Gardner defends reason for NH first primary

by Krysta Lewis

Presidency and The Press

 

New Hampshire’s Secretary of State, Bill Gardener, shares the history of why his state is the first stop of the primary.

 

Serving for the state since 1976 Gardener has experienced many problems with people questioning why New Hampshire gets the spotlight for the primary.  When he first started in his current profession he was empowered with the task to create the date for New Hampshire’s primary, but there were some prerequisites which included it had to be before the second Tuesday in March.

 

Going back to the 1920’s New Hampshire was named first in the nation for the primary by fault. As politics progressed in 1975 congress passed a bill that separated the primary from the town meeting day. “This allowed the candidates to meet with more people instead of trying to rush from state to state,” stated Gardener.

 

Multiple states tried to receive power by trying to pass a bill to allow other states to have a primary on the same day but those bills were quickly vetoed without question.

 

New Hampshire has a history with going first, which has benefitted two main things which include, more of Massachusetts’s citizens voting because of the hype New Hampshire created. Second, it has created revenue because of all the tourism from people visiting the state for the premier of the primary.

 

Gardner brought in an article from Time magazine back from March 22, 1968, which stated:

 

“In a single week, the entire political context of 1968 changed almost beyond recognition. Out of New Hampshire’s frozen farmlands and bucolic hamlets emerged a new equation for the Democratic Party; what had once been a cakewalk was now a slashing dogfight. From the nation’s first primary and its aftermath in Washington also came some new and vigorously stated perspectives on the major issues confronting the country.
Only days before, the Republicans had seemed to be the chosen victims of an internecine bloodletting; the Democrats, with an incumbent President, appeared to be headed for snug harbor. New Hampshire, with a relished penchant for turning thing topsy-turvy, turned them over once again. When the results were in, the G.O.P. has a clear front-runner in Richard Nixon and a long-shot challenger I Nelson Rockefeller. The Democrats, by contrast, had on their hands the most dramatic- and potentially explosive- political situation in decades.”

 

That article clearly expressed that New Hampshire really took a turn in politics and created a lot of publicity because of it being the first primary.

 

During this upcoming election, it will be the one-hundredth anniversary of New Hampshire’s primary.