Feb 07, 2016 · ... How NewHampshireSavedthe 1992ClintonCampaign. ... Resurrection: How NewHampshireSavedthe 1992 ... Patricia McMahon NewHampshirecampaign co ...
Resurrection: How New Hampshire Saved the 1992 Clinton Campaign
Photo
Bill and Hillary Clinton in Nashua on Feb. 10, 1992, when they arrived in New Hampshire.
Credit
Cynthia Johnson/Liaison, via Getty Images
If Hillary Clinton loses the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, it will hurt far more than the usual political setback.
The
state has been hallowed ground for the Clintons since February 1992,
when Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, was at the lowest point of
his presidential campaign.
Gennifer Flowers, a former nightclub singer, had just held a news conference where she claimed they had a 12-year affair
and played tape recordings of their conversations. Questions were also
intensifying about Mr. Clinton’s Vietnam draft record after his former
R.O.T.C. recruiter, Col. Eugene Holmes, charged that Mr. Clinton was
“able to manipulate” avoiding the draft.
With Senator Tom Harkin
of Iowa conquering his state’s presidential caucuses, the Clintons
decided that New Hampshire would be make-or-break for his candidacy. On
Feb. 10, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton flew there to make a stand until the Feb.
18 primary.
This is the story of those eight days and why New
Hampshire has come to matter so much – emotionally, psychically and
politically – to Hillary Clinton, as told to me recently by the people who were there for the most improbable of political comebacks.
Part One
Things Get Worse
Monday, Feb. 10
James Carville Clinton senior strategist
Our polling had really tanked. We had fallen 20 points in New Hampshire in a matter of days.
Paul Begala Clinton senior strategist
We were in meltdown.
Terry Shumaker New Hampshire co-chairman
After
Gennifer Flowers and the draft issue, we weren’t thinking about winning
the nomination. We were thinking about surviving. First or second place
in New Hampshire was survival.
Carville
We knew we had to have a perfect eight days.
Begala
Our plane lands, and at the terminal is ABC News. They have a letter from a young Bill Clinton to Colonel Holmes.
It said, “Thank you for saving me from the draft.” My knees buckled.
But it was so well written, so emotional. Hillary immediately said:
“This letter is you, Bill. It’s all you. I wish everyone could read it.”
Shumaker
I actually had a
really close friend tell me that he was not going to support Bill
Clinton in the primary until he read the draft letter. My friend could
see the conflict that Clinton had about the war. It just rang true to my
friend, and he said, “Well, this is an authentic guy.”
Begala
It
was an anguished cri de coeur from a guy who was speaking for his whole
generation. He laid out how torn he was — opposing the war, his
misgivings about the draft, but also how much he loved his country.
Carville
I
thought, “This letter is our friend.” The media was going to make this
into a big story. But we wanted to take out a full-page ad in newspapers
and run it. The idea was that if we printed it, people might think,
“Maybe it’s not that bad.”
Begala
ABC
asked us to wait until they ran their story. So we went ahead with our
events. Clinton started giving a speech we called the “fight like hell”
speech. That title came from Hillary. She said, “I know what we’re going
to do – we’re going to fight like hell.”
Mandy Grunwald Clinton advertising director
Hillary
was always ready to do battle. She wasn’t going to let her husband’s
message be defined by this kind of stuff. And she knew Paul Tsongas was
competition in New Hampshire. Bob Kerrey was competition.
Bob Kerrey Former Nebraska senator and 1992 presidential candidate
I
knew you were not likely to survive as a presidential candidate if
you’re third or fourth place coming out of New Hampshire. Tsongas first
in the polls, Clinton second, me third.
Grunwald
We thought Kerrey would attack Clinton on the draft, because Kerrey was a Vietnam war hero.
Kerrey
My
campaign guys were saying: “You got to go after Clinton on the draft.
There’s a lot of veterans up here.” But it just didn’t seem to me like a
good thing to do. A lot of people hadn’t wanted to go to Vietnam. I
didn’t want to go to Vietnam.
Begala
The other candidates didn’t push the draft. But the media kept asking about Vietnam at our press conferences. Tuesday, Feb. 11
Shumaker
The
other state co-chairs and I got a call saying Governor Clinton wanted
to meet with us at headquarters. We went into a small room. Governor
Clinton asked his national staff not to be there. He closed the door and
said, “This isn’t going very well, is it?” And that was like the
understatement of the year. And he said, “I’ve gotten tons of advice.
You guys know the state. What do you think I should do?” We hadn’t been
asked that before. National staff usually treats state staff like
furniture.
George Maglaras New Hampshire co-chairman and former mayor of Dover
I
told the governor that the election wasn’t about him. It was about real
people. He had to change the focus of the media right now. We’d lost a
lot of jobs in our state. I thought once people met Bill Clinton and
heard him and touched him, the force of his personality would turn
things around. But people had to see him talking about things that
mattered to us.
Shumaker
Stop
doing press conferences. Stop talking to the media. And Clinton had this
startled look, kind of like, “But isn’t that what you’re supposed to
do?” And one person said: “Go to the mall and shake hands. Just get out
to places and see as many people as you can.”
Maglaras
Senator
Tsongas’s and Senator Kerrey’s campaigns had been contacting me and
saying: “Clinton is a losing proposition. You really need to jump to our
campaign. We’ll help you.” And we could have sunk him, if five or six
co-chairs had just walked away from the campaign. But that night he told
us he would do what needed to be done.
Carville
We
still had to get the Colonel Holmes letter out. Clinton wasn’t sure if
the letter was really going to be his friend. I was probably internally a
little scared, but I didn’t want to show him that I was scared.
Shumaker
We’d just had this discussion about no more press conferences! But we had to do this one on the letter. Mr. Clinton discussed his 1969 draft letter in Manchester, N.H., on Feb. 12. Edward Keating/The New York TimesWednesday, Feb. 12
Dee Dee Myers Clinton campaign press secretary
I didn’t think for a second that a press conference
would allow us to put the draft behind us as a political issue. But the
only question that really mattered, for the next six days, was whether
voters would give him enough of a reprieve that they would be open to
hearing about anything else. So we went from the edge of the abyss back
into the abyss with the letter. We took our best shot, we put him out
there, answered the questions, and then you march on.
Carville
The
reporters thought the letter was going to hurt us. But what really
mattered was what the papers in Concord and the state wrote, what gets
on television. We had local press writing about the economy and national
reporters writing about this other stuff.
Begala
Ted Koppel wanted us to go on “Nightline” that Wednesday night to talk about the letter.
Myers
We
started prepping Governor Clinton for “Nightline.” In typical Clinton
fashion, there were too many voices in the room. Hillary was a little
annoyed with us. She was like, just leave him with one voice in his
head. Hillary wanted James’s voice. She always trusted him.
Carville
Hillary
was an ally of mine. I was the most hawkish in the group. You know,
aggressively pushing back. And just being more aggressive was sort of
her approach.
Myers
You see it
less in Hillary now, but in the spouse role, her attitude was always a
little bit more like, you know, “We’re mad as hell, we’re not going to
take this anymore.”
Begala
Koppel wanted Clinton to read the letter on TV. Clinton refused, so with Clinton sitting here, Ted read it.
Grunwald
The
governor also hit back at Ted with a line I gave him: “All I’ve been
asked about by the press is a woman I didn’t sleep with and a draft I
didn’t dodge.”
Myers
“Nightline” went well, but something even bigger happened Wednesday night.
George Maglaras, a former mayor of Dover, N.H., outside the Elks Lodge where Mr. Clinton gave his “Last Dog Dies” speech. Hilary Swift for The New York Times
Maglaras
We
wanted to have another event in Dover. His campaigning had gone very
well here. So we organized an event at the Elks Club for Wednesday
night, about 350 people there. A lot of state representatives, city
councilmen, local political folks, regular voters. Right before, Clinton
says, “How are we doing?” And I say, “You got to talk about the
economy, you got to talk about the middle class.” And I said: “I’m only
asking you for one thing. If we support you, you need to come back. Just
come back.” Because President Bush flew into New Hampshire all the time
to go to Kennebunkport, but he never came here. And the governor goes:
“I got you. I get it.” And then he took the stage.
Myers
Clinton
was exhausted. But as long as I live, there will never be a political
event that could come anywhere near that one in Dover.
Maglaras
He talked about what he wanted to do for America. He asked us to give him a second chance. And then he said, “I’ll never forget those of you that gave me a second chance, and if you give me that second chance, I’ll be with you till the last dog dies.”
Myers
The
place was full of union guys who were skeptical: Who is this guy? A
draft dodger, a womanizer? But then Clinton talked about their lives and
said, “I’ll be with you till the last dog dies.” It was just the most
powerful thing. But it wasn’t just how the crowd responded. It was about
his absolute refusal to quit.
Photo
Mr. Clinton met with high school students in Keene, N.H., on Feb. 11.
Credit
Toby Talbot/Associated Press
Part Two
Shake Every Hand
Thursday, Feb. 13
Grunwald
Poll numbers showed the distance between us and Kerrey was closer than the distance between us and Tsongas. Not great.
Shumaker
The governor was working on three hours of sleep at that point.
David Matthews Arkansas friend
Those
last days were tough for them, especially for Hillary. A bunch of us
had come north to tell voters what Bill Clinton was really like, and to
be with Bill and Hillary. She was still learning how to be a national
candidate type.
Carville
Hillary was pretty focused, pretty determined.
Matthews
Bill
and Hillary went to the New Hampshire legislature, where Bill was
speaking. The press was there, still hounding him, wondering if he’s
going to get out of the race. Just blood in the water. There’s this
throng of people as we leave the State Capitol. Bill’s got one of
Hillary’s arms, and I’ve got the other, and we’re trying to work our way
through these people without getting hurt. It was kind of scary. One
campaign volunteer got knocked over a fire hydrant and had to have
surgery later. But we get through it and up to a hotel room. Bill leaves
to give another speech, and Hillary has got her shoes off and her feet
up, just kind of resting. And she looked at me and said, “You know,
David, if I didn’t really believe we could change the world, it would
not be worth this.”
Carville
The strategy really was, be everywhere. Shake every hand.
Grunwald
We
all had confidence that if people could just see Bill Clinton and hear
him, they’d be for him. It was very hard with the media covering all
this junk. So we said, “Let’s create our own shows.” So we bought 30
minutes of television time on Thursday and Friday night and had these
televised town halls.
Begala
We
allowed the University of New Hampshire’s political science department
to select the audience with the request that they focus on Democratic
and independent voters who would likely participate in the primary. They
asked about everything: jobs, the economy, why the commuter train no
longer stopped in Portsmouth. But they never asked about the scandals. Those voters were hurting.
Shumaker
He
was talking to real people, and people got to see he was a man of great
substance and great compassion. We got great feedback on those town
halls. Then he started doing the same things at malls. He would just go
in and shake hands with customers and shoppers. This was before they
prohibited campaigning there. At one mall, he and Hillary stood outside a
McDonald’s shaking hands for hours. People would come up and say:
“Governor, you seem like a good guy to us. We like your ideas. Hang in
there. Don’t let them run you out of the race.”
Maglaras
New
Hampshire is a small state, O.K.? There’s an effect here when people
see somebody demonstrating his sheer will to make life better.
Myers
I
think Hillary bucked him up a lot. Their attitude was, this whole
campaign is either going to live or die in these last days, and when the
chips are down, we fight on. She had her own busy schedule of events,
too. The Weekend, Feb. 14-16
Patricia McMahon New Hampshire campaign co-chairwoman
On
Friday evening I was with Hillary in a hotel lobby for one event, and
people came up to her with a mailer. It said that Bill Clinton and Bob
Kerrey were not pro-choice and why. Hillary’s eyes went wide, and she
said: “Look at this. This just is not true. We need to do something
about this.” I explained that since it was a Friday, and Monday was
Presidents’ Day, and Tuesday was the primary, there wasn’t time to get a
mailer out to reach people. And Hillary said: “Well, what can we do?
Will you think about it?” And we came up with a plan for her to speak at
a big women’s event that weekend where she could talk about Bill
Clinton being pro-choice.
Matthews
Hillary
didn’t take attacks lightly or suffer a fool gladly. When she pushed
back, she could just intimidate the fire out of you. At
left, Terry Shumaker, a New Hampshire co-chairman of Mr. Clinton’s 1992
campaign. At right, Patricia McMahon, a co-chairwoman of the New
Hampshire campaign. Richard Perry/The New York Times
Grunwald
That final Democratic debate
was Sunday night. We saw it as another opportunity to talk directly to
people. But we were nervous about it. I think we all thought Kerrey
would bring up the draft.
Kerrey
I had no plans to talk about Vietnam.
Myers
Tsongas was still ahead,
but we didn’t think he would do that well in Southern states. Kerrey
was the one who felt like the antithesis to Clinton in some ways — the
quirky truth-teller, had not only served in the war but lost a leg and
was decorated.
Grunwald
We
were wary there would be a draft question or a Gennifer Flowers question
or, you know, a Slick Willie question or something like that. The whole
week was trying to wrest control of the dialogue away from the scandal
and put the focus to get it back to the people. And, of course, what
Bill Clinton did so brilliantly, in that debate, was to say: “This is
about you – it’s not about me. The hits I’ve taken are nothing like the
hits you’re taking right now.”
Maglaras
He stuck to the economy. Helping the middle class. His middle-class tax cut. The personal issues didn’t really come up.
Kerrey
Clinton
was just very good at telling the audience what it wanted to hear —
very good at it. And he still is. I don’t mean that in a negative way.
It’s just that, well, I think Tsongas actually tried to tell people what
they needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear. But he maybe was a
little bit too grumpy in the process of delivering the message. People
were complimentary to me afterward, but it wasn’t a total game-changer.
Grunwald
The
polls still worried us. They had Clinton in second place — 15 points,
16 points behind Tsongas. Our own poll numbers were similar.
McMahon
The
vote difference between Tsongas and Clinton was going to be important.
We were working with Democrats in Georgia, which was our next big
opportunity to win a primary, and they said: “If Clinton can get within
10 points of whoever wins in New Hampshire, that’s good enough. We can
work with that down in Georgia.” So we needed to get within 10 points.
Photo
Mr. Clinton in Manchester on Feb. 18, on his way to a polling station.
Credit
Stephan Savoia/Associated Press
Part Three
The Comeback Kid
Monday, Feb. 17
Shumaker
On
the night before the primary, we did a rally at Hesser College in
Manchester. It was jam-packed. The crowd was excited. But we went to the
backstage area afterward, and everybody was dead tired, except the
governor. Hillary looked at me and said: “I’m going back to the hotel,
and I’m going to bed. Do something with him. I don’t want him pacing
around the room all night.” So I looked at our Manchester staff guy and
said: “Where the hell are we going to go? It’s 10:30 at night.”
Carville
The governor really does feed off of these crowds. It’s not a myth. He didn’t want to stop. But I went back to the hotel, too.
Shumaker
We
figured out that the Puritan Backroom would still be serving food. He
talked to every person in the place, including this guy wearing this
butter-plate-sized Tsongas button. Then he talks to the owner and asks
if he can go in the kitchen and talk to people back there. While he’s
doing that, the owner says he’s had every single major candidate here
during this race, including President Bush, and the governor is the only
one who has asked to go in the kitchen. When we were done, he
remembered he’d been bowling, and said, “Do you think that bowling alley
is still open?” So we went there.
McMahon
He
got to bed late and then was up early and just all over the place.
Polls opened around 7, and he wanted to get out there and shake hands. Primary Day, Feb. 18
Myers
There
was some concern — not huge, just in a low-grade-fever kind of way —
that if the New Hampshire result was so muddled, there was an opening
for somebody else to get in. Mario Cuomo maybe. And the press loves that
— there’s nothing better to the press than a “brokered convention”
story or any iteration thereof. We all knew that if somebody did come in
late, they would instantly get tremendous amounts of attention and be
taken very seriously and could upend the race. So the governor was
chasing after every last vote.
Kerrey
I
went to a polling place to shake hands, too. And this dog comes up and
I’m scratching behind his ear, and he took a leak right at my feet. Man,
this says it all. I just didn’t understand what you had to do to win,
to get the nomination. It came from not having deep experience in the
party, not going to Iowa, not learning things that I should have
learned. But you know, Clinton was a phenomenal candidate.
Myers
It
was a long day. At one point Hillary and others started talking about
going to the movies. It was like: “Can we do that? What signal would
that send? Would that be weird? Would that look like we’re disengaged?”
But otherwise you’re sitting around twiddling your thumbs, waiting for
exit poll information that’s not going to come quickly. Eventually the
decision was made, no movie. The Clintons at his election night party on Feb. 18 in Merrimack, N.H. Ron Frehm/Associated Press
Shumaker
The
primary night party was at the Merrimack Inn. It was a pretty chaotic
scene. It was very hard to get exit polls and election returns in those
days: no Internet, no mass media.
Carville
We
needed to get 20 percent of the vote. Honestly, if we got anything
below 20, it would be horrible. And we didn’t know if we could get
there.
Maglaras
The governor
turned to me saying, “Do you think we’ll carry Dover?” And I said, “I
don’t know.” I thought the further away you got from Massachusetts —
where Tsongas was from — the better off you’re going to be. Tsongas was a
neighbor, and neighbors do well here, you know.
Shumaker
We were all on edge. Anybody that tells you they weren’t on edge is lying.
Maglaras
I
had somebody call me from Dover with numbers. The governor came in
second there. We brought the numbers in, and they added it to this big
board they had. We were tickled pink, because a lot of us thought he was
going to come in fourth or fifth. But as the numbers kept coming in it
was clear the governor was going to be a strong second.
Begala
We
vastly outperformed expectations — and our own polling. We were
jubilant. I was working on the speech with Mandy Grunwald and Bob
Boorstin.
Grunwald
We were
all finishing each other’s sentences. Paul said something like, “I’m the
comeback kid.” And I was like: “No, no, no, no, no. Like, we have to
give it to New Hampshire. It’s got to be, ‘Tonight, New Hampshire has
made me the Comeback Kid.’”
Begala
I’m
a sports fan; I guess that’s where the phrase came from. I like boxing.
I probably think a lot about boxing. And “Rocky.” Still one of the
great movies ever. But the central purpose of the speech was that his
struggle was nothing compared to the struggles people have been through.
McMahon
We knew Tsongas was
going to win, but we also knew that it was going to be within that magic
10 points or nine points or whatever. So Joe Grandmaison, the former
state party chairman, said we should go on early and claim victory. Like
at 8 p.m. Which was kind of unheard-of.
Begala
Back
in 1972, the press declared George McGovern the de facto winner of New
Hampshire because he’d held Ed Muskie of neighboring Maine below 50
percent. Well, we’d held neighboring senator Paul Tsongas below 35 — he
got 33 percent — while we’d exceeded our own poll, which projected
single digits, garnering 25 percent.
Myers
There
was some conversation about whether to acknowledge Tsongas or just
declare victory. We landed on just declaring victory. Hillary had no
love for Tsongas. No one did. And since a winner hadn’t officially been
declared, our view was, let’s set the story narrative now — the Comeback Kid — and we can call Tsongas later once he’s the winner.
Carville
I
had left to go to Atlanta. We had a huge rally with our
African-American supporters the next day. We didn’t have cellphones
then, so I had to get to the hotel to hear it all on TV. I was so happy.
Kerrey
They did it. New
Hampshire changed everything for the Clintons. But it wasn’t Bill
Clinton who saved himself. It was really Hillary that saved him. Jesus,
they had Clinton on a telephone recording with Gennifer Flowers. But
Hillary fought for him day after day. The Clintons knew what they wanted
to do. They knew it was important. They were willing to make the
effort. And Hillary — she just doesn’t give up.
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