Kennedy's Footsteps in New Hampshire

Jack Sanders remembers Kennedy’s first campaign stop, at a restaurant in Manchester.

TAPE: the room was just jam packed...a couple of hundred press people...many people outside, it was a very excited crowd.

Sanders co-chaired Kennedy’s New Hampshire campaign for President in 1980.

But almost immediately, Sanders says all that momentum got sucked away.

TAPE: as it turned out, the Americans were taken hostage in Iran. That changed the dynamic considerably. All of a sudden people were rallying around the president.

New Hampshire became a real battleground for the two Democrats.

Pressure was on Kennedy to win in the state that neighbored his own.

But Nashua Telegraph newspaper reporter Kevin Landrigan says President Carter wasn’t going to let New Hampshire go easily.

TAPE:...we got this commuter rail line that came through Nashua from Boston...we had water and sewer projects...we had highway projects coming to the state, it was this almost blizzard of federal goodwill coming from the Kennedy challenge.

Landrigan says the primary divided Democrats.

Dudley Dudley, Kennedy’s other New Hampshire campaign co-chair remembers being with the Senator on election night.

TAPE: I remember seeing Kennedy seated, and looking at numbers on a screen and then standing beside him was his son Patrick, and I was standing behind both of them....I saw Kennedy realize what was happening and I saw him slump and I saw Patrick, this little boy of 11 or 12 just reach out and put his arm around him....it was a poignant moment. Kennedy’s don’t lose elections.

Dudley and others say Kennedy’s defeat in 1980 released him from the presidential aspirations he was expected to hold.

Basically the loss allowed him to focus on being a lawmaker more than a politician.

Republican Senator Judd Gregg says that’s the quality he really admires about his former colleague.

TAPE: there were two sides of Ted. There was the theatre side...I always used to make fun of him about it, but basically it was that exaggerated self that talked in great rhetorical flourish about his views...which were very liberal, but there was also the other side of him, which was ‘let’s get things done side.’

Gregg recalled getting things done on the educational bill No Child Left Behind in a little hideaway at the top of the capitol building with Kennedy and Kennedy’s dog Splash.

TAPE: and we’d sit there with Splash sitting between our legs, talking about how we were going to improve education.

Gregg isn’t the only New Hampshire Republican with fond memories of working with the liberal lion on policies.

TAPE: we were hung up on about five words for three months.

Former New Hampshire Governor John H. Sununu was also the chief of staff under the first President Bush.

Sununu says the two were trying to hammer out a deal on the 1991 Civil Rights bill.

TAPE: and frankly, on one occasion it did get quite heated....there was one occasion where he slammed on the table and kind of stood up and barked. And I guess I responded by slamming on the table and getting up and barking.

Sununu says what ultimately separated Kennedy from many of his colleagues was his commitment to learn about legislation, not just talk on the surface.

After Sununu’s son was elected to the Senate in 2002, Sununu told his son it would be worth his while to seek Kennedy out.

TAPE: he knew how to get legislation passed. He was influential. He understood New England, and frankly it’s the context of having someone on the other side of the aisle you feel comfortable talking to.

For NHPR News, I’m DG.