshire Public Radio - this is Stranglehold.

NO but really - this episode - is ABOUT that Stranglehold. 

I’m gonna tell you about some people who just wouldn’t bow down to the first in the nation primary state - instead - they tried to loosen the grip.

For decades -  New Hampshire could stand its ground and knock down anybody that tried to steal its prized possession

But how long can a state hold on - battle lines are being redrawn - and these days - the threats aren’t coming from the usual suspects.

National politics - the media - technology - it’s all changing - and the N.H. primary can’t escape it.

[music]

HOWARD DEAN: New Hampshire is a great state and I enjoyed campaigning there tremendously. They do not get to control the nominating process for president United States.

JAMES PINDELL: The New Hampshire primary is the identity. It's been the identity of my life and it's been it's been the identity of the state

SENATOR CARL LEVIN: Take a look at these quotes! I pledge to the death to protect the NH primary so help me god...It’s a reality we’ve got to change. 

[music ends] 

 (music) 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: When New Hampshire is up against the wall - when other states are trying to creep up on the first in the nation primary - people here insist- we’re special. 

No one else can do this like we do. 

But in the 1990s another state stepped up and said hey - you know we’re special too.

We can do retail politics  - and we’ve got it all - a big city - a farm belt, a more diverse population.

That state? 

It was Delaware.

MUSIC

RICHARD FORSTEN: I remember a high school teacher I had once saying that Delaware in many ways was a microcosm of the United States...

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN This is Richard Forsten- he’s the longtime attorney for the Delaware Republican party - and he’s always felt that Delaware had early state potential.

RICHARD FORSTEN: And if you were looking for a state that was reflective of the country as a whole, Delaware is probably as close as you're going to get.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So when you would make that case to people, I mean, no offense to the great state of Delaware, but I mean, it's kind of a surprising pitch to hear.

RICHARD FORSTEN:  I'm not sure why it's surprising, it's just a reflection of kind of our population.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  I don't know just - I just didn't know that about Delaware, I guess.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: OK - can I just say - in my defense - how many people really know about the regions of Delaware - or even the regions of New Hampshire for that matter.

Anyway. 

So it’s coming up on the 96 presidential race and Delaware lawmakers pass a law that allows them to hold a primary MUCH earlier in the nomination calendar. 

RICHARD FORSTEN: I think there was a sense that, you know, if no one comes to Delaware, I mean, you said it yourself. You don't you don't know that much about Delaware. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: I’ll never live this down

RICHARD FORSTEN:  And so I think the idea was by moving up in the process, you would get candidates coming to Delaware, you would get people more focused on Delaware, and it would be exciting for Delaware to have presidential candidates coming here.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Right. Yeah how much power does a state really get from having its primary so early in the calendar?

RICHARD FORSTEN: Well, why does New Hampshire fight so zealously to be the first primary? 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Fair enough.

(music) 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Now - often times if you hear a story about New Hampshire fiercely guarding the primary - the hero of that story is usually Secretary of State Bill Gardner.

Remember the story of Iowa and the pigs? -- those are the kinds of tales that get told around here - there’s another one about how Bill Gardner stood up to Nancy Pelosi. 

In the 1980s - and she came to Concord to persuade Gardner to change the date of the New Hampshire Primary. Local legend has it - Gardner didn’t flinch, and Pelosi backed down.

But what I’ve learned is that defending the primary is actually a team sport - and it’s a responsibility some of the states top power brokers take VERY SERIOUSLY.

And this is where the blackmail comes in.

(beat)

It started with a group of Republicans in New Hampshire - guys like Steve Duprey - then head of the state Republican Party. 

As the 96 campaign started to kick off - they met with the Republicans running for president.

And basically - they threatened them. 

Listen up - Voters here - they won’t look kindly on candidates who campaign in DELAWARE - because DELAWARE doesn’t respect our tradition.

STEVE DUPREY: And you know there was some grumbling from staff that it's blackmail and everything else but we’d say look we have some of the highest voter turnout...we've been doing this for years. Everybody gets a chance whether you're the richest candidate the poorest candidate you're all treated equally. The party apparatus stays neutral. And Delaware has never done this. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Basically - they’d tell candidates - you wanna win? Don’t go to Delaware. 

STEVE DUPREY: If I were you I would come out clearly on your very first visit to New Hampshire when you stepped foot off the plane or out of your car saying New Hampshire first and I will not follow the Delaware process. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Now New Hampshire wasn’t making an empty threat here 

New Hampshire voters had put people like Jimmy Carter - Ronald Reagan - Bill Clinton on a fast track to the White House.

So this was a state that really MEANT something to people who wanted to WIN. 

STEVE DUPREY: If you think you can do better in Delaware you can declare that but you probably should skip coming to New Hampshire

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This argument was working with most Republican candidates.

It also - by the way - worked for the sitting Democratic president - someone convinced Bill Clinton not to even FILE his name on the Delaware ballot. 

But there were a few hold outs - and one of them was Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas.

SENATOR PHIL GRAMM: You know, I was running for president, I didn’t decide who had primaries or caucuses when or where those caucuses occurred. And so I took the sort of stubborn. View. Not surprising. For somebody from Texas that you know I was going to run wherever people were having elections. //

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Gramm couldn’t stand watching other candidates fold to New Hampshire.

I found a quote from him back then where he said - if you can’t take a little heat on an issue like this how you’re going to deal with the Russians, much less the Democrats?

SENATOR PHIL GRAMM: I felt that other people were pandering. And I just wasn't gonna do it. And my point is //  If you're so easily intimidated that you won't campaign where people are going to vote. Because you might offend somebody in another state. You know, when you're dealing with real pressures. How are you gonna handle those? I think it's a valid point.

(music)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Valid or not - Gramm was NOT catching on in New Hampshire. 

He’ll tell you now that in retrospect - he didn’t run the GREATEST campaign - didn’t have the right message for the right time... 

And- he actually thinks maybe this whole Delaware decision he made was also part of the problem.

SENATOR PHIL GRAMM: Well, it definitely would - didn't help me. Let's put it that way,.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: (laughing)

SENATOR PHIL GRAMM: Did it - in the end, would it have made a great deal of difference, maybe not. But if I were doing it over again, I would probably start and just campaign in New Hampshire. Nobody paid much attention to the other places.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: No kidding. You feel that way?

SENATOR PHIL GRAMM: Yeah, I think so.

(pause) 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This was the level of power that New Hampshire had back then - they could minimize an argument that would seem to anyone else to be pretty reasonable - I just want to campaign wherever people are having elections.

Oh and by the way - it’s worth noting that Delaware was never trying to be first.

They just wanted to be earlier - four days AFTER the New Hampshire primary. 

THAT was what inspired the blackmail, the pressure and all the bluster - not a state that wanted to beat them out - but a state that was within a WEEK of our primary - because that broke New Hampshire’s state law.

And in the end - New Hampshire won -  yeah Delaware held it’s primary, but hardly anyone showed up - so Bill Gardner wrote it off as just a beauty contest. 

But New Hampshire would soon face more formidable opponents

HOWARD DEAN: If we're going to represent diverse people diverse people ought to have an early vote in who the nominee is going to be. So that is a problem.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: We’ll get to that in a minute.

----------

(music, crowd noise) 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: We’ve gotta get away from that music...

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  President Donald Trump came to New Hampshire this summer for a campaign rally - his way of kicking off the 2020 election. 

There were THOUSANDS of people there to see him. 

My colleague Jason Moon and I were assigned to cover OUTSIDE the rally - talking with people who were attending - and protesting - the event. 

It was loud out there - music - chanting - and I was running around, trying to make sure I had talked to a variety of voters for my story...

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  Alright I need more women. 

And then I spotted someone who looked SO familiar 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  Oh wait no let’s talk to this guy. 

...but I just couldn’t place him 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  Ooh this is - this is -I gotta think about this, I think his name is Eric?  Um..

I decide to just go for it - Jason and I walked over and I tapped him on the shoulder.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  Did we go to college together? I’m Lauren Chooljian. No you didn’t go to Saint A’s

ERIC JACKMAN: We did protect our primary together!

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: That’s what it was! I’m Lauren, good to see you

ERIC JACKMAN: I know who you are. I emailed you a little while back. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  I thought so...

ERIC JACKMAN: Because I want to be on NPR!

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: His name was Eric - Eric Jackman - and - this seems as good a time as any to tell you that Eric is standing outside this Trump rally in a suit - big red tie - with orangey foundation dripping on his collar - and a thick, blonde wig on his head. 

ERIC JACKMAN: We’re going to build a beautiful wall. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Eric is a professional Trump impersonator. Something he says he wouldn’t have been as successful at - if he lived somewhere else.

ERIC JACKMAN: I'm a product of the New Hampshire primary. My comedy career is definitely a product of the New Hampshire primary. And Donald Trump, you know. (in trump voice) And you know what? Donald, I will always appreciate that. OK, we'll always have Manchester and Moscow. OK. We always will.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Eric may be a product of the New Hampshire primary - but I have a confession to make. 

So am I. 

I grew up here - and I chose to go to Saint Anselm College in Manchester in part because they advertised a front row seat to the primary - and I totally bought it.

Sure enough - I think I met 13 candidates during the 2008 cycle...

Eric - our Trump impersonator friend here - he’s actually one of the reasons why - he was a leader of this group called Protect our Primary. They came on campus and my roommate, a couple friends and I- we all signed up for it because we were told we’d get to meet presidential candidates. Sounded cool...

But turns out - we were kinda being used - the guys who ran this thing wanted to use our fresh faces to get candidates to PROMISE to keep New Hampshire first against threats from other states..

They gave us a roll of stickers that said protect our primary  - and they told us to stick them on a candidates blazers - and make sure we got a picture of it - even better if we were in the picture with the candidate.

My college computer is full of photos like this - me and Hilary Clinton - a sticker on her pinstripe suit. Barack Obama - sticker on his lapel - reaching to shake my hand. Rudy Giuliani - lots of photos with Rudy Giuliani

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  I always felt like looking back on it now as a skeptical reporter, that we were an easy sell like candidates love college students...

ERIC JACKMAN: Of course! There's a level of pandering. Of course, if a young, starry eyed college student gets in your face and says, Hey, Senator, Governor, a congressman, will you wear this sticker and take a picture? And vowed to support keeping New Hampshire first. Dude, you think they're gonna say no?

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:At the time - as a myopic college student - this all seemed to me to be totally harmless. 

I was told that we could lose our first in the nation status when the 2008 primary rolled around and that doing this would help.

But what I know now that I didn’t realize then was I was unwittingly engaged in a debate about something much bigger - something at the core of representative democracy. 

(music) 

This fight got started - again - by another state - but it would spiral into something much, much larger this time. 

Michigan started it - one of their US Senators, Carl Levin he felt that New Hampshire and Iowa had a STRANGLEHOLD on the presidential nominating process - that would be a direct quote. 

Levin felt that Michigan wasn’t getting enough of a say - so he convinced the Democratic National Committee that they should consider bumping Iowa and New Hampshire

Michigan started it - one of their US Senators, Carl Levin he felt that New Hampshire and Iowa had a STRANGLEHOLD on the presidential nominating process - that would be a direct quote. 

Levin had long felt that Michigan wasn’t getting enough of a say - so he convinced the Democratic National Committee that they should consider bumping Iowa and New Hampshire.

The national political parties own the nomination process - so not only do they write the rules but they can punish states who don’t follow along. 

But once this conversation got going among DNC members - it kind of evolved.

Democrats realized that what they REALLY had on their hands here was not some spat between a big state and two little ones… it was a foundational question about the future of their party - and of the electorate. 

Howard Dean was the chair of the DNC back then - I met up with him recently in Vermont.

HOWARD DEAN: Iowa and New Hampshire are two of the least diverse states in the country and our party is very diverse. The Republicans aren't. But we are. And if we're going to represent diverse people, diverse people ought to have an early vote in who the nominee is going to be. So that is a problem.

(music)

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So, they start holding meetings….discussing new ways to organize the calendar.

Maybe we should rotate - give other states a chance - maybe we should add more states to the early lineup?

Because the thing is - the facts are the facts. New Hampshire has long been one of the whitest states in the nation. 

The population here is older, wealthier, more educated and less religious than most of the country.

So it was a complicated discussion between national Democratic power brokers.

They gathered in hotel ballrooms with ugly carpeting  - they sat at long tables arranged in the shape of a U...and they went at it for months - there were a lot of competing interests. 

And New Hampshire and Iowa took a lot of heat. 

(music) 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  Iowa and New Hampshire were told - look - you don’t own retail politics...

SENATOR BLANCHE LINCOLN:  I can say personally as a candidate in Arkansas retail politics are critical. We're still a state where if you don't show up at the pie supper and you don't show up at the coon supper if you don't show up and eat everything that flies or walks or whatever you're not going to get elected. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Iowa and New Hampshire were told - it’s JUST. Not. FAIR that you guys are first. 

SENATOR CARL LEVIN: We all want to see candidates! Two states see candidates 50 and 100 times! Take a look at these quotes! Last election, I’m gonna live in Iowa and New Hampshire for the next two years... Another one: I will pledge to the death to protect the NH primary so help me god. It’s a reality we gotta change!

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Iowa and New Hampshire were told you don’t reflect the challenges of MANY people in this nation. 

DONNA BRAZILLE: 37 million Americans live under the poverty line in this country. We've been their voice and we've been their champions. But often in presidential season we forget them. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Iowa and New Hampshire were told - you’re too white. Your privileged position is closing off vital voices in our country.

SPENCER OVERTON: I’m Frankly Madam Chair already uncomfortable. with enshrining Iowa and New Hampshire /// earlier this year I stood in line for four and a half hours to see Rosa Parks her casket in the Capitol runs the rotunda and there were just 30,000 Americans out there in line in the middle of the night basically to acknowledge this woman who had challenged privilege challenged basically the notion that someone is entitled to a certain position and a certain status.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Iowa and New Hampshire - that thing you guard SO deeply - that thing that you think your states do best? 

It’s time to move on.  

(pause)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: People in New Hampshire were watching these discussions - some were in the rooms where these things were being said. 

And in response - New Hampshire Democrats would promise - we are committed to diversity. Full stop.

Butttttt… they ALSO said YOU ALL have to consider the unintended consequences of shaking things up. Adding more early states - frontloading the calendar - that could lead to a NATIONAL primary - weakening the power of retail politics...is that what we want? 

Think of how well this system has worked for Democrats.

SENATOR JEANNE SHAHEEN: We saw that in 1992 with a little-known governor from Arkansas Bill Clinton. We saw it in 1976 with a little known governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter. It’s been an important part of the process.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: New Hampshire has a track record they’d say.

History has shown that.  New Hampshire is a place where ANYONE can be president. And isn’t that the American dream?

TERRY SHUMAKER: And we are the party of the American dream. Ladies and gentlemen that anybody born in this country can grow up to be president 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: That’s what they would say.

That’s the argument - New Hampshire offers something special - retail politics. 

It’s the same argument I made as a college student in the mid 2000s - slapping stickers on wanna be presidents --  asking them if they’d keep NH first. 

I feel a little weird about it in retrospect - I was totally oblivious to these questions about representation - because all I knew to value was retail politics. 

I experienced it myself - at 20 years old - I asked many candidates my own questions - I had lunch with one of them - I saw other voters do the same - it did seem special and it did seem important for democracy.

(music) 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: But what if retail politics lost its value - what if the candidates found other ways to win?

And what if we face threats that our go to argument can’t beat? 

JAMES PINDELL: When it’s from the national committee, or when it’s from another state, there’s a process moment in which one side wins and one side loses, And New Hampshire has always won. The threats this time are not that way at all.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: We’ll get to THAT in a minute.

---

(ambi)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: I’m sitting in a little studio in newsroom of the Boston Globe

I’ve been hanging out for about - mmm 20 minutes? Microphone at the ready - waiting for reporter James Pindell. 

Then I hear him FINALLY - coming closer...he pops his head into the door.

JAMES PINDELL:  Um I totally fucked you over I'm so sorry. so I'm gonna get some tea and I'll be right over.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: You’re fine!

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This is Pindell. Very kind, very busy, very intense - ESPECIALLY right now - the fall before the New Hampshire primary.

He literally took three phone calls while getting that cup of tea - but finally I get him in a chair.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: First, even though I know you. You tell me what stranglehold listeners should know about your career. Basically, tell me everything.

JAMES PINDELL: (laughs) um… 

(pause)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  The primary’s your life.

(laughing)

JAMES PINDELL: I know right....

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This is not an exaggeration - since he was in high school - Pindell has intentionally planned his entire life around the first in the nation elections - he went to college in Iowa.

 And in 2002 he took a job with a barely known blog just so he could cover the New Hampshire primary - and he’s been here ever since.

JAMES PINDELL: It's not just because I love politics. I am deeply, deeply romantic about the idea of the New Hampshire primary. I have cried at several different events. I remember the first time I cried at a New Hampshire primary event? It was 2002. It was in late October 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So this crying episode was ahead of the 2004 primary - Pindell was at a house party for a candidate on the Seacoast. And all our talk in past episodes about picture perfect participatory democracy? Pindell saw it for himself.

JAMES PINDELL: We're at a gathering of about 15 people. And Howard Dean is standing next to the fireplace at a house. The beginning, believe or not, there is snow beginning to fly. The first snowfall of the season. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: No.

JAMES PINDELL: The kids are running around, you know, in their stocking feet upstairs, having fun. And meanwhile, we are getting into it on the future of American politics. And I'm like, this is the most idyllic thing. I'm the only reporter there to watch this. And I actually cry. I'm like, this is why you come to cover politics in New Hampshire.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: That idea that New Hampshire makes better presidents - Pindell is all in.

Now  - he wants to be clear - he hears the representation and diversity arguments - and thinks those are valid. 

BUT - he deeply believes that if New Hampshire and Iowa aren’t first - America loses something. 

JAMES PINDELL: What bothers me right now is that looking ahead at this particular presidential cycle. This what, Iowa and New Hampshire, the - everything I just said, the reasons I cry. The reasons that the Iowa, New Hampshire matter the most have been dissolving.

(music)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Dissolving. Not gone - but Pindell sees something happening here.

Something that will even impact the way his team covers the election.

He brought this up last year with his bosses at the Boston Globe.

JAMES PINDELL:  And I said, I know what's going to happen. We're going to meet probably next week, which we did. And we're going to - someone's going to go over to the shelf and they're going to take this old dusty template, the New Hampshire primary template, and they're going to come over here and blow off all the dust and they're going to say, all right. So here's the deal. We know how these campaigns work. We know when we need to staff up. We need to staff up, you know, here, here, here and here. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: But Pindell told his editors that’s not gonna work this time.  - we can’t cover this thing like we used to. The things that used to matter - don’t matter anymore.

JAMES PINDELL: And my point to the globe was this template, this model is dissolving in front of our eyes and we can’t think of it the same way. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Pindell doesn’t know exactly when this change started - but there were signs in 2016. We all saw them. 

President Donald Trump didn’t have to campaign the old way to win New Hampshire - there was no hustling up to the north country to shake hands at grocery stores - and he hardly picked up any key endorsements from NH activists.

Because Trump had a NATIONAL brand - shaped by years of TV appearances. 

And now - leading up to 2020 - Pindell sees evidence of this everywhere. 

Pindell: And now that we are so many months in on this primary, I think there's absolutely no doubt that the clout of the state has significantly suffered.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: To see what Pindell is talking about here - this dissolving he’s describing - we decided to send Jack Rodolico out on the trail with Pindell.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: Good morning, how are you

JACK RODOLICO: We met up at an event for New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand - she had come to New Hampshire to announce her mental health care plan. 

It was a pretty classic campaign event by New Hampshire primary standards - a candidate trying to make news about a policy speech in front of important early voters.

And this is NOT some big rally - there are just over a dozen people here - sitting in a small conference room at this community health center.

So small in fact that Pindell had to WHISPER to me so that Gillibrand doesn’t hear us talking about her - just 20 feet away from us.

JAMES PINDELL: I mean, the New Hampshire way is that you slowly build up with events like this. You have to do something on a random 10 o'clock on a Tuesday. So the crowd size doesn't matter...You make a pitch, you get press, you can build momentum. The problem is, election day isn't in February when the New Hampshire primary is. Her. Election Day is about eight days away from this event. 

JACK RODOLICO: Her election day - Pindell says - isn’t the NH primary - it’s qualifying for the debates - to get in front of TV viewers across the country.

This stop was in late August - and at that moment Gillbrand was in trouble. 

She wasn’t polling well enough and needed more donations from normal people across the country - or else she wasn’t going to get one of those coveted spots on the debate stage in September. 

Historically - it’s New Hampshire and Iowa that candidates hold out for - because of those states have power to winnow the field.

This year - as the Democratic National Committee tries to deal with a massive field of candidates - they are setting the thresholds for these debates.  

JAMES PINDELL: And that changes the metrics for all these candidates. And it's very tough...she just going all out. Well, you can't blame her. She has spaghetti against the wall.

JACK RODOLICO: Pindell says candidates behavior and strategy - is changing - now more than ever - their focus isn’t just here.

They need to get on CNN - on national podcasts - because the polling it takes to get into these debates - they’re not just from Iowa and New Hampshire. It’s lots of national polls too. 

And that means New Hampshire’s power to winnow the field - it’s not what it used to be.

——-

GILLIBRAND VIDEO: Hey everyone, I wanted you to hear it from me first that after more than 8 incredible months I’m ending my presidential campaign.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:  You must have heard by now - Gillibrand is out of the race - that event Jack and Pindell went to was actually her last one in New Hampshire.

And she’s not the only one - as of writing this episode 7 candidates have decided that it’s not worth sticking it out and pinning their hopes on a surprise victory in Iowa and New Hampshire.

NEWS REEL 1: Breaking news right now another shakeup in the 2020 Democratic race

NEWS REEL 2: NY Mayor Bill DeBlasio pulled the plug on his White House bid today

NEWS REEL 1: MA Congressman Seth Moulton has just dropped out after struggling to gain traction and unable to meet the criteria to get on the debate stage.

NEWS REEL 3: Washington Governor Jay Inslee dropping out of the race after another rival… 

JAMES PINDELL: If there's one thing that people can take away. It's that this primary is changing before our eyes. It has threats that we don't know how to deal with. And there are people who want to put their head in the sand and say it's not happening. There are others who don't even understand that there is a problem right now with the threat of the primary. I love what this primary has been. And if we don't recognize that we have a problem. There's no way we can fix the problem.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: If you can’t tell  - Pindell is really sweating this.

Sure it will still MATTER who wins the New Hampshire primary in 2020.

But we don’t know what that will mean exactly - will it be a springboard to white house or just another Delaware? 

For Pindell this dilemma strikes at the core of what he sees as New Hampshire’s identity.

34:39 JAMES PINDELL: The New Hampshire primary is the identity. It's been the identity of my life and it's been it's been the identity of the state. And so what's it's not just that - these existential threats to the primary that we can have no control over. Right now, it's not that it's a clout has been gone. It's created identity crisis in the state. And as I admitted to my bosses, it's creating an identity crisis with myself what is what is it? What am I without the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucuses, something I have literally done my whole life, not mattering the same way.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Pindell goes on like this for a bit. And then he stops - and he says to me,  he’s not too sure he likes what he’s saying. 

JAMES: I don’t like my self interest line I’ll say that

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: What do you mean you don’t like that? It’s so real. James it’s so real

JAMES PINDELL: The self identity... I mean it’s not, I mean I’m going to be fine - that’s not the issues

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: No but it’s like a deep part of you that and that’s what identity is about.

JAMES: When I self self interest - it’s not oh wow I get to interview candidates running for president, that’s not it. I’m obviously so invested in this beautiful mythological system that I now see possibly coming to an end

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And that may make you cry again.

JAMES: Laughs.  It does.

(fade down)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Pindell calls himself a person who is in love with the story.

For years he’s written about the New Hampshire primary.

He used to publish this list of powerful people in NH and which candidates they were backing - the names on the list represented the years of political capital NH had accumulated - the relationships that developed because of the state's role in shaping elections. 

It used to say something about who our next president could be.

Now? Pindell’s dropped the list all together. 

Because to him - that story? It’s over.

CREDITS: 

This episode was reported and produced by me Lauren Chooljian. 

If you’re interested in state by state demographics and how they compare to the electorate as a whole - head on over to our website - we’ve got a link to our NPR colleague Asma Khalid’s reporting from 2016 where she built this fascinating data set called the Perfect State Index.

And yes - if you want to see pictures of college me with 2008 candidates - and Bill Gardner - which I totally forgot about - go to our website nhpr.org. 

Stranglehold is edited by NHPR’s Director of Content Maureen McMurray and News Director Dan Barrick and Stranglehold senior producer Jack Rodolico.

Additional editing help came from Casey McDermott and Tony Arnold. And sound mixing by Hannah McCarthy, me and Jason Moon.

Jason and Lucas Anderson also created the dope original music in this episode.

And one more moment for the great Jason Moon because I truly could not have done this episode without his producing - editing - mixing - and the all important skill of politely telling me when my writing isn’t that funny.

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Digital Director and Sara Plourde made our beautifully aggressive podcast graphics.

And of course very special thanks to dad - Barry Chooljian - who helped us name this podcast. He’s a high school wrestling coach by the way - does it make more sense now?

Additional thanks to Elaine Kamarck, Connor O’Brien, John DiStaso, Kathy Sullivan, Basil Battaglia, Hannah McCarthy, Megan Sweeney Hall 

And archival tape from CSPAN.

Stranglehold is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Transcript - Ep 3: Midnight Special

Note: This transcript is adapted from a radio script, and may contain grammar errors and formatting conventions that offend some readers.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC…] DON LEMON: And it's really underway. Everyone, take a look at this. You're looking live now. This is Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. Where in just two hours...

 JACK RODOLICO: It’s the night before the New Hampshire primary in 2016. And CNN is in a town way up north in New Hampshire.

MARK PRESTON: They have just closed the polls here.

DON LEMON: Like 30 seconds to a minute?

MARK PRESTON: They've just ... Right so we're looking right now. Don, they just closed the polls ….

It’s closing in on midnight. And the people of this town have stayed up late so they can vote when the clock strikes midnight.

MARK PRESTON: Well, here we go. We're gonna see the results Don. Let me just step down here so we can get em for you.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Here’s the story - in a nutshell - CNN is showing its viewers.

This town is called Dixville Notch and it takes its civic duty very seriously. Every voter shows up and casts a ballot - 100% participation. And the results of their vote will be broadcast to the world live. The first results in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

MARK PRESTON: So there you go, Don. As you can see on the whiteboard behind me...

What appears on the TV screen looks like a slice of Small Town, USA.

JACK RODOLICO: A town moderator in a bowtie. Red, white, and blue bunting dripping from the walls. Paper ballots slipping into an old-timey wooden ballot box. It’s storybook democracy - set against a picture-perfect backdrop.

ANDERSON COOPER: ...in a picture postcard town just shy of the Canadian border....

DON LEMON: …small quaint towns in NH....

MARK PRESTON: This is really a page out of a Norman Rockwell book. It’s amazing up here how engaged people are...

And CNN, by the way - they’re not the only ones covering Dixville Notch. Fox News is here, so is the Associated Press. Every presidential election, even international outlets show up at Dixville Notch.

MONTAGE of international reporting

This wall-to-wall coverage might lead you to believe that the vote in Dixville Notch is really meaningful - or unique.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Maybe it’s the only town in New Hampshire that stays up late to vote at midnight.

JACK RODOLICO: It is not.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Or maybe the vote tally here will predict how the whole state will vote - or who’ll become president.

JACK RODOLICO: It will not.

Dixville Notch is too small a town to say anything definitive about the election. In 2016, during the last presidential primary, you could count the voters in this town on both of your hands.

MEGAN KELLY: Nine voters. Not a lot of chance of voter fraud.

JACK RODOLICO: Nine. Nine voters cast ballots in Dixville Notch. Yet there are dozens of journalists here.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Why? Why are so few voters, in this little remote, place getting so much attention?

Well, in part because it’s a habit. Every four years, news outlets know if it’s time for the primary, it’s time to send their cameras to Dixville Notch.

But mostly it’s because this image of participatory democracy - it’s irresistible and it’s great T.V.

AMBI CAR SOUND

CASEY MCDERMOTT: I think we’re gonna see it when we come around this bend here…

Casey McDermott is one of our colleagues here at NHPR. Last winter she took us to see Dixville Notch in person. She drove us far north, north of the White Mountains, 25 miles from the Canadian border. And when you first see Dixville Notch - it’s really something.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Oh man!

The first thing you notice -- is that there’s NO quaint little town. There’s no stoplight. No town hall. No picket fences. No real houses, either. Just one very big, very striking building, tucked into the middle of a mountain range.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: It’s like a grand resort. One of those old regal hotels

JACK RODOLICO: We first catch a glimpse of it from the opposite side of a lake. Even from this distance, it’s clear that resort is empty.

And as we drive closer , around the lake, along a snowy, winding driveway… it’s obvious. This place has been closed for years.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Wow.

JACK RODOLICO: Oh whoa that building does not look good.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So basically what we’re looking at is from the front it looks like this like beautiful castle in the clouds vibe. And then from the back it's like total destruction.

[THEME SONG]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: When the satellite trucks show up here for the midnight vote, they come to capture the starting gun of the presidential race.

For the most part - they don’t show this. The T.V. cameras pan right past the devastated hotel in Dixville Notch...

JACK RODOLICO: So, we’re gonna tell you a more complete version of the story. It’s a story about what happens when tradition overshadows the facts. About what happens when the national media clings to a symbol of the N.H. primary - in the face of mounting evidence that that symbol has lost its meaning.

I’m Lauren Chooljian, and I’m Jack Rodolico. 

From New Hampshire Public Radio, this is Stranglehold.

MUSIC SWELL

CASEY MCDERMOTT: It looks like a postcard out of, you know, New England. It looks frankly like a postcard out of another time…

TOM TILLOTSON: We haven’t been forgotten yet....Things are getting a little bit slow but we haven’t been completely forgotten yet.

NANCY DEPALMA: This is very confusing to me. Am I in some sort of trouble?

ANNE EDWARDS: If the tradition needs to end...then sadly the tradition will end.

WAYNE URSO: The press was - they were willing accomplices. They wanted to see it happen again.

JACK RODOLICO: Behind this podcast, there is an ensemble team. And for this episode, we’re gonna rely on the reporting of someone who usually spends her time on the quiet side of the Stranglehold mic.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: OK. This is really exciting.

JACK RODOLICO: It is.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: It is

JACK RODOLICO: Yes.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Would you guys prefer that I have my headphones on or not?

ALL: No preference....

JACK RODOLICO: We -- Lauren and I always record with shoes off, but it's optional for you.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: I think I'm going to keep mine on -- but that's OK.

 A couple things about Casey McDermott.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: She is -- our friend -- and she’s political reporter at NHPR. She focuses on the guts of elections: voting laws, ballot access, political campaigns. And all of those issues come crashing together in that beat up old building in Dixville Notch.

 JACK RODOLICO: That place is called the Balsams Resort. For 100 years, it was a playground for the rich. And the story of how the place became a media obsession -- that all starts with one man.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: So this all starts with a guy named Neil Tillotson.

 MUSIC

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Neil Tillotson. The founder of Dixville Notch’s midnight vote. But he was a lot more than that.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: Neil Tillotson is kind of -- I think of him as kind of like New Hampshire’s Forrest Gump in that ... over the course of his life his story just intersects with history in all kinds of interesting ways ... over the literal century that he was alive because he died when he was 102 years old. 

 Neil Tillotson grew up not far from Dixville Notch - in a humble, little town in Vermont kind of smooshed between New Hampshire and Quebec. He was born in 1898 and he died in 2001.

 JACK RODOLICO: And in that time - he met a lot of amazing people.

 JOHN MCCAIN: Mr. Tillotson who was the one who invented the Dixville Notch…

 That’s the voice of a two-time New Hampshire primary winner - the late Senator John McCain.

 JOHN MCCAIN: ..had the honor of meeting him. He was like 103 at the time. And I said - and I said, “Mr Tillotson ... who was your favorite of all these candidates that you met?” And he said, “My favorite was Mr. Roosevelt.” And I said, “Gee, well that’s really, Franklin Roosevelt was really a…” And he goes, “No! Theodore Roosevelt.”

 NEIL TILLOTSON: I saw Teddy Roosevelt. I was probably 16, 17 years old....He wasn’t just something you read about in the paper. Hell, he  -- I’ve seen him make a speech!

 Neil Tillotson’s story is one of those classic American rags-to-riches tales of a bygone era -- full of dramatic, kind of unbelievable details:

 He drops out of high school - leaves home - lands a gig at a rubber manufacturer.

 He enlists in the army, pursues Pancho Villa and his men under the command of General John J. Pershing.

He returns to the rubber manufacturer - becomes a researcher there.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And this is where the rubber meets the road...where Tillotson sets his course as a self-made mogul.

 MUSIC OUT

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Tillotson didn’t have much formal education - but he’s a natural in the lab: inquisitive, creative, a real problem-solver. He even has a lab at home where he tinkers with stuff in his off time. One of his favorite items to work with is latex.

 JACK RODOLICO: And it’s here in his home laboratory where Tillotson hits gold. In 1931 - in the midst of the Great Depression - Tillotson dips some cardboard into the liquid rubber and successfully makes the world’s first  novelty balloon. A cat balloon, to be precise. It was shaped like a cat’s face -- little ears and all. Turns out, a lot of people were willing to buy these things. The Tillotson Rubber company was born.

 JACK RODOLICO: It’s very simple too.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: It’s a very simple idea but it’s something that I think was a kind of consistent theme throughout his life according to the people that really knew him was that he had the ability ... to really capitalize on an opportunity when he saw one.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Tillotson kept going. He diversifies.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: He at one point was making girdles, which of course have since fallen out of favor but at one point were very --

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Thank god.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: You and me both -- were very popular.

Tillotson Rubber invents the world’s first latex exam gloves. Manufacturing expands. Tillotson’s fortune grows a lot.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: He becomes this guy who’s kind of a self-sustaining conglomerate. He owned pretty much the entire production line for a lot of his products.

 JACK RODOLICO: So obviously, Tillotson was a very creative guy - kind of an artist - who was willing to go all in if he saw an opportunity.

 And halfway through Tillotson’s life, when he was a very rich man, he had one of those Forrest Gump moments.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: In the 1950s he’s a businessman…

 Not far from where he’d grown up in Vermont, a piece of property went for sale in New Hampshire. It really caught his eye. It was the Balsams Resort - tucked into that beautiful valley in the mountains.

 Tillotson had his fingers in a lot of businesses. But not hotels. But, he bought it anyway. 

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: But it was wildly different than anything he had done before. So he buys this resort. It’s in kind of dire straits financially according to news articles at the time but he takes it over. And then by the time - ya know, we’re coming up on the 1960 election and just to put it into perspective obviously there’s a lot going on in American politics at the time…. Nixon versus Kennedy. And...so it’s something that at the time the press is really interested in covering.

 Now, let’s just stop here for a moment.

 MUSIC

 When Tillotson bought the Balsams - Dixville Notch was what’s called an “unorganized place.” That’s a term of law that means if people there wanted to vote, they had to drive to another town - maybe 30 minutes away or more - just to cast a ballot. Tillotson changed that when he established the midnight voting tradition.

 JACK RODOLICO: So the thing Dixville Notch is world-famous for is voting at midnight in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. And the tradition started in 1960 - but not in the primary. The first time they did it was the general election for president.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And watching news coverage today, you might get the impression that Dixville is the place this midnight voting tradition was born. But that’s also not the case. 

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: I didn’t even realize that this was a thing that happened outside of New Hampshire. But I found news stories talking about this happening in Massachusetts, in Alabama.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Blasphemy!

CASEY MCDERMOTT: All over the country. In Maine.

 In these old clippings that Casey found, the morning story on a presidential election day might list vote tallies from a handful of towns all over the country. Some had voted at midnight, others at maybe 3 in the morning. It was a little filler piece while the country waited for real election results.

 JACK RODOLICO: But for the press - it was also an inconvenience. They didn’t know what towns were going to vote first, and it was kind of a hassle to scramble to collect the results overnight.

 It would have been so much easier for the press if just one town voted at midnight.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And, according to a few of Casey’s interviews, the attention shifted to Dixville Notch, because of a conversation between Neil Tillotson and a photographer.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: Neil Tillotson and this reporter for a wire service basically came up with the idea that if Dixville did its vote at midnight, this reporter would make sure that their results were the ones that were broadcast to the rest of the world as being first in the nation.

 Why would that be? What did Dixville Notch have that all those other little towns didn’t?

 JACK RODOLICO: One thing: telephones. And lots of them.

 STEVE BARBA: We could give them all the phones they needed to send their photographs.

 Steve Barba was the longtime manager of the Balsams Resort. He lived up there and worked closely with Neil Tillotson.

 Journalism in the 1950s ran on telephones. Newspapers needed pictures, and those pictures were sent from the field to newsrooms by phone lines.

 And the Balsams Resort had its own telephone company. That was huge. It also had its own power plant - and space for teams of reporters to set up shop.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: I mean it sounds like quite literally a media-initiated event in Dixville. Is that fair?

STEVE BARBA: Definitely so and it was for the ease and the coordination of the press.

 So… November, 1960. Nixon-Kennedy. When the morning papers were printed on Election Day, all those littles towns voted in the middle of the night.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: But they didn’t get the attention that Dixville did.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: There are newspapers all across the country that have Neil Tillotson and, ya know, eight of his closest friends standing there smiling...holding up these signs that say they voted for Nixon over Kennedy, nine to zero.

 MUSIC OUT

 JACK RODOLICO: What a nice little story to share with your readers. While you were sleeping last night, this little town in New Hampshire stayed up late, just to vote first. These people really take democracy seriously.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And it was a story that required readers not to ask too many questions about this perfect little democracy.

 JACK RODOLICO: That folksy looking town moderator in a bowtie? He was actually a millionaire.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: All those townies smiling after they voted? A lot of them were his employees.

 JACK RODOLICO: And the little landslide for Nixon - nine to zero? What does that have to do with anything? Nixon lost the race to Kennedy later that same day.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: But the story the papers and magazines were telling were not about the details. They were about imagery.

 And during the next presidential election, to ensure that Dixville Notch really voted first, Tillotson made sure his town voted at midnight in the primary. Months before the general election.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: It was kind of off to the races. By the time the 1964 primary rolled around in New Hampshire, Dixville was like on the map...as the face of the New Hampshire primary.

 JACK RODOLICO: If there’s anything that gets the attention of presidential candidates, it’s a photo op. The chance to be seen in a favorable light by a big audience - that’s what it’s all about when you’re running for president.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And so when Casey says it was off to the races, she means it. Every four years, the presidential race came to Dixville’s doorstep.

 TOM TILLOTSON: Been a while since I looked at these pictures. They’re not arranged in chronological order.

 This is Tom Tillotson. Neil Tillotson’s son. He’s one of the only residents left up in Dixville Notch. And he showed us this wall of pictures.

 JACK RODOLICO: They’re kind of like, part family photo album - and part history textbook.

 TOM TILLOTSON: That’s my dad talking to Reagan. He came here twice. Once during the primary and then he came back for the general election.

 Bill Clinton came to Dixville Notch. John McCain. Both Bushes.

 Each election cycle, it was like the circus came to town.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: No - really - one candidate brought an elephant.

 TOM TILLOTSON: He brought in an elephant.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: To Dixville Notch?

TOM TILLOTSON: Right into the hotel.... This is Popsicle, the 700-pound baby elephant.

 So who brought the elephant?

 JACK RODOLICO: It was Mitt Romney’s father. George Romney. When he ran for president in 1968, George Romney kicked off his campaign by schlepping a baby elephant to a town in New Hampshire with about ten voters.

 STEVE BARBA: Mrs. Romney actually rode the elephant, I understand.

 Steve Barba wasn’t there to meet Popsicle. But as hotel manager years later, you can bet he heard the story.

 STEVE BARBA: While that was happening there was a local fellow who was a Democrat and he was gonna bring a donkey into the hotel.... Someone heard that he was trying to smuggle a donkey into the ballroom and they shut the elevator off with him and the donkey in it.

 MUSIC

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Remember, Dixville Notch is not an easy place to get to.

 But LOTS of candidates make the trip. George H.W. Bush went up when he ran in 1988. And he won - with a whopping 11 votes.

 And four years later, when Bush was running for reelection as an incumbent president, he did not forget the tiny town that voted for him first.

 TOM TILLOTSON: I was in the shower and the phone rings. And it’s George Bush calling from the White House. [laughs]

 Dixville Notch had become like the N.H. primary on steroids. The retail politics - the fawning attention from powerful people. That’s what the primary is known for.

 But jumping out of the shower to take a call from the president? That doesn’t happen just anywhere in New Hampshire.

 TOM TILLOTSON: He hoped that we would, ya know, vote for him that night. And I had this whole conversation with him standing there dripping wet, buck naked. And so that sticks out in my mind.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: That would. That would.

 MUSIC OUT

 JACK RODOLICO: It’s been a while - many campaign cycles - since Dixville Notch was a must stop for presidential candidates in the New Hampshire primary. Campaigns mostly ignore it now.

 But the press keeps showing up to tell the same story about the little town that votes. And when they do, they usually miss the real story of what life has been like up there.

 RAY GORMAN: I miss Dixville Notch.... It's been a struggle for me since. It has been.

 We’ll get to that in a moment.

 MIDROLL

 WIND CHIMES

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: After Neil Tillotson died, the Balsams Resort changed hands a few times. It closed its doors in 2011. Casey wanted to talk to people who knew the place in its heyday. So she wound up on the doorstep of Ray Gorman. She met him right as he was trying to get his dog, who’s blind, back in the house.

 RAY GORMAN: Penny, over here girl. Come on. Come with Dad.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: Ray Gorman was the longtime head of security and basically kind of keeping the place running.

///

RAY GORMAN: Too damn cold

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Mmm Hmmm....

RAY GORMAN: Come on girl, I’m right here. Come on girl.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: So Ray is one of my favorite people that I’ve talked to for this story because I think he offers a perspective unlike anyone else. ...

///

RAY GORMAN: We’re being recorded girl. That’s it.

///

JACK RODOLICO: I have noticed Casey that when you talk about Ray you put your hand -- you just did it! - you put your hand on your heart....

CASEY MCDERMOTT: I mean I -- ya know, we have these encounters with sources sometimes where you’re just like totally not expecting someone to open up to you and to like open their homes to you.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Mmm hmmm.

///

RAY GORMAN: Welcome to the Gorman household...

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Oh thank you so much.

RAY GORMAN: We moved in here in June. I think I told you it had a fire before. Which is too bad because I had a lot of pictures of myself with Bush, Dole, people like that. I had buttons. I had a lotta...

 Ray Gorman started at the Balsams as a bellman in 1978. And he was let go when the place was shuttered in 2011. Half his life, building a career in the same place.

 He had an unofficial job title that really sums up what he was to the place.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: He was in his words Mr. Miscellaneous.

///

RAY GORMAN: Mr. Miscellaneous I used to call myself sometimes so.... I was known -- at the hotel I was the person a lot of people go to if they needed something, alright. They needed a bulb, they needed this, they need that.... And Mr. T. knew that.

 Mr. T. -- that’s Mr. Tillotson. The older one.

 MUSIC

 JACK RODOLICO: So Ray Gorman, Mr. Miscellaneous.

 Every four years on election night it was his job to do -- well, anything and everything that was needed. Especially for the press.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: Ray was the one who made sure that the cables were run.... He made sure that the nosy reporters who were trying to spy in the ballot room...he made sure that they couldn’t get in there.... And when you talk to him there’s just such an earnestness.... He really felt like...he had a really important job to do.

///

RAY GORMAN: Oh my gosh I've had guests tripping over cords. That was always a big thing. All right. And that's like the insurance company does not want to hear about that.... Tape my gosh I swear I used to go through a case of gaffer's tape. Each one of those election night.... I mean I had ladies take headers and so on and so forth.

 Ray was like a stage manager for the midnight vote. And it was a high stakes show.

 RAY GORMAN: Ya know what I mean? The numbers increased and the pressure to produce something for the nation and the world. And you had all these people with all these cameras and I was always worried about safety.

 MUSIC

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: But sometimes it took more than it appeared on T.V. for Dixville to dust itself off for the cameras. To project the image that the media expected - of a perfect little democracy, where everyone votes - Ray Gorman was given some assignments that were very miscellaneous.

 JACK RODOLICO: Like, fetching someone who did not show up for the election.

 RAY GORMAN: I went and picked him up once, drunker’n a skunk, naked in his chair. “Ray I ain’t goin down there tonight. I don’t give a shit what ya doin.” Alright.

 A missing voter would be a really big deal for the media’s story. And not just because it would taint the imagery of participatory democracy. Legally, under state law, if your town votes at midnight in New Hampshire, you can’t close the polls until every voter is accounted for.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: That means the show’s dramatic conclusion - the vote tally - it couldn’t be announced if someone was missing. So, who do you think was sent out into the night to fetch the straggler?

 RAY GORMAN: I says, I gotta sober him up. He’s naked and you gotta give me an hour.... Sobered him up. Dressed him up. Loaded him in the van, hauled him out.

 Clothed or not, the show must go on.

 MUSIC

 And if Ray was like a stage manager for this show, there were people on the other side of the curtain too. The actors. Or maybe the MC.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: Would you mind just so that I can get your levels just talking a little bit about --

CARL CAMERON: Check, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. This is Carl Cameron from Chevy Chase, Maryland at the top of the D.C. Diamond, right on the Silver Spring-Chevy Chase Line, where it's a beautiful day at about 85 degrees, which is a hell of a lot better than the misery we went through...

///

JACK RODOLICO: Carl

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Campaign Carl.

JACK RODOLICO: Campaign Carl!

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Campaign Carl.

///

CARL CAMERON: We're at about 85 and it's nice. And other than that, this is about the tone that I'll talk.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: OK. That’s perfect. That’s perfect.

 Campaign Carl is legendary broadcaster Carl Cameron.

 CARL CAMERON: In Greenville, N.C., Carl Cameron, Fox News. In Defiance, Ohio. Traveling with the President in Cancun. At the Capitol. In -- where are we? In -- Hiltonhead? Buford!

BRET BAIER: Fox sent Carl Cameron everywhere.

 Everywhere. Including Dixville Notch.

 CARL CAMERON: The man you see with his hands in the ballot box behind me is Tom Tillotson. He is the son of Neil Tillotson, who began this tradition in 1960.

///

JACK RODOLICO: Does he call himself Campaign Carl, or it’s like a network moniker?

CASEY MCDERMOTT: I think he acknowledges that it’s like a nickname that he’s been bestowed with.

 Campaign Carl spent twenty years as a reporter for Fox News. And before that, he cut his teeth as a reporter for local radio and T.V. in New Hampshire.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: You have Granite State roots and to understand your...

CARL CAMERON: Oh hell yeah. Listen. I mean, so East Wakefield, New Hampshire, Round Pond, my family goes back there to 1906.

 JACK RODOLICO: Carl Cameron built a career off the New Hampshire primary. So that gives him a unique perspective on how the national media covers it. Especially their obsession with Dixville Notch.

 CARL CAMERON: Well, it's kind of odd. I mean, you go into this big hotel in the middle of the mountains and nothing else around it...where they've erected voting booths for the exact number of residents, again, mostly living in the hotel. And it was bizarre. I mean, as soon as the clock struck twelve the voting began. And at about six minutes past, all the voting had ended.... And the next morning, it was what everybody was talking about, even though all the radio stations and newspapers and T.V. stations, not only in New Hampshire, but literally around the world would say, “Oh, and by the way, Dixville is very rarely right.”

 To us, Carl touches on one of the weird, unspoken parts of the Dixville Notch story.

 The national media comes in to capture the image of free elections and civic engagement. But they rarely acknowledge that it all started for them - for the convenience of the press. 

 It’s part democracy - and part pure entertainment.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And we are certainly not the first people to notice that.

 JOSH LYMAN: I’m going out for some pizza. You want any?

C.J. CREGG: Oh, I’ll go get it.

 The West Wing. It won a slew of Emmys over seven seasons. Millions of Americans watched this T.V. show - and still do on Netflix. It focused on the inner circle of a fictional president - a president who had been a former New Hampshire governor, thank you so much.

 And in this episode, in this scene, it’s the night before the New Hampshire primary. And two people close to the president are closely watching a little town in New Hampshire that’s gonna vote at midnight.

 JOSH LYMAN: It is absurd that 42 people have this kind of power.

C.J. CREGG: I think it’s nice.

JOSH LYMAN: Do you?

C.J. CREGG: I think it’s democracy at its purest.

 So these two characters - they basically lay out the real world arguments for and against the media’s obsession with Dixville.

 Maybe, unsurprisingly, it’s the press secretary that comes to the town’s defense.

 C.J. CREGG: This is the difference between you and me.

JOSH LYMAN: You’re a sap?

C.J. CREGG: Those 42 people are teaching us something about ourselves. That freedom is the glory of God. That democracy is it’s birthright. And that our vote matters.

JOSH LYMAN: You gettin the pizza or...

C.J. CREGG: Yeah I should call ahead.

 JACK RODOLICO: Carl - a real reporter, who’s covered the real Dixville Notch - says there is something special about it.

 CARL CAMERON: To see Neil Tillotson come out just shortly after midnight, dressed in a fine suit, his wingtips polished, in his bow tie and very, very earnestly...announce the vote. It was a wonderful moment. It really is a piece of Americana.

 Carl says Dixville shows Americans that it’s important to take voting seriously. And if it’s kitschy, so be it, he says.

 CARL CAMERON: I think the fairest way to look at Dixville is not that it is necessarily a bellwether of the outcome of any election, but it has become a symbol and a ceremony, really, a celebration of what is the New Hampshire primary and what is the culture and the ethics, the law and the way in which America tries to handle elections and democracy.

 MUSIC

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: I think that one of the things that gets lost sometimes in political coverage and especially in like national coverage of the primary, is that like we're talking about like real people here and real people's lives and real people's communities.

///

RAY GORMAN: We had excellent -- boy we had good employees. And we had hard-working, loyal employees. I gather you get that from me. There was a lot of me’s. There was a lot of Ray Gormans out there.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: To the extent that Dixville ever was a real community, it was built around one company - which was built around the personality of one man. And when Mr. T. died, the Balsams did too. In 2011, the place where Ray Gorman had worked for 34 years closed.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: I was interested in talking to Ray because if you watched the coverage of Dixville Notch’s midnight vote, it looks like everything’s fine, nothing’s changed. But it’s been pretty hard on Ray for the last few years since the Balsams closed.

///

RAY GORMAN: Ya know I had a very good job at the Balsams and made really good money -- had a lot of tips and that cash money in your pocket. And that’s gone.

 Ray Gorman says he works three jobs to make half his salary from the Balsams. And for Mr. Miscellaneous, a guy who seems capable of doing just about anything, losing that job -- really shook his confidence.

 RAY GORMAN: And I was successful doing that. And I guess there’s a confidence that I had doing it that - ya know, it all falls in place. God I miss Dixville, you wouldn’t believe -- oh my gosh. It’s been a hard time for me since 2012.... I’m doing pretty well -- I’m getting emotional now, but it’s been --- pshew, God…

 Coming up…

 After the most recent presidential race, Dixville Notch found itself on the receiving end of a very different kind of attention. Scrutiny that could lead to this hit show getting cancelled.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: She with her hand nods along and kind of outlines a big question mark in the air. And she goes, big questions.

 MIDROLL

 RENEE MONTAGNE: Good morning I’m Renee Montagne. You’re still going to the polls in the rest of the country but Dixville Notch has already announced its results...Obama 15, McCain 6, Ralph Nadar 0.

 JACK RODOLICO: Look - any criticism we level at “the media” - and the way it’s handled the Dixville story - we could point that finger right back at ourselves. Every primary morning, public radio takes the bait too.

 SCOTT SIMON: The residents of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire will be staying up late Sunday night. 

 All morning long, during our newscasts, we announce that vote tally from Dixville Notch. As if it really means something.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: The story of the New Hampshire primary is really kind of like a story about how fiercely people will cling to symbols and to traditions and to icons, almost to the point where the idea of what those symbols represent outweighs...what actually happened. And I think that that's definitely what happened with Dixville.... I think that what Dixville Notch symbolized came to kind of outweigh, you know, what Dixville Notch actually was.

And what Dixville Notch actually was? Casey found that the relentless focus on what the place symbolized distracted the media from a story. A scoop. Everyone missed it.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Everyone but Casey.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So when did it turn? Or when did it turn for you?

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Um…

 MUSIC

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: So a few years ago, I was trying to get a handle on like what kind of investigations the state had dealt with around voter fraud.

 Voter fraud.

 Remember the Trump voter fraud commission? Around then Casey had this question running around her head.

 Does voter fraud every actually happen here in New Hampshire?

 So she got a stack of files from the Attorney General’s office.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: And I'm going through them. And I see, oh, there was this case in this town, and this case in that town. And then I come across a few cases in Dixville Notch.... I start looking into it a little bit more and I end up finding out that the state had actually launched basically a full scale investigation...of like the integrity of Dixville’s elections.

 And that investigation started the same place the Dixville Notch story always unfolds. On T.V.

 JACK RODOLICO: During the 2016 general election, the A.G.’s office got a tip from someone who’d seen a T.V. segment about the vote in Dixville Notch. That segment showed images of the voters in Dixville. And the tipster who was watching recognized one of those voters. And she thought, “I know that voter. And he doesn’t live in Dixville Notch.”

 NEWS ANCHOR: Dixville Notch keeping their tradition of 100 percent voter turnout...

 I mean, the obvious problem here is that if you don’t live somewhere - you’re not allowed to vote there. And as the state dug deeper...

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: Basically the state had questions about almost every single voter who cast a ballot in Dixville in 2016.

JACK RODOLICO: Every single -- all nine of them?

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Well, almost. ...

///

NANCY DEPALMA: Can I quickly? Can I quickly just ask you how long this is gonna take?

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Oh it shouldn’t need to take too long...

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: I called as many of them as I could...

 Casey found that a lot of the voters who the A.G.’s office had questions about had some kind of connection to the Balsams Resort.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: One voter was involved in a project to reopen the Balsams. She rented a home in a nearby town but voted in Dixville anyway.

 NANCY DEPALMA: This is very confusing to me. Am I in some sort of trouble? And they said, no, that I was not and they were just investigating.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: And then there’s one voter...

///

PETER JOHNSON: As far as I know I’m legally a resident here. I’ve tried to do everything right.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: ...who apparently has not had a home in Dixville for decades...

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: When did you move elsewhere?

PETER JOHNSON: I think it was 1991 or 1992.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: But he just felt so strongly that he wanted to continue voting in Dixville that he did. And he has other residences in other parts of the state and then as well as actually on Martha’s Vineyard. But he would either vote absentee or he would drive all the way up to Dixville to vote in the elections, but would, you know, go to bed brushes, teeth, go home somewhere else.

 MUSIC OUT

 The Attorney General’s office shared a memorandum with Casey, and she shared it with us. It’s pretty interesting. Here are the kinds of red flags that the state found when they interviewed some Dixville voters.

 JACK RODOLICO: There was an out of state phone number.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Cars were registered in other towns.

 JACK RODOLICO: Voters owned houses in Maine and Massachusetts.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: It was kind of a mess.

 But here’s what it wasn’t. It wasn’t all those things you hear when hear about voter fraud.

 JACK RODOLICO: It wasn’t a conspiracy. There was no bus collecting out-of-state voters to swing an election. No voters had voted more than once.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: None of the things that are typically hyped up about voter fraud - none of those things happened on the ground in Dixville Notch.

MEGAN KELLY: Nine voters. Not a lot of chance of voter fraud. Carl Cameron we will stay on it and stay on you...

And Casey says that the way quote voter fraud usually plays out in American elections is the way it did in Dixville. It’s really about confusion. And uncertainty.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: You know, as someone who covers voting laws, like there is a lot of genuine grey area in it and there's a lot of like thorny issues that come up about like where do you get to actually call your home for voting purposes?

 Do you get to make that decision? Is it based on how you feel?

 JACK RODOLICO: Do you have to prove where you live? How do you prove it, and who do you prove it to?

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: There were so many examples of the nuance of those questions that were playing out in this community that was so well known as part of American politics.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: I guess just to start off -- and lemme make sure -- yeah, this is…

 This tape is from an interview Casey did with an Associate Attorney General named Anne Edwards. Ultimately, the state did not charge anyone in Dixville Notch with wrongful voting. But Edwards did say that most of the people who voted there in 2016 should have voted elsewhere.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: Is there any concern that like the A.G.'s office might end up kind of ruining the midnight voting in Dixville here?

ANNE EDWARDS: If the tradition needs to end because Dixville doesn't have enough registered voters to be able to vote then sadly the tradition will end.... And things change over time in communities and sometimes those changes are difficult and traditions end. But the Attorney General's office's responsibility is to enforce the election laws.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And after the Attorney General’s investigation, there might not be enough people left in Dixville for the town to legally hold an election. At our last count, there were only four voters there.

 TOM TILLOTSON: It’s getting to be a ghost town here.

 And of those four voters, three are Tillotsons. Tom and his wife and son.

 TOM TILLOTSON: It's getting to that time where...the first-in-the-nation primary won't be that far away.

 So, will the press show up in Dixville Notch on the eve of the 2020 primary? We don’t know. And neither does Tom.

 But here’s the thing. The media attention Tom’s community gets for the midnight vote - it’s not attention Dixville is asking for anymore.

 In recent years, when the N.H. primary comes around, Tom says, quote, “The world calls us.”

 TOM TILLOTSON: If we got down to three people, my wife, my son and...I seriously doubt that the satellite trucks are going to show up at my house and go into my living room and watch us vote.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Would you want that even?

TOM TILLOTSON: Would I want it? Sure, if they wanted to do it. Why not? But it's not something I expect they would want to do.

 A few months ago, NHPR aired Casey’s reporting on the election inconsistencies in Dixville Notch.

 JACK RODOLICO: And after her reporting hit the web, she noticed that it found this one really curious audience. Her story about voting problems in Dixville wound up on a Facebook page for a town called Millsfield.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: There were a few posts that caught my eye a few months ago where. Let me just read this aloud….

 Two things you should know about Millsfield.

 One. It’s right next door to Dixville Notch.

 And two. Remember how we said back in 1960 Dixville pushed other towns’ midnight voting traditions out of the media spotlight? Well, Millsfield was one of those towns. It voted at midnight before Dixville did.

 Here’s what the Facebook page said...

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: And this is where I really was like, okay, there's something going on here. “In Millsfield any observer can see that we pay careful attention to details in ensuring that our elections are conducted in a strictly lawful manner. First and foremost, we have residents who are indisputably Millsfield citizens...”

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Huh, shade!

JACK RODOLICO: That's really funny. Keep going.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: “...Millsfield citizens are duly elected each march…”

 The post goes on to list all kinds of ways that Millsfield follows each and every election law.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: “For any questions about Millsfield’s midnight voting traditions, please contact Wayne Urso via email at [BLEEPED OUT] dot com.

JACK RODOLICO: And this is all Wayne who's writing this?

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Yes.

JACK RODOLICO: So Wayne has got a chip on his shoulder about Dixville?

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Well. When you...

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: He's just trying to protect his space, man.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Hi, Wayne?

Wayne: You must be Casey!

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Yup!

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Casey drove up to Millsfield to get to the bottom of all this. And Wayne introduced her to a couple other voters there. Sonja and Charlie Sheldon, who own a B&B called a Piece of Heaven.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: How are you?

SONJA SHELDON: I’m fine

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Nice to see you.

WAYNE URSO: This is Sonja’s husband, Charlie.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Hi, nice to meet you.

CHARLIE SHELDON: Yeah, nice to meet you.

 Millsfield has about 20 or so residents, and almost all of them are voting age. It is a community where people live full time.

 WAYNE URSO: If you want to see where the voters in Millsfield live, hop into my pickup truck, I'll drive you throughout the whole Millsfield area, which is going to take all of five minutes. And I'll tell you where each election's official lives and where each voter lives.

 So Casey’s interviewing the Millsfield voters - and they’re being sort of diplomatic about the town next door with all its voting problems. And then she said one thing that got a big reaction.

 Casey mentioned the A.G.’s report - and how there were was a question hanging over almost everyone who voted in Dixville in 2016. And as she’s saying this aloud, Casey notices Sonja, from the B&B, she starts doing something in the air with her hand.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: With her hand nods along and kind of outlines a big question mark in the air. And she goes, big questions.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: [laughing] A big question you say...

SONJA SHELDON: Yeah. A big question, a big question, because, you know, we go by it. Charlie goes by it to go to work every day. And it was -- there were no lights on over there. So we knew very well that there was nobody there except for just a couple or three people.

 From the reactions of people in Millsfield, it seemed like it was an open secret up there.

 WAYNE URSO: If the hotel is not being heated, if the hotel has no running water, no sanitation facilities, how can anyone be living there? It doesn’t make sense.

 MUSIC

 JACK RODOLICO: What do you have there in front of you?

CASEY MCDERMOTT: These are newspaper articles that I found on newspapers dot com.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This girl can find a newspaper clipping like no one I know.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: I love old newspaper stories.

JACK RODOLICO: What is the date of that newspaper clipping you're looking at?

 JACK RODOLICO: Before Casey drove all the way up to Millsfield, there was one other thing she found in her research. Something about the history of Millsfield’s midnight vote - and how far back it went.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: This was in November 4, 1936, and this says, “New Hampshire town is first in the nation to vote. Millsfield stays up till midnight…”

 Casey brought those articles to Millsfield, and read one to the voters there.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: “It was the first time in history that the American public has been able to read any election returns in the morning newspapers of Election Day.”

 And the article basically said that Millsfield - not Dixville Notch, and not anywhere else - that Millsfield was truly the first to be first. That midnight voting was invented in Millsfield.

 And when she got done reading the article aloud, Casey realized, the people there in Millsfield - they didn’t know it until she had just told them.

 WAYNE URSO: Wow, this is a real treat.

///

JACK RODOLICO: And it sounds like you showed up knowing more about it than they do.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Well, that wasn't my intention.

JACK RODOLICO: Right.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: It was like just I just wanted to kind of get their thoughts on this. And I thought it would be helpful to have the actual papers there.

 And as the revelation dawned on the people in Millsfield, this little competitive edge crept into their voices.

 SONJA SHELDON: We were truly the first and Dixville Notch cannot deny that now. Just cannot deny it.

///

WAYNE URSO: I don't want to put blame or disparage anybody. But from my perspective, not only was Dixville trying to hold on to their tradition, but the press - they were willing accomplices. They wanted to see it happen again because that's what's happened.... And they wanted to be a part of it.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Millsfield went maybe 50 years without voting at midnight. But recently, they got organized and restarted their tradition. In 2016, everyone in town rallied and voted at midnight in the presidential primary.

 JACK RODOLICO: And around the time of that election, Millsfield did get name dropped by national papers and cable networks. But usually as only a footnote - or even a foil - to Dixville. News outlets said Dixville Notch and Millsfield were in a race or a fight - which both towns say is inaccurate.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Casey even feels some responsibility for perpetuating a false narrative about these towns because she was a newspaper reporter back then.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: I will confess that I'm pretty sure that the story that I wrote for The Concord Monitor in 2015 made some allusion to a race as well. So I'm guilty as charged there.

But what Casey has done that very few others have - is she came back to the story and dug deeper. And the thing at the core of all of this - to Casey - is the media’s struggle between symbols and facts.

JACK RODOLICO: And there is one particular symbol that she found overshadowed one very important fact.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: The person that we associate most with midnight voting is Neil Tillotson. And he's this larger than life figure. And that's what he's known for. But he's not the one who started it.

 In the oldest article Casey could find - one from 1936 - the story gave all the credit for dreaming up the idea to one person. This was the person who apparently invented midnight voting. Her name was Genevieve.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: I can't get over the fact that Genevieve Natig is actually kind of like the Neil Tillotson of Millsfield.

///

DRIVING SOUND

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: I thought it would be kind of interesting as I'm reading these stories. It says they gathered in her home or...so it's like, well, there's you know, maybe that's still around. You know, maybe I could actually go and see the house where this all started.... So I'm driving. I'm driving. I'm driving. And then like, right as I got to the town line, I'm like, oh my god that that there it is.

///

SFX: gear shift, door opens

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: And so I kind of, you know, I felt kind of weird...

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Excuse me. Excuse me.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Just going to be a reporter, just going to go walk up to these people and see if they'll talk to me.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: I'm sorry to bother you. I am. I'm a reporter who was in town doing a story about Millsfield and the Midnight vote. ... I am. My name's Casey. I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt you.

DAVE MAGNON: That's alright Jackie who owns the place, my girlfriend, would love to talk to you.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Oh, really? OK. I would love to talk to her.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Casey did not meet Genevieve Nadig at this house. She died in 1985. But Casey met the folks who live in Genevieve’s house now...

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: They were also completely unaware of the origins of the midnight voting tradition like on that very property.

///

JACKIE HINES: It would be the Nadigs. Do you wanna go sit down?

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Oh, sure. Sure.

JACKIE HINES: I would like to....

CASEY MCDERMOTT: I’ll sit in the shade over here.

JACKIE HINES: Here pull that over a little bit more. We just had lunch out here.

 Casey pulled out her old newspaper clippings. Jackie Hines and Dave Magnon knew of Genevieve Nadig - who become Genevieve Annis after she married. Casey showed them a photo of Genevieve and her husband from The New York Daily News on the morning of the 1964 presidential election. The photo had been taken right here - on their property.

 JACKIE HINES: And you see the chimney is.

DAVE MAGNON: In the same spot....

JACKIE HINES: I bet that's the back side.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Maybe.

DAVE MAGNON: Yeah. Could be.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Would you mind if I took a photo of that?

JACKIE HINES: No. Not at all.

 When Millsfield restarted its midnight voting tradition in 2016, the results didn’t lead news broadcasts the next morning. And while cable networks and national papers were talking about the Tillotsons for the millionth time - no one was writing about Genevieve Nadig.

 MUSIC

 JACK RODOLICO: According to the old news reports, when she invented midnight voting in 1936, Genevieve was only 27 years old. She was an artist, and a pillow maker. Her grandfather had been alive when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The town she lived in had no electricity. The midnight vote she planned was a surprise to the press and the world, but not to her neighbors. She had invited them over for cookies and coffee. They came to her house in the rain. And when the clock struck twelve, they all voted together. And they made history.

 DAVE MAGNON: We're all here in this little unincorporated town.... It only happens every four years. And it's not that we have a cataclysmic effect on world politics or anything, but maybe we do. Maybe it’s that important.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Ok we just crossed the line into Dixville and the seatbelt thing is yelling at me...

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: The thing that I think is actually most striking about all of this is, you know, I was up in the area yesterday and I figured, okay, you know, one thing that I could do that might make, that might help to put this into perspective...I thought, what if I just timed how long it took for me to drive from Millsfield...to the front of the Balsams and see how long it takes to do that?

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: So the Balsams is right there.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: It took, you know, about five minutes to do that.

///

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Five minutes. Five minutes down the road.

///

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Oh really?

JACK RODOLICO: No kidding. Because when you're in the Balsams, it doesn't feel like there's anything five minutes away.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: No you feel like you’re in...

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Right.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: ...the center of nothing….

CASEY MCDERMOTT: And just to see, OK, you know, how how hard would it have been for a reporter to --

JACK RODOLICO: Tell the whole story.

CASEY MCDERMOTT: Tell the whole story.... If they went all the way up to Dixville Notch, I don't think it would have been asking too much to maybe, you know, drive the few extra miles to check in on the people of Millsfield as well.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: We would not go so far as to say that Millsfield’s tradition of voting at midnight is somehow better or more authentic than the tradition in Dixville Notch. They both deserve credit for encouraging people to do something important: take their voting rights seriously.

 But when it comes to that thing the media is so fixated on .. that imagery of direct democracy, of civic engagement, of a whole town coming together to vote for president. If that’s the story they want to tell - with no strings attached - it’s waiting for them. Five minutes down the road.

 [THEME MUSIC]

 LAUREN/JACK RODOLICO: Casey. Thank you.

This is great. Sorry you should say that without me talking over you

No that’s ok!

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: To see a GIF of Casey’s Neil Tillotson bobblehead doll, head on over to our website, Stranglehold podcast dot com.

 CASEY MCDERMOTT: I tried going a week ago and they couldn’t find it and no one knew where it was and they told me to come back. So hopefully I will get my bobblehead soon.

 JACK RODOLICO: This episode was reported by Casey McDermott and produced by me, Jack Rodolico. Lauren Chooljian is NHPR’s politics and policy reporter.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Jack Rodolico is Stranglehold’s senior producer. Stranglehold is edited by NHPR’s Director of Content Maureen McMurray and News Director Dan Barrick. Special thanks this week to Brenna Farrell, who helped us wrap our heads around how in the world to tell this story.

 Additional editing help came from Casey McDermott, Josh Rogers, me, Lauren Chooljian and Natasha Haverty. Sound mixing by Nick Capodice and Jason Moon.

 JACK RODOLICO: Jason Moon and Lucas Anderson created the kick-ass original music in this episode - including the Stranglehold theme song. Additional music from blue dot sessions.

 Thanks also to Fendal Fulton, Jeff McIver, Rick Erwin, Mike Pearson, Steve Delaney, Tammy Lytle, Davis Bushnell, and Morgan Milardo Schermerhorn.

 LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Digital Director and Sara Plourde made our beautifully aggressive podcast graphics.

 And of course very special thanks to dad - Barry Chooljian - who helped us name this podcast.

 Stranglehold is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

 STEVE BARBA: I got my mail that day and there was an envelope and the only thing on it was a stamp and it didn't say Dixville Notch it said only, “To you nuts in New Hampshire.” This came from out of state. The U.S. Post Office sent this thing to New Hampshire the people in New Hampshire at the post office figured where where should this go like Santa Claus North Pole, where, where should they send it to Dixville. ... But the only thing on him on the envelope with a stamp was “To you nuts in New Hampshire.”

Transcript - Ep 2: The Dragon Egg

Note: The following transcript is a radio script. Therefore, it contains audio cues and other script conventions, as well as grammar and syntax errors some readers may find objectionable.

Stranglehold episode 2: The Dragon Egg

Love is a powerful thing - especially the first time you feel it.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Alright tell me what was your favorite primary.

BILLY SHAHEEN: Oh 76.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: You're just saying that.

BILLY SHAHEEN: No no no it was it was - it was you know it's like your first love. It is. It was it was unbelievable. I never you know I - I always believed but I never thought would happen. I never thought it would happen. And then it did.

(music)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Think about your own first love - it probably forever influenced the way you view relationships.

Your first love can change your life. 

That’s what happened with Billy Shaheen - his first love was Jimmy Carter’s 1976 New Hampshire primary campaign. 

He had his eye on Carter long before then...actually, I think we can say it was love at first sight.

BILLY SHAHEEN : I started watching this governor of Georgia named Jimmy Carter because his first official act as governor. It was the hang a picture of Martin Luther King in the state capital and declared segregation in Georgia was over forever. And I said to my wife. This guy has got some balls. I mean he really got guts. I love this guy. I'm going to watch him

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Those actually weren’t the first things Carter did - though he did do them. 

But who among us doesn’t fudge the details of their first flirtation. 

That sort of thing happens a lot when it comes to Carter’s 1976 campaign in New Hampshire - It’s now the stuff of legend around here - and so the details are often embellished.

And Billy Shaheen? He knows that legend maybe better than anyone. 

He was one of the New Hampshire co-chairs of that campaign - and he went on to become a power broker in the Democratic party - he’s lead a bunch of other presidential campaigns here.

It’s actually why I gave him a hard time when he first told me 76 was his favorite - come on - I thought - I specifically came to you to talk about this campaign, you’re just trying to play right into my hand here... 

But no - Shaheen told me.

He loves this campaign so much - because it showed the world what New Hampshire could offer the rest of the country.

It basically wrote the argument that our biggest defenders use as to why New Hampshire has to hold the first in the nation primary.

BILLY SHAHEEN: Jimmy Carter is an example of if you believe in you're ready to work hard enough you can be anybody and be president. And that's the hope that New Hampshire gives.

(music)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Now of course - the New Hampshire primary was around for decades before Carter came around.

But there’s a good argument to be made that 1976 was a defining moment in New Hampshire’s political history.

This campaign changed people’s lives in a way that previous primaries hadn’t - I’m serious - many of the New Hampshire staffers on the Carter campaign would go on to incredibly powerful political careers - not just here but in Washington. 

And so in 1976 it was clear - this first in the nation primary thing? Forget candidates - for local politicos - it could be their ticket to power.

[START THEME SONG HERE]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Jimmy Carter’s run in 1976 is an essential piece of the first in the nation primary mythology.

And that story has been passed down over many political generations - re-told hundreds - maybe thousands - of times.

KATHY ROGERS: The advice I always give anybody that's working in a campaign for the first time in New Hampshire is it's always and how I kind of felt. It's kind of like you got this little dragon egg and it's this little bitty creature and then all of a sudden at the end you just grab onto the tail and hold on for dear life and hope you don't get thrown off because it just blows up.

[THEME MUSIC DRUM BREAK HERE]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Now - you could google the 1976 New Hampshire primary and figure out who won - spoiler alert - it was Jimmy Carter of Plains, Georgia.

But the story you probably don’t know  - and won’t find on the internet - is what his campaign did for New Hampshire and how his win here continues to shape the assumptions and expectations of what running for president is supposed to look like.

JIMMY CARTER: Well New Hampshire is a unique state and it's the only place in the nation where we have a chance to campaign on a personal basis.

KATHY ROGERS: Jimmy Carter wasn't supposed to win. He was seen as the joke. 

Billy Shaheen: Listen to me. Every vote you get in New Hampshire is worth ten thousand votes someplace else

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: From New Hampshire Public Radio - I’m Lauren Chooljian and this is Stranglehold.

(music)

(WHATS MY LINE music) Come on let’s all play what’s my line!

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Our story begins in 1973 on the set of What’s My Line. 

It was a classic game show with a pretty simple concept - a panel of celebrity guests ask yes or no questions to try and guess someone’s job.

Larry Blyden: In the meantime would our first challenger enter and sign in please. (music 5 sec) X! 

The mystery guest in this episode is a really smiley, blonde guy in a suit.

He walks on set, stops at a chalkboard and draws a big X - then he takes his seat across the stage from the panel.

LARRY: Panel all I can tell you about Mr. X is that he provides a service and we will now show the audience who our guest is and what his line is. (Applause)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Maybe you see where this is going… the guest’s name flashes in white block letters across the TV screen: It’s Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia.

This is three years before Carter enters the White House.

And these panelists - they have no clue who they’re staring at. They don’t know this dude.

It’s why I got such a kick out of watching this episode - because Carter’s face - his smile is so famous now - yet there he is - just cheesin away at four clueless panelists.

LARRY BLYDEN: And let's begin the questioning with Arlene Francis.

Arlene Francis: Well they're crazy about your service. Would I be? 

Jimmy Carter: About my service. 

LARRY: Probably.

JIMMY CARTER: I think so.

Arlene Francis: Is it. Is it a service that has to do with the women.

Jimmy Carter: Yes certainly does.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So this goes on for a while - the panelists keep taking stabs at who the heck this guy is? But they really struggle to get anywhere.

They end up stumbling into the answer that helps them solve it.

LARRY BLYDEN: 4 down six to go Arlene

ARLENE: I can rule out that you’re a government official of any kind, can’t I?

CARTER: No. 

ARLENE: Oh you fresh thing! (laughing)

BLYDEN: 7 down three to go Gene

GENE: You are a non federal official is that correct?

CARTER: That’s correct 

GENE: Are you a state official?

CARTER: That’s correct

GENE: Are you a governor? 

CARTER: Yes.

LARRY: That’s it he is Gov Jimmy Carter of the state of Georgia

(applause)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: I wonder if like years later - the panelists thought back on this episode and laughed to themselves - like jeeze, how did it happen that the random smiley governor - would go on to be the leader of the free world?

(MUSIC)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: It all happened because of a rare opening - kind of a glitch in the system…

But it wasn’t Jimmy Carter who first spotted that glitch - he had some help from this group of young guys who had been with him since his first unsuccessful campaign for governor in 1966.

They were Hamilton Jordan - Jody Powell - and Jerry Rafshoon. 

And these dudes were memorable to say the least. They’d establish reputations as savvy political strategists - and that campaign whiz kid reputation got two of them on the cover of Rolling Stone.

They were described by the magazine - ready for this - as: apple-cheeked, clean-cut, fraternity-boy yokels with their cocky grins and smart-ass humor.

Powell and Jordan are dead now - but Rafshoon is keeping the love for Carter and the smart-ass humor - very much alive.

For example - a thunderstorm rolled in while we were on the phone...

JERRY RAFSHOON: I'm so magnetic I start thunderstorms I know it's just let there be light.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:: Oh my god.  

JERRY RAFSHOON: Don't don't be - don't be throwing Jimmy's name around in vain.

(beat/music etc)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So - it was 1972 when the idea first struck these guys that Carter should run for president. 

Carter had been governor for over a year at that point - and he, Rafshoon and Jordan went to the Democratic National Convention in Miami.

They looked around the big convention center and saw a lot of wannabe presidents - Birch Bayh, George Wallace - guys who were already angling to run four years from then. 

Jordan turned to Rafshoon and said - man, if these guys can run for president, Jimmy could do that. 

(Music)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Jordan and Rafshoon decided - alright - when we get back to Georgia - we’re gonna tell Jimmy he should run for president. 

So they get home - and Jordan was apparently pretty nervous - they went over to the Governor’s mansion and they sat in front of Carter. 

RAFSHOON: And we said um, we want to talk to you about your future. And he said yes...And we said well you can’t run for reelection, he said I know that, he was term limited could only be one term at that time...and Hamilton said we think you should run - p p p p president! And Jimmy looked at him and says - oh really?

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: It was at that moment Rafshoon could tell - Carter had been thinking about it, too. 

[MUSIC]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So he’s gonna run - but how? I mean - as you’ve heard - hardly anyone knew who this guy was. 

Carter put it all on Hamilton Jordan - you tell me how I’m gonna do this thing.

And so he did. And this is why a fairly unknown governor of Georgia ends up spending so much time in New Hampshire. 

(MUSIC) 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Hamilton Jordan mapped out a strategy for how Carter could win the White House. 

He typed it out in a nearly 60 page memo - spelling out exactly what it would take, step by step - he assessed Carter’s potential opponents - his strengths and weaknesses as a candidate...

And Jordan also made a really bold prediction - that early primary states - including the tiny state of New Hampshire would be KEY for a no name like Carter to win the nomination.

That might seem obvious now - but at the time this was a totally new idea.

How’d he come up with it? WELL a few reasons…

First - the rules on how the country picked presidential nominees had recently - and drastically - changed.

Party bosses had just lost a lot of power.

[INSERT SOUND HERE OF 1968 PROTESTS IN CHICAGO]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: 1968 marked a major turning point for presidential politics.

Up until then - presidential nominees were largely chosen by powerful people.

It was party bosses who chose delegates to the political conventions and those delegates chose the nominees.

Regular voters didn’t have a real say in the process until the general elections rolled around. 

But in 1968 - many voters were desperate to be heard - there was so much anger over the Vietnam war - grief over the assasination of Martin Luther King Jr - and then Bobby Kennedy - it all erupted into massive protests outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

[MORE SOUND POP IN OF PROTESTS]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So Democrats made a big change  - voters would now pick delegates for the national party conventions.

Republicans would eventually go along with these rules too.

Now - were party bosses totally out of the process? Of course not…

But over the next few cycles - more primaries and caucuses would be added to the calendar…giving more voice to regular voters.

So Jordan looked back at all this and realized -if the people picking nominees are now normal people - a different kind of candidate could have a shot - so long as they appeal to regular voters. 

“I could go on and on” - he wrote to Carter - “but we need to begin thinking now about party rules vis a vis primary states and your own effort. It is here that the nomination will be won or lost.” 

JODY POWELL: If this had been a nomination process that was essentially controlled by the leadership of the Democratic Party, then Jimmy Carter would have stood no chance.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Here’s one of the three campaign whiz kids - Jody Powell- talking with NPR.

These guys also knew New Hampshire was early in the calendar - and they predicted that a win there - or in Iowa another early state - that could bring some serious momentum to the campaign.

JODY POWELL: So, if we could win in Iowa and win in New Hampshire, we just might have enough money to compete effectively in Florida.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And New Hampshire had a reputation. 

Jordan referenced it in the memo.. 

Over the last few cycles - New Hampshire had become a place where dark horse candidates could become serious contenders - and where sure winners stumbled.

GEORGE MCGOVERN: But remember! When I came here to New Hampshire the first time I only had 4 percent in the polls! 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Jordan and those guys remembered well the 1972 Democratic NH primary - George McGovern scored a surprise second place finish - and Edmund Muskie - previously the front runner - faded out not too long after that.

And four years earlier there was the 1968 primary - where Gene McCarthy shocked the world - coming in a close second to President Lyndon Johnson - which forced the sitting president to drop out of the race.

CBS: By any political measure President Johnson has suffered a major psychological setback in New Hampshire

PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So there was a history of underdogs punching above their weight in NH.

BUT it's not like those underdogs had become presidents. 

(PAUSE)

So Jordan put all these pieces together -the new rules, the reputation, and N.H.’s first-in-the-nation status -- and he realized this tiny New England state could be a springboard.

BUT to make it work, they’d have to run a new kind of campaign.

DOT PADGETT: I'm up here from Plains Georgia to ask you to vote for my friend Jimmy Carter for president and she'd stop for a minute but she said but I'm so damn cold. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: We’ll get to that in a moment.

BREAK 

SONG: I heard a young man speaking out, just the other day. So I stopped to take a listen, to what he had to say. He spoke straight and simple, by that I was impressed. He said - once and for all why not the best. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: I am honored to introduce you to the 1976 Carter campaign song: Why not the best.

SONG: Then he laid out a plan of action that made a lot of sense. He talked about the government and how good it could be for you and me…

WHY NOT THE BEST - was the vibe of the entire campaign - because the best was the opposite of what most Americans felt their government had given them lately. 

CARTER IN SONG: I want to see us once again have a nation that is good and honest and decent and truthful and competent and compassionate and is filled with love as all the American people

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: By the time Jimmy Carter was running for president - the country was still processing Watergate - they were angry with President Richard Nixon - and then President Gerald Ford goes ahead and pardons Nixon..

SONG: I was listening to quite a man talking to me.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Sorry - can we just - I can’t get enough of this song - so can we just take a minute out of our day here - and just bask in this glory of this gem!?

SONG: We need Jimmy Carter! Why settle for less! America! 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: That’s my favorite part!

SONG: Once and for all why not the best! We need Jimmy Carter. We can’t afford to settle for less! America! Once and for all, why not the best.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Okay. Thank you for that. Now - Carters team had high hopes for this vibe - cheesy as it may seem now - they figured it would help set their guy apart from the rest of the field...

CHRIS BROWN: I believe it's fair to say that Jimmy Carter was the only non Washington non beltway candidate running so that created a little additional interest

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Chris Brown was the New England campaign director for Carter - so he was keeping a close eye on the competition - and the Democratic field in 1976 was crowded - 

CHRIS BROWN: Well they called us the Seven Dwarfs...because none of the candidates had high name I.D.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: There would actually be way more than seven Democrats by the time this race was over. 

And Chris Brown’s right - in the 70s and now, some of these names likely won’t ring a bell - like Mo Udall, Birch Bayh, Scoop Jackson, Sargeant Shriver...I could go on...

Yet Carter was one of the most unknown of them all - there was a Gallup poll taken at the beginning of the campaign - asking voters for their impressions of 31 possible candidates - Carter wasn’t even included!

But - not all of them campaigned in New Hampshire - some of them didn’t even get in the race until New Hampshire was long over… 

Because New Hampshire just wasn’t a must stop place for presidential candidates at that point. 

But Carter was about to change that. 

(beat)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: I want to take you through some of Carter team’s strategy for how they’d take N.H. by storm.

Because THIS is where one of the myths behind the New Hampshire primary that people love to celebrate really begins. 

It’s the idea that anyone can come to New Hampshire - and work hard enough - look enough voters in the eye - that that was enough to become president of the united states? That started right here in the Carter campaign.

(music) 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: OK so what would this look like on the ground in New Hampshire…. 

First - they needed a team of people who are devoted to the candidate - potentially borderline obsessed. 

Billy Shaheen: These campaigns run on two things love and hate. If you love somebody you'll do whatever they want. And you work as hard as you can. If you hate somebody you'll drive through a mountain to get them. Passion is what wins campaigns. Passion. You can like somebody is much different than loving somebody. I mean the kids that were working for us will work in 20-22 hours a day. I mean they believed in that. That's the secret.  

And when Billy Shaheen mentions KIDS he’s not exaggerating here. 

The New Hampshire team was full of rookies - most of them had never worked on a presidential campaign before - Shaheen included. 

Billy Shaheen: everybody who was anybody was with somebody else other than Jimmy Carter. I mean I was a nobody and just a nobody. And it was just me in a handful of people.

That handful of people included Carter’s actual family members - this was a new thing and something that Carter’s team was really committed to  - they covered early states with his family. 

His second oldest son Chip literally moved to New Hampshire - all the way from Plains, Georgia. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:Was that an exciting thing at the time? Were you into it

CHIP CARTER: Obviously into it but it was more scary than exciting at first. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Why is that?

CHIP CARTER: Well, I failed speech three times in college and I was expected to make at least a speech when I got there. So that was nerve racking to start with. (laughs)

(beat)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: OK so they’ve got the New Hampshire team - made up of mostly rookies and relatives - and they’re starting to understand the competition - next: they needed their candidate to meet New Hampshire voters. 

And obviously  - there was no internet. 

So there was no going live on instagram from your kitchen while drinking a beer - or filming youtube videos from your tour across your home state….

If candidates wanted to introduce themselves to voters - they literally had to do it in person. It’s an essential part of New Hampshire campaign lore - but it’s also a matter of logistics.

This is a small state - only 82 thousand people voted in the 1976 democratic primary - hardly enough to fill some big college football stadiums - and NH aint Texas --  you can drive from the bottom to the top of the state in less than four hours. So, visiting grocery stores or main streets is actually efficient.

JIMMY CARTER:I’m Jimmy Carter, running for president, I just wanted to shake hands with you. 

VOTER: Oh yes I saw your picture in the paper. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Carter was pretty good at this.  He’d look voters right in the eye and tell them - I’ll never lie to you. 

JIMMY CARTER: Well New Hampshire is a unique state and it's the only place in the nation where we have a chance to campaign on a personal basis. Just the candidate and individual voters in colleges, high schools, grammar schools, barber shop, factory shift-lines, and restaurants and on the street. And this is what I've done. A kind of campaigning I like

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Jordan had a feeling Carter would go over well in New Hampshire.

He wrote in the memo that this rural state could be a good fit - quote I believe that your farmer-businessman-military-religious-conservative background would be well-received there. End quote

And at the end of a long day of glad handing or pressing the flesh in New Hampshire, Carter would sleep in supporters’ houses 

ELLIS WOODWARD: I mean would it be easier if he just stayed in hotels. Oh God yes. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Ellis Woodward was Carter’s scheduler in New Hampshire - so he was responsible for setting up Carter’s sleeping arrangements.

ELLIS WOODWARD: It’s quite something else to find where he’s going to stay if he’s staying in a private home. And then there’s also balancing might be two or three people who want him to stay at their home... And then figure out how you're gonna explain to the other two people why he's not staying with you. Right. I mean this all sort of juvenile but you do have to do that. //// 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This whole sleepover business started as a cost saving measure for the Carter campaign - but it became another thing entirely.

Nixon’s presidency had been famously called the Imperial Presidency - and now - here you have a guy running for the same office - sleeping at strangers’ spare rooms.

ELLIS WOODWARD: Now George McGovern probably did it. Eugene McCarthy probably did it...But these are the sort of things that happen that get woven into the story, and once they start to get woven into the story well, what’s the candidate and the campaign gonna do? You can’t close the chapter on that, I mean you have to continue doing it whether it’s annoying or not right?

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Of course you have to keep doing it - because the people who got to host Carter loved it -  imagine waking up early to put the coffee on for a potential president! 

And you better believe those people would tell their friends about it… and word would spread about how Carter was the perfect house guest - very gracious - very neat - and he always made his bed perfectly … just the sort of image Carter’s team was hoping to project!

But something else was happening here too - having Carter sleep at your house wasn’t just good for him - it started to change how N.H. voters would think about themselves - We feed breakfast to future presidents! We’re important! We make history! 

Hosts would prominently display “Jimmy Carter slept here” plaques in their homes. 

Even now - I just saw a real estate listing for a house in Laconia New Hampshire - and in the description - right after “new toilet in half bath” it says “A beautiful historic home where James Earle "Jimmy" Carter slept during the 1976 NH Democratic Primary.

Each mention --  a small bit of proof - that New Hampshire is special. And deserves to be first.

(BEAT)

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Now what about when Carter wasn’t in New Hampshire? The campaign needed to hammer home to voters this image of Carter as an honest, good guy. 

And to do this - Hamilton Jordan came up with a new, frankly, kind of silly idea - the next best thing to the actual candidate was a plane full of sweet, honest to goodness Georgians, who knew Jimmy personally.

DOT PADGETT: Well I know I had one man that listened very politely as I told him the story of Jimmy Carter and I handed him the brochure and told him why I was there...when I finished he looked at me and he said Young lady I have not understood a word you have said... 

(music in between)

And I had you know I probably was talking pretty fast in my Southern accent and but he said but I will take the brochure and I will read about your friend Jimmy Carter and I thank you for coming. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Introducing the Peanut Brigade. A group of around 100 Georgians - people who knew Carter from church or when he was governor - who flew to New Hampshire - and eventually other states - to campaign for their pal. 

Dot Padgett was known as the den mother of this crew.

It was January 1976 - the primary was just a month away.

And when they land - the campaign gathers the brigadiers together to share some key New Hampshire intel- like what to wear in the snow - how to drive in the snow - because you know - January in New Hampshire is not for the weak. And many of these Georgians had never been this far north.

Kathy Rogers was a Carter intern at the time - she’s now a New Hampshire state representative - and she remembers this meeting.

KATHY ROGERS: Well they didn't want to waste their time /// they want to get out on streets which was good. But! Then within half an hour of getting out we started getting phone calls. They were lost. They were stuck in the snow. They were cold. They were. Is like every imaginable thing happened that you could imagine happening.  

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: There are so many stories like this - Georgians without proper New England winter footwear - slipping on ice - falling through snow banks and not knowing how you’re supposed to walk through a snowy yard to get to someone’s front door. 

BILLY SHAHEEN: Some woman got her fur coat on, mink fur coat course that didn't go well in NH. But she's doing it anyway because she wants to do it. So we sent her out to the richer neighborhoods.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Someone told me a story of a peanut brigaders almost driving into someone’s garage. And apparently the Georgia Lieutenant Governor’s wife went missing for a while?

KATHY ROGERS: But they were so friendly and they were so charming and they were. I mean you know how northerners melt with a Southern accent. And they were all charming about it too. So they found as many troubles as they found themselves in. They found people to rescue them because people couldn't resist them. 

DOT PADGETT: A woman whose husband was mayor of Plains Georgia six hundred people you know. Went knocked on a door and she was a very refined Southern lady and she knocked on the door and these people opened the door just a little bit it’s 2 or 3 degrees outside.  /// And she told them she said. I'm up here from Plains Georgia to ask you to vote for my friend Jimmy Carter for president and she'd stop for a minute but she said but I'm so damn cold. She said I don't care who you all vote for. And the people the people laughed and invited her in for a cup of tea cup of coffee. She sat around the kitchen table and they were so intrigued with her story//// they invited some of the neighbors in.

(music) 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Carter’s 1976 NH primary campaign gave New Hampshire one hell of a gift: It’s best argument for why it should be first….why it deserves this privileged status.

Here you had a powerful image of participatory democracy.

Now expectations were set for candidates: You can’t just announce you are running and hope the NH voters come to you - you have to hustle - you have to answer real questions - and show voters who you really are. 

And - to this day - when New Hampshire’s first in the nation primary is threatened - that is what our biggest defenders turn to - you want to take away the power of real people to pick their president? New Hampshire voters are savvy - they know who is the real deal and who is bullshitting them.

[BRING BACK CARTER CAMPAIGN MUX]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: New Hampshire they say - makes better presidents.

We’ll be right back.

BREAK

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: OK so what voters saw in New Hampshire - the Carter family visits - the peanut brigade - Jimmy Carter was running a similar play in IOWA.

Because Carter’s hot shot political aide Hamilton Jordan - he was putting all his chips on the two earliest contests: The Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary.

It was a gamble - no one had ever done this before - but in January of 1976 they’d get their first indication that Jordan’s bets could pay off. 

Carter got his first surprise victory in Iowa.

ELLIS WOODWARD: That was that's what Hamilton and those guys had envisioned. I mean if they were thinking lift I mean we got lift off.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Ellis Woodward you’ll remember was Carter’s scheduler in New Hampshire. 

Now - Carter technically didn’t win the Iowa caucus - he came in second to uncommitted - meaning the largest number of votes didn’t go to any candidate. 

But the media spin that would come out of Iowa was essentially that he won - which plays right into Jordan’s strategy - that momentum was the real power here - not winning in itself - but having a good underdog story that can push you forward. 

ELLIS WOODWARD: And when I think back at that /// that was the circus comes to town. And and and I freely admit we were not ready for it. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:Carter had got some press in the lead up to the Iowa caucus - you know, interviews in local papers… and who could resist the peanut brigade…. 

But after the Iowa caucuses? Suddenly - Carter was the center of the political universe. 

Everyone wanted to see him in action. Everyone followed him back to New Hampshire.  

Here’s Kathy Rogers - the Carter intern who worked with the peanut brigade.

KATHY ROGERS: Last trip before Iowa. We had like a minivan that we put the press in but now we need a bus. It's like we need a bus. This is incredible. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: The stakes were really high now. They had to win New Hampshire to keep the momentum from Iowa going and take it to the other states. 

BILLY SHAHEEN: Listen to me. Every vote you get in New Hampshire is worth ten thousand votes someplace else

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Billy Shaheen says this is when he learned an important lesson. 

That the days between the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary are critical - all of N.H. is paying attention now - so you’ve gotta really hammer home your final argument with people. 

BILLY SHAHEEN: You want someone who's brave and and and who's good and honest. This is the guy and you and you just repeat his story. I imagine it's just like the Bible. Why would why do we talk about Jesus. Because of the examples he sent for us. Well Jimmy Carter's got all these examples of being good and kind and you just repeat them. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And remember - only 80 thousand or so Democratic voters are gonna come out and vote - so any trip to any town could be what puts a candidate on top. 

It’s the reason why the campaign took a last minute gamble - with the primary just days away - they splurged on two small planes  that would take them up to Northern New Hampshire - to Berlin - a city of about 14 thousand people.

And at first - it seemed like maybe this was the wrong call.

ELLIS WOODWARD: It was a horrible horrible horrible day. It was snowy windy icy. They were - The Secret Service was not wild about the prospect of us flying up to Berlin in this. And Carter wanted to go and Berlin was and we thought Berlin was so important.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So they take off - two little planes -  one full of press, one with Carter and his team.

Woodward says they flew right over the White Mountains and it was a harrowing journey - both planes are getting tossed around - secret service agents are turning green - but eventually one plane lands.

ELLIS WOODWARD: And we were there waiting for the press plane to arrive which didn't. I mean we waited and we waited. The tower couldn't contact them and so you know there's this few moments that we know we all still wait at the airport and because my God had this plane crashed?

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Thankfully no - it hadn’t - it flew into Canada or something and was lost a while.

But the point is - the Carter campaign needed every vote they could find.

And that dedication - the idea that a guy running for president would nearly die to meet voters in the north country? Talk about New Hampshire primary mythology… 

ELLIS WOODWARD: And to the people of Berlin. I mean the stories immediately spread around Berlin very quickly not only because we got a schedule we saw all kinds of people and but what he did to get there. And he flew back and and that you know he cared enough that he was going to come up here. He was no matter how bad it was... 

RICH PATENAUDE: So that flight to Berlin got dubbed the white knuckle flight.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Rich Patenaude volunteered for the Carter campaign up in Berlin - he was the one who really pushed them to make this trip north.

He knew if his neighbors got to meet Carter one more time - face to face  - right before election day - they’d go for him. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: I mean you probably had white knuckles while waiting.

RICH PATENAUDE: No, no said I was fine I just I was so thrilled that he was coming because I really needed for him to come I really you know just kind of seal the deal.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This response kills me - oh I was fine - Patenaude says - no matter that a bunch of people almost crashed - my neighbors need to feel like they know a candidate before they can vote for him.

Because in 1976 - and still today - that was the expectation - that if you want to win here? You better throw yourself at the feet of the New Hampshire voters.

And you know how it ends now - it all paid off. 

AMBI: We’re number one! 

JIMMY CARTER: And what I want is to repair the damage that has been done to the relationship between our people and our government and to tear down a wall that separates us from it. And you are the ones who have made it possible for me to do it.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: You also know how the rest of Carter’s story ends too - he’d go on to be a one term president.  

And his win in New Hampshire charted a path that many candidates have followed since.

He gave every political outsider out there a little hope that they could make it to the White House. 

BILL CLINTON: That New Hampshire tonight has made Bill Clinton the comeback kid

RONALD REAGAN: Mainly our thanks and our joy goes out to you the people of New Hampshire

JOHN MCCAIN: But tonight we sure showed ‘em what a comeback looks like

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Looking out at a screaming crowd - after an unexpected victory in New Hampshire - this - this is the moment every candidate for president now dreams about.

BILLY SHAHEEN: And you want to talk about euphoric and that's the only way you can describe it. I was. My feet weren't touching the ground

Billy Shaheen you’ll remember was the New Hampshire co chair. He says he was standing up on stage while Carter delivered his victory speech.

BILLY SHAHEEN:  And it was such it was like all this hard work. It's like a crescendo. You keep building building building building each year. Even now you know you OK I'm going to work two days a week //// all of a sudden is eight hours a day and then all of a sudden you're not even sleeping you're just running on adrenaline and you know you got to deliver this thing you can't miss a single vote you're going crazy and everything is bubbling to a point and you've got the team. That's what you've built. You've built this team that people you can count on. /// And and all of a sudden it builds and builds and builds and then you win. I was so naturally high at that moment.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And this is the moment that every New Hampshire campaign staffer now dreams about. 

Because this feeling Shaheen experienced… the story he now tells - it didn’t just happen to him - and it doesn’t only happen to Democrats.

It happens every. Four. Years. New Hampshire staffers up on or behind that stage at the victory party - so naturally high - basking in the glory of victory after months and months of hard work. 

But look - it’s not just about winning - it’s about where they could go from here. 

Without the primary - who is Billy Shaheen? Maybe a successful attorney but he wouldn’t be getting calls from presidential candidates. 

BILLY SHAHEEN: It Changed my life. Absolutely. I never would've been U.S. attorney. I doubt if I would have been the judge in Durham. It certainly made my wife's career. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: His wife by the way - that would be New Hampshire’s Senior U.S. Senator and former governor Jeanne Shaheen - a powerful national politician. They both got their start on this campaign.

BILLY SHAHEEN: Yeah. In fact there's a there's a moment about. Six or seven years ago when I was in Washington I went in trying to find where Jeannie was and she was at a Senate hearing. 

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: It was 2009 - so ten years ago now - Shaheen wandered around Capitol Hill until he found the hearing room the Senator was in - he squeezed into a seat in the audience - where he could only see the back of the head of the person testifying - and then - he heard a familiar voice. 

PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Oh and let me say that I think that the fact that this foreign relations committee is addressing is extremely important.

BILLY SHAHEEN: As soon as I heard Jimmy Carter’s voice I said that Jimmy Carter said. /// he said we have one more question from Senator Shaheen. And she said Mr. President. 

SENATOR JEANNE SHAHEEN: Welcome Mr. President, Rosalyn, Amy thank you for being here 

BILLY SHAHEEN: And he said. Let me hold let me stop you there.

PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Thank you for helping me be president

SENATOR JEANNE SHAHEEN: Well, I was going to say I also need to thank you for my being here because It was my….

BILLY SHAHEEN: And she said and I wouldn't be a U.S. senator without you. Pretty good. Yeah. So. It actually made her career. Yeah. So - changed my life.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: There are a lot of people in New Hampshire whose lives have been changed by New Hampshire’s first in the nation primary.

They either were relative nobodies like Corey Lewandowski - who jumped on the Trump bandwagon early and now has a direct line to the White House and as I wrote this episode - he was considering running for the U.S. Senate.

Or they were already powerful people but would advance even further - like former Governor John H Sununu - who would go from the statehouse - to being chief of staff for President George H W Bush.

I can’t tell you how many interviews I’ve done with people - outside of this podcast - who name drop that some presidential candidate called them lately - or they just so happened to have left on their desk a photo with them and some other candidate. 

I’ve sat in a lot of offices - surrounded by pictures of past New Hampshire primaries… 

And lately - I’ve been asking a lot of these people an uncomfortable question

So much has changed in our politics since Carter’s 1976 campaign. There’s a 24 hours news cycle now - bigger televised debates - social media - some candidates lean on massive campaign rallies...

Is the New Hampshire primary truly as powerful as it once was?

BILLY SHAHEEN: Will it be forever. I don't know. I don't know if it will be forever. But there was a time point in time where it was camelot.

[CAMELOT MUSIC]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:To see a photo of Billy Shaheen’s trophy wall of photos with him and presidents and celebrities - go to our website: Stranglehold podcast dot com.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN:You got Diana Ross though

BILLY SHAHEEN: Yeah I got Diana Ross. I got Willie Nelson. No I have one at home

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Is that Ted Williams? 

BILLY SHAHEEN:  Yeah.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Damn.

BILLY SHAHEEN:  Yeah. 

CREDITS:

This episode was reported and produced by me, Lauren Chooljian. 

And I’ve learned that podcasts are a real team sport - and I’m very thankful for all the help I had in putting this episode together.  

Jack Rodolico is Stranglehold’s senior producer. Stranglehold is edited by NHPR’s Director of Content Maureen McMurray and News Director Dan Barrick. 

Additional editing help came from as Casey McDermott, Josh Rogers and Tony Arnold. And sound mixing by Hannah McCarthy, me and Jason Moon.

Big thanks also to Jason Moon for - honestly - being a producer spirit guide through this episode 

Jason and Lucas Anderson also created the dope original music in this episode - including that great 70s shaker situation.

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Digital Director and Sara Plourde made our beautifully aggressive podcast graphics.

And of course very special thanks to dad - Barry Chooljian - who helped us name this podcast.

Additional thanks to Jason Marck, John DiStaso, James Pindell, Jonathan Alter, Ray Buckley, Morgan Milardo Schermerhorn and extra thanks to Chris Brown for connecting me with many of the voices you heard in this podcast.

And some of our archival tape was courtesy of NBCUniversal Archives.

Stranglehold is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Transcript - Ep 1: The Guardian

Note: The following transcript is a radio script. Therefore, it contains audio cues and other script conventions, as well as grammar and syntax errors some readers may find objectionable.

Stranglehold episode 1: The Guardian

JACK RODOLICO: There’s a story New Hampshire likes to tell about its famous presidential primary.

[HORNS]

The story goes, that this state makes better presidents.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: This is a state that asks candidates to come and look people in the eye and shake the hand and to share the heart. And I like that kind of campaigning.

JACK RODOLICO: That if you want to be president, you better spend a lot of time here.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think winning New Hampshire, to me, would be a tremendous honor.

JACK RODOLICO: That the New Hampshire primary is democracy at its finest.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Your voice can change the outcome of the New Hampshire election. Your choice can choose the next leader of the free world.

[MUSIC SLOWS]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: That’s a nice story. But we’re gonna tell you a different one.

[DRUMBEATS]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This is a story about power, and what people will do to keep it. A story about how and why one small state has gotten the first crack at picking presidents for so long. Because here’s the secret: Here in New Hampshire, we know how valuable this primary is, how much power it gives us. Why would we give that up?

KATHY SULLIVAN: The most important thing that we can do is to save the New Hampshire primary, because without the primary, what is New Hampshire?

[GUITAR RIFFS]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: The first-in-the-nation primary is New Hampshire’s most powerful institution. It gives a lot of people in this state an incredible amount of influence and access. There’s like an unspoken rule in politics around here — you don’t question the first-in-the-nation primary.

JACK RODOLICO: But that’s exactly what we are gonna do. This is Stranglehold, a podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio about what happens when one small state gets its hands around our presidential elections. And won’t let go.

[MORE GUITAR RIFFS]

JACK RODOLICO: I’m Jack Rodolico, and I’m an investigative reporter

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: I’m Lauren Chooljian, and I’m a political reporter. And we’re gonna do a thing with this podcast that a lot of people in this state don’t want us to do: examine this sacred institution with a healthy dose of skepticism.

JACK RODOLICO: And for our first episode, we are gonna take a hard look at a guy with a powerful reputation around here. He’s known as the guardian of the New Hampshire primary.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: But while some people consider him to be an icon, others consider him a problem.

HUGH GREGG: We would not have this primary today if it were not for Bill Gardner. He’s the savior, the guardian of what we have here in New Hampshire…

LIZ TENTARELLI: I like him as an ambassador for our first-in-the-nation primary much more than I like him as Secretary of State.

LARRY GORMLEY: Bill Gardner's passion comes from perpetuating the cult of personality of Bill Gardner.

MIKE COUTU: People know the Good Bill. People do not know the Bad Bill. […] Who's the real Bill Gardner?

[INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

TRUMP: Hi Bill.

BILL GARDNER: Hi.

JACK RODOLICO: Donald Trump is in New Hampshire. It’s late 2015, in the thick of a competitive presidential primary. And he’s bragging about the size of a crowd that’s turned out to see him.

TRUMP: Wow. That's some turnout, huh? This is a little different than most of them, huh? This is a little different than all of them. How are you? …

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Trump was riding high in the polls at this moment, but it’s still early in the campaign. So anything could happen. And Trump is in New Hampshire to do a thing that so many powerful people have done before him. He’s inside the state capitol building to drop off a check. And there are a lot of people —reporters, fans, photographers — who don’t want to miss it.

BILL GARDNER: So we have your check.

TRUMP: It's a cashier's check. I don't think they would have taken mine. They wanted a cashier's check. So this is from a bank that’s not actually as rich as we are, right?

JACK RODOLICO: Every four years, it’s voters in New Hampshire who cast the first ballots in a presidential campaign cycle. And the results of that election have altered history. No joke — if you win here, you could be on a fast track to the White House.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Which is why Trump is making a big deal about handing over a check for a thousand bucks to the state of New Hampshire. Because it’s this check that gets his name on the first-in-the-nation primary ballot.

TRUMP: Where do you want me to sign, Bill?

JACK RODOLICO: “Bill” is Secretary of State Bill Gardner. It’s his job to take these thousand dollar checks from wannabe presidents, making sure they sign the correct forms, often in front of a sea of cameras.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: That means Bill Gardner has stood shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of powerful people — senators, governors, congressmen, even a reality TV star. They all come to Gardner’s office. This is his show. And he’s been doing it for decades.

JACK RODOLICO: And these candidates, they must know that they’re more powerful than Bill Gardner. But that’s not how they act when they walk in here. Many are straight-up reverential to Gardner.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: For example, when Barack Obama walked in here, he bowed to Bill Gardner. It was a joke — but everyone got it.

[MUSICAL TRANSITION]

JACK RODOLICO: Secretary of State is a big job in New Hampshire. Gardner oversees things like elections, campaign finance, state archives and a lot more.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: But there’s one part of this job that’s earned Gardner his reputation as the guardian. He sets the date of the first-in-the-nation primary. That means the political world functions by his watch. Campaigns, reporters, voters — they all follow the calendar that he sets. And he can make that pronouncement anytime he wants.

BILL GARDNER: No one will take it away from us. They will only be the will of the people here not to have it anymore, because we're going to have it. We can — we do it.

JACK RODOLICO: We wanted to ask Gardner about this power, about his long career —more than 40 years in the same job. About how he’s kept New Hampshire first. But he wouldn’t sit down to do an interview with us. In fact, he told us he would only talk to us after he sets the date of the 2020 presidential primary.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: When will he set that date? Well, no one knows knows. He alone will make the call. So instead, we listened to hours of old interviews with Gardner, we read 40 years of news coverage about him and we relied on NHPR’s own reporting and interviews with the people who know him best.

People like Jim Normand, who was there for the beginning of Gardner’s long career. It was the early 1970s.

JIM NORMAND: Well, Secretary Gardner was Billy. So it was Billy Gardner.

JACK RODOLICO: Presidential elections were not on Gardner’s radar back then. Normand remembers that time, right after Watergate.

JIM NORMAND: You know, the wounds were still so sore about our president lying to us, repeatedly, committing crimes […] There was a thought that,can't America do so much better than that.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Normand met Gardner at the State House. They were both recently-elected Democratic state representatives. Gardner was just a couple years out of college. And Normand says Gardner was a real serious guy — really nice, congenial, but very serious. He listened really intently. Gardner was fascinated by history and was into all kinds of different things, from hunting to chicken farming.

JIM NORMAND: Well, Bill’s a thinker. He’s not a glad-hander. He’s not a back-slapper. You're not going to necessarily have a lot of fun at a party with Bill, but you'll have a really good discussion.

JACK RODOLICO: There was a crew of young guys in the New Hampshire Legislature around this time, and they remember Gardner as idealistic. He believed politics and government were for the service of others.

BILL GARDNER: When I was in college, I wanted to vote desperately. I had two high school classmates killed in Vietnam. […] But I couldn't vote. I couldn't vote all through college, because you had to be 21. And I made that a major effort for me personally about reducing the age for people to vote, that if you can die for your country, you ought to be able to vote for the policies that make that happen.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: As a state rep, Gardner backed policies that made it easier to vote, easier for younger people to run for state senate. He started making a name for himself as a reformer.

JACK RODOLICO: But there was only so much he could do. He was new, and his party, the Democrats, were in the minority at the time.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And then, something happened. New Hampshire’s long-serving Secretary of State died.

JACK RODOLICO: The Secretary of State’s office oversees all state elections. It has a major influence over how the legislature drafts election bills. If Gardner wanted to reform election policies, this was the place to do it.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: But getting into that office? That would not be easy. In New Hampshire - the Secretary of State is elected by lawmakers. Republicans ran the state then, and Gardner was a Democrat.

JIM NORMAND: There was a big push in the Republican Party to just select Republicans. There was a big push to have a have a folks be locked in and being commanded to vote in the Republican Party for Republicans.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And Gardner, a relative rookie, was going up against an old, well-known Republican. It seemed like the deck was stacked against him.

JACK RODOLICO: But without many people noticing, Gardner found a path. He campaigned quietly, spending time with some of the older, Republican lawmakers. Gardner was genuinely interested in people’s backgrounds — their heritage, their history, what wars their family members fought in — and the older members ate that up.

JIM NORMAND: Some of them were country folks, and Bill was interested in chickens. He was interested in poultry. Some of them were hunters and Bill had an interest in hunting. […] Bill just does that he nurtures relationships with people.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Gardner drove all over the state, going door to door, making his pitch to all these Republican lawmakers.

JACK RODOLICO: Apparently he made his case to one guy while he milked cows at 5:30 in the morning.

BILL GARDNER: I said two things. I said that I would not use the position for a political stepping stone. A lot of states it's like that you just served for one year, but the whole time you're there you're looking at something else. And that that that it would be a neutral corner in state government, and that everyone would be treated the same way.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So, Gardner secured the votes of the young reformers in the Legislature, and he leaned on his relationship with old guys. And it worked. He was elected New Hampshire’s Secretary of State. An office with no term limits.

JIM NORMAND: It was clear that Bill had an interest as this being his life work. It was almost like going into the monastery, I would say.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Gardner moved into a corner office in the State House. He was just up the hall from the Legislature, and a few doors down from the governor. That was in 1976, and he was 28 years old. Now, he’s 71.

JACK RODOLICO: And this is where Gardner’s destiny becomes intertwined with the New Hampshire primary. See, New Hampshire's primary has been first in the presidential nominating calendar since 1920. But it wasn't until the 1970s — right around the time Gardner came to power — that other states started trying to jump the line.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And that freaked out lawmakers here. You have to understand, the New Hampshire primary is powerful because it’s first. So having other states hold elections on the same day? That would mean the candidates, the reporters, they’d have to split time between all these states — totally draining New Hampshire’s influence.

JACK RODOLICO: So lawmakers were trying to figure out how to cement New Hampshire’s status as first-in-the-nation. And they decided to hand that authority to the Secretary of State. It was now Gardner’s job — by law — to keep an eye on other states who were thinking of jumping ahead. And a few years later, lawmakers would tighten up that law further. And still today, according to our state law, the New Hampshire primary must be a week before any similar election.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Now technically, this is a state law, so other states don’t have to follow it. But that doesn’t matter to Bill Gardner. To him, this law is everything. It helps him protect what so many people see as New Hampshire’s most important tradition. And over the years, Gardner would take that role very seriously

BILL GARDNER: We understand the concerns in other states… You might think it’s not fair that one state goes first all these times. Well, maybe it’s not fair that A is the first letter of the alphabet or Sunday’s the first day of the week or January is the first month — but it was something that was decided a long time ago before any of us alive today can remember.

JACK RODOLICO: This task — putting a date on the calendar every for years — it’s allowed Gardner to look like some kind of grand political puppeteer. He sets a date, and then history is made.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Now, it hasn’t always been easy to pin down that date. There were a few years when New Hampshire did have to fight hard to stay first-in-the-nation. And it was Gardner who would came out of those fights looking like he single-handedly saved the primary.

[MUSICAL TRANSITION]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: 1999 was one of those years where people in New Hampshire genuinely believed this could be it — this could be the end of the New Hampshire primary as we know it. The 2000 primary was right around the corner. Republicans like George W. Bush and John McCain, Democrats like Al Gore and Bill Bradley were all out on the trail.

But behind the scenes, there was a problem with the state of Iowa — of all places. And people in New Hampshire were freaking out.

ROB TULLY: Holy buckets it was [laughs] It was, it was interesting.

Rob Tully lead the Iowa Democratic Party back in ‘99, and so he was deeply involved in this whole thing. He had to dig pretty deep for these memories.

ROB TULLY: And tell me who the Secretary of State was?

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Bill Gardner.

ROB TULLY: Oh, for God sakes. Is he still the Secretary of State?

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: You better believe it.

ROB TULLY: God bless him.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: If you’re listening to this podcast in Iowa — OK, we’ve reached your moment. Yes, it’s true that you guys are actually first. Iowa is the first caucus. Iowans gather in meetings in churches or halls based on their party affiliation to pick candidates.

But we’re first, too. We’re the first primary. New Hampshire is the first moment in the presidential nominating calendar where voters actually go into a voting booth and cast a ballot for a candidate.

All this to say, being first means a lot to us, and it means a lot to them. We both jealousy protect that status. We both have laws meant to keep other states away from us. And that’s because it seems that every four years, someone tries to kick one or both of us out of the spotlight. And that’s what was happening in 1999. Iowa and New Hampshire both felt threatened.

Some other states were trying to move their elections earlier, and there were rumors the national political parties wanted to take more control over the whole nomination calendar. So party leaders in Iowa and New Hampshire decided to form a pact — they held a press conference and everything — because they figured it would be harder for anyone to take them both down.

ROB TULLY: You can't have infighting in the family, because then other people are going to start coming in and taking the kids.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: But despite this alliance, the rumors were getting to Bill Gardner. Gardner’s now in his early fifties. He’d overseen five New Hampshire primaries.

And without consulting Iowa — or, frankly, any New Hampshire politicians — Gardner announced that the 2000 New Hampshire primary would be held the day after the Iowa caucus.

This blew up the image of a so-called alliance. It totally ignored Iowa’s law, which keeps New Hampshire eight days away from them. People in both parties, in both states, were stunned. They started pleading with Gardner immediately, like, You’ve got to be kidding me, Bill, can’t you just pick another date?

But Gardner wouldn’t budge. And now, that all important Iowa-New Hampshire alliance was on the line — and so was the primary.

Kathy Sullivan was the head of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, and she started imagining disaster scenarios at the Democratic National Committee.

KATHY SULLIVAN: At the time, Iowa’s saying this is a disaster, we're going to go before you know go to the DNC. They're going to say what's the matter with you people, you can't agree on a date. You know, here you are, you have this privilege of being first-in-the-nation primary, first-in-the-nation caucus, you guys can't even agree on that?

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: It was decided that the only way out of this was to meet face to face, Iowa and New Hampshire — in secret.

Joe Keefe represented New Hampshire at the DNC at the time. (He’s also on the NHPR board, by the way.) He offered up his house. And the Iowa guys? They booked their plane tickets.

JOE KEEFE: Everyone sat in my living room, and I think at one point in time we had sandwiches brought in, and they were put out on my dining room table.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This room was packed with political heavyweights. Heads of both parties from both states, both secretaries of state, even a former New Hampshire Republican governor. They were all sitting around Keefe’s living room. And most people in the room wanted the same thing. They wanted Gardner to pick a new date.

ROB TULLY: Right, so we get there. We have some pleasantries, et cetera, and then — boom — we get into it.

Steve Duprey, then head of the New Hampshire Republican party, remembers the Iowa argument.

STEVE DUPREY: Basically their pitch was, we can't move the date because the Iowa Pork Producers convention has this big arena booked in Des Moines, I think, and they can't possibly move.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: OK, so 20 years later, there is a dispute about just how big of a sticking point this pork thing was. But pork — clearly — is a big deal in Iowa.

ROB TULLY: Yeah, no this thing is huge. [...] You know, you got to remember the National Pork Producers is here in Des Moines. […] And so we’re the innovators around the world. They bring, you know, people from fucking China and all these places.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This big pig situation was going to take up a lot of hotel and meeting space that they’d need for the caucus. And they’d already done so much work — to do that all over again? Tully was exasperated. Towns and cities oversee voting locations in New Hampshire, so most of the work here is done. Gardner just picks a date, and the world turns.

ROB TULLY: Bill had no idea how much work there goes into what we have to do. And to do a caucus? It’s hard work. Primary, you just fucking pick a date. Excuse my French there. I mean, you just pick a date. That's it!

STEVE DUPREY: Gardner listened and listened[…] Bill just said no, I'm not moving it.

KATHY SULLIVAN: Bill Gardner, when he sets the date, that's it. He does not change. And I did not understand how important that was to him.

JOE KEEFE: It seemed like no argument, no appeal to reason, no openness to compromise would work.

ROB TULLY: Basically it came down to this. I'm just going to cut to the chase. This is bullshit. We're New Hampshire. And God damn it, you should move. This is, you know, I don't give a shit about Iowa…

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Patience was wearing thin. Gardner was really getting the best of one person in particular. Chet Culver, his Iowa counterpart.

JOE KEEFE: I don't think Chet Culver — Secretary of State, someone who wanted to run for governor someday and he did — wanted to be the person who lost the Iowa caucuses. So I think he was very, very frustrated.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And just so you can get an image of this. Bill Gardner is kind of a bookish guy, thin, favors cardigan sweater vests. Chet Culver? He was a tight end for Virginia Tech.

JOE KEEFE: Some tempers flaring. I remember Secretary of State Culver, at one point, getting pretty hot under the collar. And he's a big guy. When he starts yelling, you notice. And he started to yell.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: OK, this is so funny you say that because […] there's a bit in Bill Gardner's book where it says, The meeting lasted over two and a half hours with a friendly exchange of views, except at one point the tension in the room became so great Joe Keefe nearly had to restrain one of the visiting out-of-state house guests. Is that true?

JOE KEEFE: That would be Chet Culver.

ROB TULLY: I don't know if he insulted Chet, or, or, or what. But yeah. Chet was just beside himself. […] He can get angry. That's right, Joe, I remember Joe literally you had to put his arms around him. Oh God.

[MUSICAL TRANSITION]

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: The meeting ended pretty soon after that. People in New Hampshire kept trying to push Gardner — there was even talk of the Legislature stripping some of his power to set the date — but it didn’t happen. Gardner wouldn’t budge. And in the end, it was Iowa who backed down.

And even though Gardner started this whole problem in the first place, one of the New Hampshire Republicans in the room, Steve Duprey, he says this story shows just why Gardner is such an effective guardian of the primary.

STEVE DUPREY: There was a lot of pressure on Bill, and he didn't, he really didn’t even blink. […] Some will say he’s a curmudgeon, he’s inflexible. He was doing what he thought was right to defend the supremacy of the primary. It turned out, he was right.

But to others in that room, especially the guys from Iowa, it felt like Gardner’s stubbornness was more about pride than doing what was best for everyone.

ROB TULLY: It was, and I gotta tell you I have never — literally have never had a weirder encounter than that. […] But it's a beautiful story for the Granite State. See? We didn't flinch.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: I have to tell you one more thing about this fight that makes this whole thing just so Gardner. Remember the pigs? And how Iowa said they couldn’t move the caucus because it would conflict with this big pork convention? Well, Gardner to this day says Iowa made the whole thing up. Oh yes. Iowa deliberately mislead him. He called it a hoax. But he’s wrong about that. There was a pork conference.

[MUSICAL TRANSITION]

JACK RODOLICO: None of this is about how to pick the best president. But these squabbles keep the New Hampshire primary first-in-the-nation. Gardner comes out on top after fights, and that gives him a lot of power.

But when the primary is over and the confetti is swept away, Gardner is still Secretary of State. And his critics around here say his reputation as protector of the primary gives him cover for some puzzling decisions.

LARRY GORMLEY: When you’ve got someone basically standing naked on an island and you ask him to […] address these issues. He can’t. And he couldn’t.

JACK RODOLICO: We’ll get to that in a moment.

[BREAK]

JACK RODOLICO: Let me tell you about the closest we got to an interview with Bill Gardner for this podcast. I dropped by the State House a few months ago. I caught him right after he had spoken at a forum for state election official. And at first, it was clear he didn’t want to talk.

BILL GARDNER: You don't need anything, else do you?

JACK RODOLICO: I had heard about Bill Gardner from other reporters. Anyone can just walk into his office, and members of the public often do. But I’ve also been told that once you’re in there, anything can happen. Gardner could refuse to talk — or let you way in. Like, he’ll keep you for hours talking about the Magna Carta or Jackie Robinson. And during my visit, I thought for sure I was gonna be shut out. And then, he starts questions me, asking me why I think Americans don’t trust the election process.

BILL GARDNER: Why? Why did people have that negative feeling about it before the election?

JACK RODOLICO: Why? I don't know.

BILL GARDNER: That's what they heard from people.

JACK RODOLICO: So it's a perception problem.

BILL GARDNER: Obviously, it's what they heard. Maybe from you.

JACK RODOLICO: From me, you mean the media?

BILL GARDNER: From, from you.

JACK RODOLICO: What do you mean me? I'm not sure what you mean.

BILL GARDNER: I'd just say, maybe you. It wasn't from any of us.

JACK RODOLICO: OK. OK. I’m a little confused by that, but I take it that’s important to you.

JACK RODOLICO: I don’t know what Gardner was trying to tell me that day in his office. But I think I understand where it came from. For Gardner, voting is not just about the New Hampshire primary. It’s about the sanctity of the ballot box.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And here’s a guy who learned the hard way how seriously Gardner takes that belief.

ANDY LANGLOIS: I was disgusted with the whole process.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This is Andy Langlois. His story begins in a voting booth during a state election in 2014.

JACK RODOLICO: Basically, Langlois didn’t like his choices for the U.S. Senate. So he decided to write-in a candidate. Someone he knew.

ANDY LANGLOIS: And when I came to the Senator portion, I really didn’t have a good choice there. So I just wrote in my dog’s name, Akira.

JACK RODOLICO: Andy voted for his dog. And to put a finer point on his disgust, you should know something about Akira.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: She was dead.

ANDY LANGLOIS: You know how you only have one good pet in your life? You know, one really good, stunning pet? It was her, for me.

JACK RODOLICO: She sounds like she’d make a great Senator.

ANDY LANGLOIS: She was that dog that always gave you her toy. Always. Even right up to the end. She’d bring you her toy.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So when Langlois went into the ballot box and voted for a dead German shepherd for the United States Senate, he took a picture of his ballot. Then, he posted it to Facebook, with a note.

JACK RODOLICO: Quote, “Because all of the candidates suck, I did a write-in of Akira (my now deceased dog)”…

ANDY LANGLOIS: It was absolutely nothing to me. I didn't think anything about it. Why wouldn’t you be able to take a picture of it?

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And then, he got a phone call.

JACK RODOLICO: On the other end of the line was someone from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office. Andy was being investigated.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Not for voting for a dead dog. That was perfectly legal. His crime was taking a picture of his ballot and posting it. A ballot selfie. And it made national news.

GAYLE KING ON CBS: Most of the laws were written before social media came around. They are rarely enforced, but if you live in the state of New Hampshire, you better pay attention to this. The Secretary of State’s Office is reportedly investigating violations from last month’s primary. I say puh-leeze.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: The New Hampshire Legislature had recently passed the selfie ban, and that ban had Gardner’s blessing. At this point in his career, Gardner was almost 40 years into his tenure— well established as the state’s top election official.

JACK RODOLICO: And he was deeply opposed to selfies in the voting booth.

BILL GARDNER: The whole point is to let people vote their conscience. That's the point.

JACK RODOLICO: The way Gardner saw it, this law protected people from voter intimidation.

BILL GARDNER: The little person who wants to just be able to go in, and whether it's a domineering spouse or someone who has some influence in their life […] And someone says, you've got to vote this way and, and if you don't show me, because I know you can show me now, it's legal, I'm going to know that you didn't vote that way. So, what does that person do?

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Now, bear in mind, there was zero — zero — evidence of anyone using ballot selfies to intimidate voters in New Hampshire. But either way, Langlois and a few others were facing fines. The ACLU caught wind of all this, they felt there was a clear free speech case here. And they determined that New Hampshire was the first state to explicitly and intentionally ban online ballot selfies. And Gardner, as the state’s top election official, he was the face of it. So they took him to federal court.

[MUSICAL TRANSITION]

JACK RODOLICO: Let's talk about Hitler and Saddam Hussein.

BILL CHRISTIE: All right.

JACK RODOLICO: Attorney Bill Christie worked on this case. It was his job to sit in a windowless conference room with Gardner and to drill down on what motivated him to enforce this law.

BILL CHRISTIE: And we expected an answer along the lines of, you know, people's privacy or people might be uncomfortable in the polling place if there's cameras.

JACK RODOLICO: But that’s not what Gardner wanted to talk about.

BILL GARDNER: I have a copy of the last ballot that was used when Saddam Hussein was elected, and that ballot identified who the person was.

JACK RODOLICO: In public, and in his deposition too, Gardner kept name-dropping dictators. Hitler, Hussein, Stalin — again and again and again. How they all used ballots to track down voters and intimidate them. Because Gardner worries that the slightest puncture in the sanctity of the ballot box — that could be the first step down a slippery slope towards dictatorship. Right here, in New Hampshire.

BILL GARDNER: Hitler did the same thing in Austria. There’s been a struggle over the years to intimidate voters in different ways.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Gardner’s dictator defense doesn’t get very far in court. First, the District Court strikes it down. There’s an appeal, so the case goes to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. And there, a judge was like, Why is the state bothering to prosecute a guy who just voted for his dog?

JUDGE: The guy who says vote for my dog.

GILLES BISSONETTE: Yes, exactly.

JUDGE: That's sort of self-evident that that's political dissatisfaction speech, and yet they choose to investigate that.

JACK RODOLICO: So the second court dismisses the case, too. But Gardner and the state’s lawyers weren’t done yet. They take ballot selfies to the United States Supreme Court.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And the Supreme Court said, yeah, we’re not taking this case.

ANDY LANGLOIS: To spend any amount of taxpayer money on any investigation for a dude that posted a ballot about his dog seems, to me, a little bit of a waste. And taxpayers should probably be a little upset, maybe even ask for a refund.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: These court fights aren’t cheap. It costs the state a lot of money to defend Gardner’s argument.

JACK RODOLICO: If voters feel like a politician wasted a bunch of money, they have the option of voting him or her out of office. But Bill Gardner doesn’t answer directly to the public. He answers to 424 legislators who’ve worked just down the hall from him for the past 43 years. And state lawmakers, they’ve been confronted with evidence that he isn’t running his office in the most efficient and accountable way.

REP. MARJORIE SMITH: I was aware, and not surprised, that the Secretary of State's position was that this was his kingdom — and no one else had the right to tell him what to do or how to do it.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Marjorie Smith is a Democrat, like Gardner. She’s a long-time representative in the State House. And in 2008, she was on a panel of lawmakers responsible for digging through an audit of Gardner’s office.

Here’s just a sampling of the problems the audit found: Gardner’s office had hired the family members of senior management. His IT systems were highly vulnerable to a systemic breakdown. There were problems with money — how the department tracked it, protected it, stored it and spent it. For example, Gardner’s office was given a big pot of federal money meant to help people with disabilities vote. His office spent one million of those dollars to build an addition to the state archives building.

JACK RODOLICO: And this audit came 10 years after another one found other problems with how Gardner’s office managed money. Gardner shrugged it all off. He called the audits “unqualified.”

REP. MARJORIE SMITH: Well I think that the Secretary of State saw these questions as challenges to him, as an insult to him that anyone would think to challenge him.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Marjorie Smith sees a larger problem here. Audits are a normal part of holding a government office accountable. It’s not personal. And the lawmakers who put Gardner in office, they seem to ignore the evidence that there are some real problems with how Gardner fulfills his duties as Secretary of State.

REP. MARJORIE SMITH: One seems to be able to tolerate all kinds of things as long as New Hampshire continues to be the first-in-the-nation.

[MUSICAL TRANSITION]

LARRY GORMLEY: State your name for the record.

BILL GARDNER: William Gardner.

LARRY GORMLEY: You are the Secretary of State, Mr. Gardner?

BILL GARDNER: Yes.

LARRY GORMLEY: Take an oath of office?

JACK RODOLICO: It’s 2017, and Bill Gardner is back in court. In this case, Gardner was accused of exerting his influence against someone who he thinks has wronged him.

LARRY GORMLEY: You took an oath of office, correct?

BILL GARDNER: That's correct.

LARRY GORMLEY: OK.

JACK RODOLICO: And he is going to have an uncomfortable time explaining his actions under oath.

BILL GARDNER: We work for the people, period. That's what we do. That's our role as public servants.

JACK RODOLICO: Gardner’s office hired a consultant, and at a certain point, Gardner ordered his department to stop paying that consultant for work he had done. So the consultant is suing to get the money he says the state owes him.

The bigger situation that started all this is a bit more complicated. Remember, Gardner’s powers are broad, and his office had been at odds with this particular company that provided insurance to public employees. Gardner and this company had been battling on and on, and he had mostly prevailed in court.

MIKE COUTU: It wasn't enough for Bill.

JACK RODOLICO: This is Mike Coutu, the consultant who Gardner was accused of stiffing. Coutu is an insurance and financial expert. And Gardner’s office hired him to make sure the company in question was making changes to how it did business. But Coutu says behind the scenes, essentially, Gardner was turning a legal battle into a vindictive, personal grievance.

MIKE COUTU: And then when I challenged Bill, he directed his vindictiveness to me. I became the subject matter of his ill feelings.

JACK RODOLICO: Early on, Coutu realized he didn’t like the way Gardner operated. For example, Gardner apparently didn’t read emails. To be clear, Gardner has an email address. It was just that Coutu would send emails to Gardner and get no response. So Coutu changed his tactics. He would write an email, print it and then hand deliver it to Gardner.

MIKE COUTU: A couple times he instructed me to rip up the email. He read it, but then instructed to rip it up. Didn’t want a record that he’d received it.

JACK RODOLICO: An important part of Gardner’s job is to archive and track important state records. But I’ve spoken with three attorneys who have taken Gardner to court. And they all say when they try to get records from Gardner — specifically his records, like emails — they can’t. That he doesn’t leave a paper trail. And Larry Gormley, Coutu’s attorney, thinks that’s a deliberate tactic on Gardner’s part.

LARRY GORMLEY: So he is a guy that doesn't want his finger — he wants to run everything, but doesn't want his fingerprints on anything.

JACK RODOLICO: Gormley grilled Gardner in court.

BILL GARDNER: I only have what I've told you.

LARRY GORMLEY: You don't have one shred of paper? [...]

BILL GARDNER: No.

LARRY GORMLEY: You didn't communicate with anyone, send anyone an email?

LARRY GORMLEY: It's remarkable. I've never seen any public official with absolutely no written trail.

JACK RODOLICO: Coutu believed Gardner was in the wrong — not just about the way he conducted business, but the way he was trying, in Coutu’s eyes, to take down this company. So in March 2015, Coutu decided he had to deliver some tough news to his boss. But Gardner wasn’t having it.

MIKE COUTU: I had all the projections. All the work was done, and Bill would not even look at it. [...] It was apparent he just wasn't interested.

JACK RODOLICO: And now, Coutu was losing his patience. He confronted Bill Gardner. He told the Secretary of State, “You are not acting in good faith.”

MIKE COUTU: Bill got very red-faced, very heated, pointed to me, and said, You, you, you — multiple times — you, you, you, you, you, you tell me I'm not acting in good faith? You're not acting in good faith. Meaning, Mike Coutu’s not acting in good faith, which is absurd. Absolutely absurd.

JACK RODOLICO: This would become the central point of Coutu’s lawsuit against Gardner. Gardner insisted that in that moment, Coutu stood up and quit. But Mike Coutu says he didn’t quit, he kept working for months after this. And another witness in the room said Coutu didn’t quit. But in court, Gardner said he felt like Coutu quit. Gardner repeated this again and again on the witness stand.

BILL GARDNER: I felt that he quit.

BILL GARDNER: I believed that he had quit.

BILL GARDNER: To me that meant he quit. And I acted accordingly.

LARRY GORMLEY: And it was just this circular, almost idiotic response. It was, it was [...] inexplicable. It was gibberish. [...] So frankly, it became fairly easy because when you’ve got someone basically standing naked on an island, and you ask him to address these issues, he can’t. And he couldn’t.

LARRY GORMLEY: You’re sure, Mr. Gardner, it's not that you devised a way to punish Coutu, that you could get work from him, and you knew you weren't going to pay him for it, right?

BILL GARDNER: That is absolutely not true. Absolutely not true. I would never do something like that. I never have.

JACK RODOLICO: Gardner, under oath, would admit that he was the one who ordered the state not to pay Coutu. But he rejected that he did it as some form of punishment.

BILL GARDNER I have respect for people who challenge me. I like having people around me who challenge me. That's not the way I operate.

JACK RODOLICO: In the end, Gardner lost this case. The state was forced to pay Coutu the $23,000 Gardner had refused him, plus the state had to reimburse Coutu’s attorney’s fees — that cost another $154,000 dollars. And according to the attorney general’s office, state lawyers spent a lot of time on this case: 1,494 hours.

MIKE COUTU: That kind of behavior says to me that this is a man that does not believe he’s ever stepped out of line or over the line. And therefore should not be questioned.

JACK RODOLICO: If any lawmaker raised an eyebrow about this case, or what it said about Gardner’s fitness to do his job, they didn’t say it loudly. But just a few months later, Gardner would do something that Democrats around here just couldn’t ignore. And it would lead to the biggest political challenge of Gardner’s career.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner. Thank you.

JACK RODOLICO: We’ll be right back.

[BREAK]

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Please be seated

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: After he got elected, President Donald Trump seemed to be obsessed with voter fraud. He’d bring it up a lot — on Twitter, in a private meeting on Capitol Hill — and he’d claim, without evidence, that millions of illegal votes were cast for Hilary Clinton, his opponent. He even singled out New Hampshire, he claimed — again, with no evidence — that buses of people from Massachusetts would drive up here to vote. Trump was so concerned about this, he decided to pull together a commission to investigate voter fraud.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We wanna make America great again? We have to protect the integrity of the vote and our voters.

JACK RODOLICO: It was called the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Everyone just calls it the Trump Voter Fraud Commission. And President Trump asked Secretary of State Bill Gardner to be on it. Gardner said yes. The first meeting was held in D.C, and it had all the trappings of official White House business. Presidential seal, lots of dark suits. And there’s Bill Gardner, a few seats away from Vice President Mike Pence.

VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: With that it would be my my privilege to recognize the longest serving Secretary of State in American history, New Hampshire's Secretary of State Bill Gardner. Secretary Gardner, you're recognized for five minutes.

BILL GARDNER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Vice Chairman. I look forward to the work we have ahead...

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: So, consider what this looks like. Voter fraud is a hugely partisan issue. This panel is formed by a Republican White House. So what will Gardner — a registered Democrat, who for 40 years has overseen every New Hampshire election — what will he say to the world?

BILL GARDNER: But it has been my belief over many years of administering elections that we will see an increase in voter turnout only when we, when ease of voting is balanced with security and integrity. Making voting easier by itself does not result in higher turnout.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: The point Gardner makes, in front of CSPAN cameras, is one that Democrats have been fighting against for years. People back home in New Hampshire were watching all this unfold, and many Democrats around here were furious.

PETER BURLING: When the Republican Party began this utterly fraudulent notion that voter fraud was affecting New Hampshire's balloting and the outcome of our elections, he should have stood up and said no, there is absolutely no evidence for that.

JACK RODOLICO: Peter Burling was a long time New Hampshire lawmaker. He felt by just being on this panel, Gardner — and thus the state of New Hampshire — was endorsing Trump’s unfounded claims about voter fraud.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: This wasn’t the first time Gardner pissed off some Democrats. Burling says they had for years grumbled in private that Gardner seemed to take the GOP’s side on a lot of election issues.

JACK RODOLICO: And remember, Republicans were in the majority at the State House for most of Gardner’s tenure, so he couldn’t get re-elected without their support.

PETER BURLING: I believe, I now believe that what Bill was trying to do was not say anything that would offend his Republican electors. And he was very good at doing that.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Control of the State House has flipped between the parties recently, but the 2016 election brought the first Republican governor in more than a decade. That meant Republicans now had the power they needed to go ahead and change the state’s voting laws. So they got to work. Republicans backed a bill to tighten voter registration rules — something that, according to them, would ensure integrity in elections. But Democrats argued that bill would block college students from voting. And Gardner? He testified at the State House in favor of the Republican position.

STATE REPRESENTATIVE: So, yeah, just to rephrase, you don't view this as an attempt to supress or control a certain voting segment for the benefit of one party?

BILL GARDNER: No, I don't.

JACK RODOLICO: Now this — this is a striking moment in the arc of Bill Gardner’s career. He started in the Vietnam era as a guy who wanted young people to be able to vote. And now college students are showing up at the State House to protest a bill he supports. And Gardner, he seems bewildered.

BILL GARDNER: It's amazing to me some of the passion that somehow this is this terrible thing to do to the people. But I just don't see it.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: The list of people who are frustrated with Gardner is starting to grow.

JACK RODOLICO: Like Liz Tentarelli, the president of the New Hampshire chapter of the League of Women Voters, a 100-year-old, nonpartisan voting rights organization.

LIZ TENTARELLI: My league colleagues in other states talk about, we're going to have more early voting. [...] We have online voting. We have mail-in voting. And I just drool, and I say there is no way this is going to happen while Mr. Gardner is there. They say, well, which one of those isn't going to happen? I say, none of them are going to happen while Mr. Gardner is there.

JACK RODOLICO: As an elections watchdog, Liz Tentarelli has kept an eye on Gardner for a long time, and she’s observed one important change in him over the years. There may have been a time when he didn’t take a partisan stand on election laws — at least not publicly. A time when, as he promised when he first ran for the Secretary of State’s office, he kept that office “a neutral corner in state government.” But Tentarelli says that time is over. There’s no doubt in her mind that Gardner — a Democrat — now supports Republican positions on voting rights.

LIZ TENTARELLI: I like him as an ambassador for our first-in-the-nation primary much more than I like him as a Secretary of State, frankly.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: All this frustration that had been building up privately over the years, the moment Gardner announced he would join Trump’s voter fraud commission? It started spilling out in public.

PETER BURLING: What was Bill doing on that? I have no idea. And the hard part, is I don't think he had an idea of what he was doing.

JACK RODOLICO: The White House decided to hold the second meeting of the voter fraud commission here in New Hampshire, in a room at a college that is famous around here for hosting presidential candidates. Protestors swarmed outside.

PROTESTOR: Shame on you, Bill Gardner. He’s our Secretary of State, at least that’s what I’m led to believe. And he should not be involved in this charade.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Up until this point in his career, national coverage about Gardner is almost exclusively about the New Hampshire primary. It’s often fawning, it’s positive, it’s kitschy. He’s the charming master of ceremonies of our famous tradition.

But the Trump commission was a big story about a hyper-partisan controversy — so reporters around the country were watching. Jessica Huseman is a ProPublica reporter who covers election law. She’s something of a Secretary of State expert. She called up Gardner to interview him about the commission.

JESSICA HUSEMAN: And I said something like, you know it doesn't really seem like you guys have achieved that much. And he just flew off the handle. He started screaming at me. At one point he referenced Mussolini — like he talked about Mussolini for maybe five minutes. [...] And it was just like, it was completely bonkers. I was not able to use a single thing that he said in the hour long interview, because none of it made any sense at all.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: When questioned about why he joined this thing, Gardner insisted that it’s better to be at the table than on the menu. Meaning, he wanted New Hampshire to be included. But before long, there was nothing to be included in. The voter fraud commission was bogged down in lawsuits and was disbanded.

JACK RODOLICO: And when Gardner’s already on his heels, something unprecedented happens. Two Democrats, members of his own party, announce they’ll run against Gardner for the office he’s held since 1976. One challenger’s a long shot who eventually drops out, but the other is a real threat. He recently ran for governor. He’s much younger than Gardner — well-funded and well-known in the party.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Democrats are now in a jam. They’re torn between two options, two people from their own party. But you know who comes out for Gardner in force? The Republicans.

STEVE STEPANEK: This will be the only time that you will ever hear me endorsing a Democrat. Bill Gardner is the guardian of the New Hampshire first-in-the-nation primary.

JACK RODOLICO: Gardner’s fate would be decided where it all began, on the floor of the New Hampshire State House. December of last year, the Legislature gathered again, like they do every two years, to vote on the office of Secretary of State.

REP. STEVE SHURTLEFF: The Joint Convention will come to order. The Joint Convention has been formed for the purpose of electing the constitutional officers of Secretary of State and State Treasurer...

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Over the last four decades, the Secretary of State election has been pro-forma. Gardner mostly ran unopposed, and the few times he was seriously challenged, he won.

JACK RODOLICO: But today, there’s tension in this room.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Most Republicans seem to be backing Gardner. But Democrats, who are in the majority in the Legislature now, they’re really split. Some are Gardner diehards. Others have been turned off by the Trump commission. So the outcome of how they’ll vote for Gardner is far from certain. Lawmakers take turns stepping up to the mic to make their pitch.

LAWMAKERS SPEAKING: Thank you Mr. Speaker. [...] Thank you Mr. Speaker. [...] Thank you Mr. Speaker and members of the Joint Convention.

REP. MARY HEATH: I deeply respect and regard Secretary Bill Gardner, and he will always, always hold a place in New Hampshire history, and I also know it's time for new leadership.

SEN. DAVID WATTERS: I know we all feel the weight of history in this vote, and for many of us, the weight of friendship.

JACK RODOLICO: A lot of Democrats are stepping up, explaining why they just can’t back Gardner anymore.

REP. PAUL BERGERON: I've known Bill Gardner for 45 years. [...] I attended his wedding reception. [...] However, I will not be voting to re-elect Bill Gardner as Secretary of State.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: But he’s not losing all Democrats.

SEN. LOU D’ALLESANDRO: Life’s about one thing, guys. It’s about relationships, and those last a lifetime. [...] No term limit on relationships. [...] No term limit on relationships. You make ‘em. You keep ‘em, and for the rest of your life, you work together.

JACK RODOLICO: Gardner’s supporters keep fighting for him. They invoke his experience, his dedication, his longevity.

REP. NED GORDON: I would like to see Bill finish his career gracefully and be in office for the 100th anniversary of the New Hampshire primary, which he has worked so hard to preserve.

REP. STEVE SHURTLEFF: And now we come to the balloting process…

JACK RODOLICO: It takes a while, more than an hour. When the votes come in, the room gets quiet fast.

REP. STEVE SHURTLEFF: 416 votes were cast. 209 votes were needed to win the nomination. The results are as follows. There was one scattered vote. 207 votes for Colin Van Ostern. 208 votes for William Gardner. [APPLAUSE, GAVEL BANGING] No...

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Gardner got one more vote than his opponent. But he didn’t win, he needs a clear majority of all votes. And he was just one vote shy. This was unprecedented. For the first time in his career, Gardner’s future as Secretary of State is hanging by a thread. And now everyone is going to have to vote again.

JACK RODOLICO: Just a few lawmakers are allowed to speak this time. This is their final chance to make the cas, and one of the most powerful Republicans in the State House tells everyone in the room, it’s not just Gardner who is on the line here.

SEN. JEB BRADLEY: All right, my friends. Bill Gardner has preserved our first-in-the-nation status. An experiment with anyone else undermines that first-in-the-nation status, which is not only important to New Hampshire, but it's important to the United States of America.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: There are people in this room whose lives have been changed because of the access they have to presidential candidates. This is no exaggeration — there are Republicans in this room right now who joined the Trump campaign early, and they went from no-name lawmakers to being on a first name basis with the leader of the free world. Plenty of others in this room now brand themselves as ambassadors to the world for the New Hampshire primary. Everyone gets what’s at stake here.

JACK RODOLICO: Now, it’s time to vote again. More than 400 votes cast, one at a time. It takes so long.

REP. STEVE SHURTLEFF: The members from Division 1 and 5 may vote. Thank you.

JACK RODOLICO: All this time, during all this debating and wrangling, Bill Gardner is just down the hall, in the same office where he takes pictures with presidential candidates.

[SCENE FROM GARDNER’S OFFICE]

JACK RODOLICO: His supporters have been coming in and out. There’s a table with cookies and a punch bowl. The mood in there shifts throughout the day. Sometimes it’s like the moments before a surprise party. Others, it’s like a wake.

[GAVEL BANGING]

REP. STEVE SHURTLEFF: The House will come to order and will tend to the vote on the office of Secretary of State.

JACK RODOLICO: Gardner himself is stoic. He doesn’t say much. He just listens to a livestream of the proceedings from down the hall.

REP. STEVE SHURTLEFF: The vote is as follows. Scattered, 1. I got to meet that guy. For Colin Van Ostern, 205. For William Gardner, 209.

[CHEERS]

BILL GARDNER: I'm very, very grateful for those of you who let this happen.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Gardner takes the mike. He seems humbled.

BILL GARDNER: Thank you. I have, I'm anxious, and I'd like to ask all of you — particularly the new ones — I'm just down the hall, come in. I welcome any ideas, even modern ideas. So, thank you.

JACK RODOLICO: But just a few minutes later, he’s caught by a scrum of reporters. He’s got cameras in his face. He’s being peppered with questions.

REPORTER: What can you promise the people of New Hampshire going forward?

BILL GARDNER: Promise them what? I promised them that I'll do, I'll use the same judgment that I've used in the past.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Gardner is in the middle of serving his 22nd term in office.

JACK RODOLICO: And the political world — at this moment — is still waiting for him to announce the date of the 2020 primary.

JACK RODOLICO: Next week on Stranglehold, we tell you the story of the campaign that wrote the playbook for every New Hampshire primary that followed.

BILLY SHAHEEN: And I said to my wife, This guy has got some balls. I mean, he really got guts. I love this guy. I'm gonna watch him.

[GUITAR RIFFS]

JACK RODOLICO: To see a video of Barack Obama bowing to Bill Gardner, go to our website: StrangleholdPodcast-dot-com. While you’re there, look for the picture of Akira — the dog that could have been a senator — riding in the sidecar of a motorcycle.

ANDY LANGLOIS: If you check your email, you'll see a good photo of her in the sidecar that I built for her. She used to like to ride around on the motorcycle.

JACK RODOLICO: You sent me that photo?

ANDY LANGLOIS: Yeah, just now.

JACK RODOLICO: This episode was reported and produced by me Jack Rodolico

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And me, Lauren Chooljian. And we’re very thankful for all the help we’ve received as we put this podcast together.

JACK RODOLICO: This episode would not have been possible without reporting by Casey McDermott.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: And additional reporting help from Josh Rogers. Stranglehold is edited by NHPR’s Director of Content Maureen McMurray and News Director Dan Barrick.

JACK RODOLICO: We had additional editing and production help from Jason Moon. Tony Arnold and Natasha Haverty helped with editing. And sound mixing by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Jason Moon also created the dope original music in this episode, with help from Lucas Anderson. Jack Rodolico is a senior producer.

JACK RODOLICO: Lauren Chooljian is NHPR’s politics and policy reporter. Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Digital Director, and Sara Plourde made our beautifully aggressive podcast graphics.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Oh, and very special thanks to my dad, Barry Chooljian, who we are forever indebted to for helping us come up with the name of this podcast.

JACK RODOLICO: Additional thanks to Jim Laboe, Myron Steere III, Donna Sytek, Gilles Bissonette, Paul Twomey, Paula Hodges, Betsy McClain and Fendall Fulton.

LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Also John DiStaso, Linda Wertheimer, Andrew Parrella, Eva Karchut Petersen, John Clayton, John H. Sununu, Tom Rath, Joe McQuaid, Ned Gordon, Lou D’Allesandro, Dee Stewart and James Pindell.

Stranglehold is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

[ONE LAST GUITAR RIFF]

ROB TULLY: But you know what? They bring their pigs with them, and they had to cancel it this year because they had pig flu!