To listen to the full episode, tune into NHPR Jan. 10 at 1 p.m., click the “play” button above or subscribe to “Stranglehold” wherever you get your podcasts. You can also read an edited transcript below.
This week, the world said goodbye to Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, who died at the age of 100. Carter was also widely known as "America's greatest former president" because of all that he accomplished after leaving the White House. Yet, just a few years before Carter was elected president, hardly anyone outside of Georgia knew who he was.
That is, until he came to New Hampshire.
NHPR is revisiting the story about the role the Granite State played in catapulting an unknown Jimmy Carter all the way to the White House with a special rebroadcast from “Stranglehold,” our 2019 podcast series about the First in the Nation primary.
This episode, called “The Dragon Egg,” goes inside Carter's 1976 presidential campaign. Host Lauren Chooljian unpacks this historic moment that not only introduced Carter to the world, but helped solidify a powerful myth about the New Hampshire primary.
Transcript
[MUSIC IN]
Lauren Chooljian, Narrating: Love is a powerful thing, especially the first time you feel it.
Chooljian: Alright, tell me what was your favorite primary.
Billy Shaheen: Oh, ‘76.
Chooljian: You're just sayin’ that.
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 [CLEARS THROAT] I always believed, but I never thought it would happen. I never thought it would happen. And then it did.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
Shaheen: I started watching this governor of Georgia named Jimmy Carter ‘cause his first official act as governor was to hang a picture of Martin Luther King in the state capitol and declared segregation in Georgia was over forever. And I said to my wife, “This guy has got some balls. I mean, he really has got guts. I love this guy. I'm going to watch him.”
[MUSIC UP AND OUT]
Chooljian, Narrating: So, 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 led 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.
Shaheen: Jimmy Carter is an example of if you believe and you're ready to work hard enough, you can be anybody and be president. And that's the hope that New Hampshire gives.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
[STRANGLEHOLD THEME SONG IN]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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 – retold 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, 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 UP]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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, Archive Clip: Well, New Hampshire is a unique state. It's the only place in the nation where we have a chance to campaign on a personal basis.
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 like 10,000 votes someplace else.
[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]
Chooljian, Narrating: I’m Lauren Chooljian and this is Stranglehold from New Hampshire Public Radio.
[“WHAT’S MY LINE” THEME MUSIC IN]
Larry Blyden: Come on, let’s all play What’s My Line!
Chooljian, Narrating: 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?
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
Blyden: 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. [AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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 – it’s just so famous now. Yet, there he is, just cheesin’ away at four clueless panelists.
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.
Blyden: Probably.
Carter: I think so.
Francis: Is it, um, is it a service that has to do with the women?
Carter: Yes, it certainly does. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
Blyden: Four down six to go. Arlene.
Francis: I can rule out that you’re a government official of any kind, can’t I?
Carter: No.
Francis: Oh, you fresh thing! [LAUGHS]
Blyden: Seven 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.
Blyden: That’s it – he is Governor Jimmy Carter of the state of Georgia! [AUDIENCE APPLAUSE, CLIP FADES OUT]
Chooljian, Narrating: I wonder if, like, years later, the panelists thought back on this episode and laughed to themselves, like, “Jeez! How did it happen that the random smiley governor would go on to be the leader of the free world?!”
[MUSIC IN]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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, ya know, it's just let there be light!
Chooljian: Oh, my God.
Rafshoon: Don't don't be – don't be throwing Jimmy's name around in vain!
[MUSIC UP AND OUT]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.”
Chooljian, Narrating: 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, uh, we said, “Well, you can’t run for reelection.” He said, “I know that.” He was term limited, ya know, could only be one term at that time. And Hamilton said, “We think you should run –” and he went, “P-p-p…” Couldn’t get it out. “P-president!” And Jimmy looked at him and he says, “Oh, really?”
Chooljian, Narrating: It was at that moment Rafshoon could tell, Carter had been thinking about it, too.
[MUSIC IN]
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.
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.
[SOUND OF 1968 NEWS COVERAGE OF DNC PROTESTS IN CHICAGO UP AND OUT]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and then, Bobby Kennedy. And it all erupted into massive protests outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
[SOUND OF 1968 NEWS COVERAGE OF DNC PROTESTS IN CHICAGO UP AND OUT]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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, on NPR: 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.
Chooljian, Narrating: Here’s another 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.
Powell, on NPR: So, if we could win in Iowa and win in New Hampshire, we just might have enough money to compete effectively in Florida.
Chooljian, Narrating: And New Hampshire had a reputation.
[MUSIC IN]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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%, uh, in the polls!
Chooljian, Narrating: Jordan and those guys remembered well the 1972 Democratic New Hampshire primary. George McGovern scored a surprise second place finish - and Edmund Muskie, previously the front runner – he 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 News Anchor: 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
Chooljian, Narrating: So, there was a history of underdogs punching above their weight in New Hampshire. But it's not like those underdogs had become presidents.
[MUSIC UP]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
[MUSIC UP AND OUT]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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 [CLEARS THROAT] ask you to vote for my friend Jimmy Carter for president,” [CLEARS THROAT] and she'd stop for a minute, but she said, “But I am so damn cold.”
Chooljian: We’ll get to that in a minute.
[CARTER CAMPAIGN SONG IN]
Man Singing: 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.” [FADES UNDER]
Chooljian, Narrating: I am honored to introduce you to the 1976 Carter campaign song: “Why Not the Best?”
Man Singing: 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… [FADES UNDER]
Chooljian, Narrating: Why not the best? That 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, Talking 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 as filled with love as all the American people.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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!
Man Singing: I was listening to quite a man talking to me.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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 the glory of this gem?!
Man Singing: We need Jimmy Carter! Why settle for less! America!
Chooljian, Narrating: That’s my favorite part!
Man Singing: 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?
Chooljian, Narrating: Okay. Thank you for that. Now, Carter's 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.
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.
Brown: Well, they called us the Seven Dwarfs [LAUGHS] because none of the candidates had high name I.D.s.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
[MUSIC IN]
Chooljian, Narrating: I want to take you through some of Carter team’s strategy for how they’d take New Hampshire 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 UP]
Chooljian, Narrating: Okay, 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.
Shaheen: 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 ‘em. Passion is what wins campaigns. Passion. I mean, the kids that were workin’ for us were workin’ 20 to 22 hours a day. I mean, they believed. That's the secret.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
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.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
Chooljian: Was that, like, an exciting thing at the time or were you, were you into it?
Chip Carter, On the Phone: Obviously into it, but it was more scary than exciting at first.
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]
Chooljian, Narrating: Okay, 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 82,000 people would vote in the 1976 democratic primary, hardly enough to fill some big college football stadiums. And New Hampshire ain’t 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, Archive Clip: 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.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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, Archive Clip: 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, uh, colleges, high schools, grammar schools, beauty parlors, barber shops, factory shift lines, and restaurants, and on the street. And this is what I've done, the kind of campaigning I like.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
Chooljian, Narrating: Ellis Woodward was Carter’s scheduler in New Hampshire, so he was responsible for setting up Carter’s sleeping arrangements.
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 is all sort of juvenile, but you do have to do that.
[MUSIC IN]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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 in strangers' spare rooms.
Woodward: Now, George McGovern probably did it. Eugene McCarthy probably did it… and uh… But these are the sort of things that happen that then become, they 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’re not gonna sort of close the chapter on that. I mean, you have to continue doing it whether it’s annoying or not, right?
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
[MUSIC UP AND OUT]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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]
Padgett: 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.”
Chooljian, Narrating: 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, so 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 – 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.
Rogers: Well, they didn't want to waste their time. They want to get out in 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 – like every imaginable thing happened that you could imagine happening.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
Shaheen: Some woman got her fur coat on, mink fur coat – ‘Course that didn't go well in New Hampshire. But she's doing it anyway ‘cause she wants to do it. So, we sent her out to the richer neighborhoods.
Chooljian, Narrating: Someone told me a story of a peanut brigader almost driving into someone’s garage. And apparently the Georgia Lieutenant Governor’s wife went missing for a while?
Rogers: But they were so friendly and they were so charming and they were s– 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.
Padgett: A woman whose husband was mayor of Plains, Georgia – 600 people you know – went and 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. And she told them, she said, “I'm up here from Plains, Georgia to [CLEARS THROAT] ask you to vote for my friend Jimmy Carter for president,” [CLEARS THROAT] and she'd stop for a minute, but she said, “But I am so damn cold!” She said, “I don't care who you all vote for!” And the people [LAUGHS] 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 UP AND OUT]
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
[CARTER CAMPAIGN SONG IN]
Chooljian, Narrating: New Hampshire, they say, makes better presidents. We’ll be right back.
[CAMPAIGN MUSIC UP AND OUT]
[MUSIC IN]
Chooljian, Narrating: Okay, 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.
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.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
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.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
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.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
Shaheen: Listen to me – every vote you get in New Hampshire is worth ten thousand votes someplace else
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
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 ‘em!
Chooljian: And remember, only 80,000 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 14,000 people.
And at first, it seemed like maybe this was the wrong call.
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.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
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?
Chooljian, Narrating: Thankfully, no, it hadn’t. It flew into Canada or something and was lost for 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…
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... and then, you know, the lost press plane.
Rich Patenaude: So, that flight to Berlin got dubbed “the white knuckle flight.”
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
Chooljian: I mean you probably had white knuckles while waiting.
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.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
Crowd Shouting: We’re number one!
Carter, Archival Clip, Victory Speech: 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 the wall that separates us from it. And you are the ones who have made it possible for me to do it!
Chooljian, Narrating: 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, Archival Clip: …That New Hampshire tonight has made Bill Clinton the comeback kid.
Ronald Reagan, Archival Clip: …Mainly our thanks and our joy goes out to you, the people of New Hampshire.
John McCain, Archival Clip: …But tonight. we sure showed ‘em what a comeback looks like.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
Shaheen: And you want to talk about euphoric and that's the only way you can describe it. I was… My feet weren't touchin’ the ground.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
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, “Okay, I'm going to work two days a week.” All of a sudden, it’s 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. And all of a sudden, it builds and builds and builds and then you win. I was so naturally high at that moment.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
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.
Chooljian, Narrating: 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.
Shaheen: Yeah. In fact there's a, there's a moment about six or seven years ago when I was in Washington and I went in trying to find where Jeannie was and she was at a Senate hearing.
Chooljian, Narrating: It was 2009, so 10 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.
Carter, Testifying in Congress: Oh, and let me say that I think that the fact that this foreign relations committee is addressing is extremely important.
Shaheen: As soon as I heard Jimmy Carter’s voice, I said that’s Jimmy Carter! He said, “We have one more question from Senator Shaheen.” And she said, “Mr. President.”
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, In Congress: Welcome Mr. President, Rosalyn, and Amy thank you for being here.
Jeanne Shaheen: And he said. Let me hold, let me stop you there.
Carter, In Congress: Thank you for helping me be president.
Jeanne Shaheen, In Congress: Well, I was going to say, I-I also need to thank you for my being here because It was my…. [FADES UNDER]
Billy Shaheen: And she said, “And I wouldn't be a U.S. senator without you.” Pretty good, huh? Yeah. So, it actually made her career. Yeah. Changed my life.
Chooljian, Narrating: There are a lot of people in New Hampshire whose lives have been changed by New Hampshire’s first in the nation primary. 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 ‘76 campaign. There’s a 24-hour 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?
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.
[SONG FROM “CAMELOT” THE MUSICAL]
Credits:
This episode was reported and produced by Lauren Chooljian.
This episode was edited by Maureen McMurray and NHPR News Director Dan Barrick.
Additional editing help came from Jack Rodolico, Casey McDermott, Josh Rogers and Tony Arnold. And sound mixing by Hannah McCarthy and Jason Moon.
Jason and Lucas Anderson also created the original music in this episode.
Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On Demand Audio and Sara Plourde made the Stranglehold podcast graphics.
And some of our archival tape was courtesy of NBCUniversal Archives.
Note: Since we first published this episode in 2019, Kathy Rogers, the former Carter campaign intern and New Hampshire State Representative has died in 2022 at the age of 67.
