leader, we are going to spend an hour talking about the history of the new hampshire primary. joseph: that is all? susan: yes, that is all. before we get into history, let's talk with the current one. so michael bloomberg is not competing in iowa or new hampshire -- these are the early primaries, and committing lots of money later on in the process. what does that do to the relevance of your primary? joseph: there are always questions about the relevance of the new hampshire primary, dating back to its modern day beginnings. people are not going to campaign, or they are going to spend a lot of money or they are not. so the short answer is i don't know. there are 10 or 11 serious candidates for the democratic nomination, and he is blowing by the early ones and thinks he can get street cred by buying it, which i think is probably not going to work for him. he said recently that even if he does not win the nomination, he will spend money to help whoever wins the nomination get elected. but i think that just underlines, i have all the money in the world, i am going to spend it. so i don't know. people asked about the relevance of the primary with these televised debates, which i hate to call them debates because they aren't. they are reality shows. and the dnc, in cooperation with the various networks, have already sliced the field down based on money and poll numbers, right down to the most recent one is going to have six people in it. they have had few or close to that in the past when there are more candidates than that. i think that hurts the relevance of the primary nominating process entirely, not just new hampshire's role as the first primary. susan: but as you said, there is a debate about whether or not these first two primary caucus states should continue to have the role they do. so make the case for our viewers. why should they continue? joseph: ok. now first, and you corrected yourself here about the primary and the caucus. john sununu likes to say, iowa picks corn, new hampshire picks presidents. i love that. i was sort of snuck up on new hampshire a few years ago. caucus, what is that? a bunch of people in a living room? that doesn't count. well, the media and the candidates say it counts. but the relevance of the early states is the ability of candidates to come in and try to convince voters to vote for them. i don't know if i have answered your question. which was? susan: well, why is it? the demographics and the few delegates with arguments and counterarguments are to it continuing. why should it continue? joseph: i think you cited bloomberg and a lot of money, and i cited the networks. i think it is the first and last place where a candidate is upfront and personal, if he or she chooses, with voters, and voters get to kick the tires on them. now having said that, that is not always the history of the new hampshire primary. i hate to be the naysayer, you got to be there, you got to shake hands. jimmy carter did it. right? in 1952, which was the first time that the names were on the ballot, the guy who won on the republican side was not in the state, did not campaign here, wasn't even in the country, eisenhower. and the same thing happened in 1964, where the republican who won the primary was not only not in the state or in the country, he wasn't on the ballot. henry cabot lodge won on a write-in. new hampshire is always different. i think it appreciates being first, and people turn out. it is one of the highest turnout states, at least in primaries, in the country. and if it was so, you know too , white and not representative of the country, with the exception of bloomberg, who has not cited that as a reason, why are all these other candidates coming to new hampshire? why aren't they just saying, it is too white and i am not going there? susan: your secretary of state bill gardner is the longest-serving secretary of state in the country. how important has he been to the process of keeping the primary first? joseph: he has been important because he gets it. and the law was changed years ago to have the secretary of state and just the secretary of state make that decision, and he or in the future she makes it when they determine that nobody else is going to have a similar event before them. he is important to it because he has street credibility. he is a democrat, and he actually was challenged in his last election. elected by the state legislature, and a really partisan democrat tried to make it into a really partisan office, and bill gardner hung on by the skin of his teeth. but he is honest as the day is long. he knows the history, and he doesn't do anything to either mire that history or give the idea that this is anything other than a straight shooting event. susan: political relevance aside, how much does the primary mean to new hampshire's image and its economy? joseph: you know, economy-wise, other than -- pete dupont was allegedly the guy who built the wmur tv studios in manchester because he spent so much money in the day, was really a lot. but economy-wise, even with 11 serious candidates, they spend some time here, they spend some time in iowa. i have not seen a recent dollar figure on how much that is. i am sure the state would say it is worth $8 billion. but it is a point of pride for the people. the local public radio station in new hampshire did a podcast this year called "stranglehold." and it is a series extensively -- it is about the new hampshire presidential primary. but it is very negative about the primary, and i am wondering, all the people in new hampshire who support and listen to that station, what are they getting for their buck? it was astonishing to me. i listened to two episodes and stopped listening because i was no longer interested. it is long for one thing. maybe they said some good things about it. they unveiled the dixville lodge, one of the first towns to vote, really does not have a lot of people in it, and they have to find people to have enough to vote. this time, they got a fifth guy to come in and register. he happens to own the mothball hotel, and he is trying to revive the place. and he moved from another town just to be the fifth guy to be in there. there are other early towns that have done it in the past like hart's location but it is pride. , you won't get -- maybe this is the exception to nh pr, but you won't get a lot of people in new hampshire dissing the new hampshire primary because they know how much it has meant in the history of the country. susan: in addition to the tradition of dixville lodge and hart's location, a couple other things that distinguish it is the low barrier to entry, the low filing fee. in past years, it has brought many dozens of candidates into the process. does that still happen and does it impact the process? joseph: i think it is a little heftier now. it may be $1000. i am not sure. i have not run. but vermin supreme runs every few years. do you know vermin supreme? susan: the man with a boot on his head. joseph: the man with a boot on his head. his campaign has something to do with ponies for everybody. he manages to come up with the dollars. it used to be hundreds of people on the ballot. chief burning wood, all kinds of people who just wanted their name on the ballot. so i think the secretary of state did bump up the fee to something a little more credible. but you still get a lot of off-the-wall candidates who are here just to get a little attention, are very upset if the newspaper or the tv or the radio doesn't give them the same attention as it gives others, but you have to draw the line somewhere. susan: the other thing that distinguishes it, not alone in this, but it is an open primary, that you can cross party lines. joseph: yes. susan: how does that impact the ultimate outcome? joseph: well independence. , my late buddy don tibbetts was the statehouse bureau chief for many years, and he did not like that term, independents. he called them undeclared voters. it was not like they were in the independent party. but they are at least a third of the electorate. and they can doubt, they can walk into the polling station on election morning and say, i want a democratic ballot, and vote for the democrat. they can come right out, go back up to the people at the registration office and say, ok, switch me back to undeclared or independent. they can do it on the republican side. i don't know if there has been any really good analysis of how much of an effect that was. but i think you can see it over the years in certain races. lodge being one. barry goldwater, mr. conservative republican, versus nelson rockefeller, new york eastern establishment, they lost to a guy with a write-in, and i think that was because people were upset with the choices, and people who may have not had a particular party affiliation decided they were going to do that. and 1968 certainly was an antiwar vote and 1972 an antiwar vote. you have people going on one side or another as a result of that. and i think trump is the $64 million question. right? just what has been trump's effect been on the electorate? he has the republican party in his pocket, but are a lot of undeclareds upset with trump going to go into the democratic primary to vote for one of those people, hoping they can beat trump? or are they going to go in a republican field and go for -- it is pretty much governor weld, the only one running on that side. he thinks he is going to do better than i think he is going to do. i think the republicans are going to go for trump, the trump people. and a lot of undeclareds are going to go democratic because they want to pick somebody who they think has the best chance of beating trump. susan: another mainstay of the primary has been your newspaper's editorial. so famously in the last go-around, you did not support donald trump as a candidate. what are you going to do this time? joseph: well, with trump, first, i honest to god did not know when i compared him with the grown-up biff in "back to the future 2" that the screenwriter of that movie had based the grown-up biff character on donald trump. i didn't know it. it was just kismet. what are we going to do this time? i think we are going to endorse on the democratic side. some people go, the democrats? we have done that in the past. we endorsed joe lieberman years ago. on the republican side, i don't think it is worth much because the trump people have the party, etc. we are not going to endorse trump. we may say, if you don't like trump, there is another guy in the race, bill weld. i don't know if that will be an endorsement. i think the real play is on the democratic side, and it is a year when there are so many candidates that even the conservative union leader's voice might have some difference. susan: speaking of bill weld, this time around on the democratic side, there is at least three candidates with geographic proximity, sanders, warren, and the massachusetts governor deval patrick. how much has proximity mattered to new hampshire voters? joseph: i was asked that question the other day, and i don't think a lot. i think bernie sanders won the primary in 2016 because he wasn't hillary clinton, and it should have been a wake-up call to the democrats that maybe she wasn't the best candidate. he was known to them. ed muskie won the democratic primary in 1972. he was from the neighboring state of maine, but he certainly did not win it to the expectations that he was supposed to. i am not sure how much paul tsongas beat bill clinton by in 1992, but i don't think it really has a lot of play. and especially with you've got warren, you've got devall, you've got weld, you've got sanders. i don't think there are a lot of ways to split it up. i don't think it makes any difference. susan: you have been covering the new hampshire primary as a journalist for all of your career. what is the very earliest new hampshire primary memory you have in your life? joseph: goodness. primary, i don't know. general election is 1960, when my mother said they should have run eisenhower again. he would have beaten both kennedy and nixon. that was just her. probably 1968. i was in college. it was mccarthy versus lbj on that side, and nixon on the republican side, and william loeb and the paper were very much in nixon's corner that year. and on the democratic side, i don't think i was as aware of it then as i am now. but the guy that ran eugene mccarthy's campaign had started our sunday newspaper with my dad in 1946. susan: who was that? joseph: a gentleman named blair clark, who was later president of cbs news and editor of "the nation magazine." how those two guys politically ever got along, they didn't for long, but mccarthy did not win in 1968. johnson beat him on a write-in. but mccarthy beat the expectations game, which is what this is all about. so my professional memories really jump more. i didn't cover a lot in 1968, but in 1972, i was the editor of the sunday paper. and mr. muskie pulled up in front of the paper. susan: we are going to talk about that. i want to start with the 1962 race. joseph: why? why don't you start at the beginning? susan: one thing we should note, new hampshire is celebrating its centennial, 100 years of this. so when did it actually become what we know today, the relevance? joseph: we are celebrating more than our centennial. we are celebrating the centennial of being first in 1920. we joined the fray in 1916, and the guy who owned the union and leader before that had a lot to do with the whole primary system and was a buddy of teddy roosevelt and frank knox. anywho bump up, 1948 was the last time the candidates' names were not on the ballot, and that was changed by a couple of people in the legislature and governor adams, sherman adams. and i don't know if when he did it, he had in mind getting eisenhower to run. but even then, the modern primary, their names were on the ballot, but that didn't mean anything because the delegates' names were on the ballot, and those were often separate from the presidential. susan: confusing. joseph: confusing as hell. and initially, truman said, i am not going to run in the primaries. what the hell are the primaries about? but it made a difference. susan: so in 1952, the candidates were on the ballot for the first time. you started to tell that story about the gop side with eisenhower, who was serving as nato chief in europe. joseph: correct. susan: talk to me about the relevance of that on the democratic side with president truman and then the republican side. joseph: like a good interviewer, you ask a question and i ignore it and tell you a different answer. susan: [laughter] it's ok. joseph: i don't want to forget that trivia that few people know is eisenhower came to new hampshire before the presidential primary in 1948, at the invitation of william loeb's then partner owning the paper, the gentleman named leonard finder. he spoke at the union leader speaking series. he was in uniform. spoke in front of city hall. and finder was trying to get him to run for president. loeb did not like at all because loeb in 1948 was for thomas dewey. eisenhower goes back to the military and writes a famous letter that says, military people should not get involved in politics, i'm out. 1952, he was not out. but on the democratic side, truman had completed his first elected term as president and you know had won that stunning race in 1948 against dewey. and it was assumed that he was going to run again. he did not consent to having his name put on the new hampshire ballot until just a little bit before the election. and he was primaried, which is a word that has become a verb now. he was primaried by a tennessee u.s. senator, who a lot of people outside of c-span do not know. and he campaigned in new hampshire wearing a coon-skin cap. this was before davy crockett appeared on disney. he really was not a senator corn pony. he was a very sophisticated guy. he had gotten some national visibility because of some racketeering hearings that his senate committee had held. and this man came up here and he beat harry truman. harry truman, within several weeks, announced he was not running for president again. susan: before we move on in history, why has harry truman's stock going up so much in the years when he was clearly not possible in the time he was in office? joseph: i think that happens with most presidents. it has happened with nixon in terms of his world view and getting us out of entanglements in vietnam. i am thinking as you ask the question, will it happen with donald trump? that one is that one is a real , question mark to me. but harry truman was a plainspoken guy. he got in trouble because he had some people in the cabinet who were, i think, making personal gains out of their positions when 1952 rolled around. and he was not as tough on communism as you had to be in 1952. but his stock has gone up since then because in the closing days of world war ii, a guy who had not been plugged in on anything by fdr's people until fdr died, and they said ok harry, here are , the keys to his place. by the way, we have something called the a-bomb, and truman had to deal with that and deal with the end of the war, and dealing with a war-ravaged europe. i think historians now, especially with mccullough's great work, assess him higher, higher than he was at the time and higher than my brother assesses him. susan: that is important. joseph: it is. yes. susan: in 1968, we were in the throes of vietnam. new hampshire we did not know , how that year was going to unfold with the king assassination, kennedy assassination, the tumultuous conventions. but in the primary, what happened in 1968? joseph: well, kennedy wasn't in yet. he had been talking about it. susan: this is robert, for our viewers. joseph: correct. what happened was that kennedy saw what gene mccarthy was able to do in terms of young people. a lot of young people from out of state coming in because mccarthy was clear about it. he was for getting out of the it. he was the antiwar candidate. he was a bit of a poet, and people came in and slept on people's floors and basements, and walked around campaigning for mccarthy. and johnson, who ended up a few weeks afterwards not running at all -- i think it was a duplicate of what happened to truman in 1952. truman loses the primary and several weeks later says, i'm not running. johnson, even though it was a write-in, it was very well-organized by the state democratic party. mccarthy gets more than 40% of the vote, which is unheard of. johnson sees that, and he is not running. so that was huge. on the republican side, it was pretty much nixon. he had a couple of people who were toying about it. rockefeller was toying about it. did not get in. romney did get in, famously took a tour of south vietnam by the generals, sensed the mood was changing, said, i guess i was brainwashed, in saying he was for the war. so nixon rolled up a substantial victory. you mentioned editorials in the union leader. william loeb was running the paper at that time and was famous for his front page editorials about many things, including presidential politics. and i always remembered the alliterative headlines of his editorials. and one in 1968, when rockefeller was thinking about it, was entitled "nells the knife." it has got a ring to it. it was all about how nelson rockefeller was stabbing his friends in the back, including jake javits, ostensibly so he could move him out of the way and run against nixon. it was a nice surprise when patrick j. buchanan, future candidate, acknowledged to me and the world in his autobiography, or his book on nixon, that you can and wrote nells the knife, not william loeb. susan: interesting. joseph: it is extraordinary. susan: why would mr. loeb take something from a political operative? joseph: because he loved pat buchanan. in 1967 thatcided he was