Who better to kick
off our Primary Memories™
series than the publisher of arguably the most
influential newspaper in the presidential primary
process. We hope you enjoy the Primary Defenders print
and video interview with the one and only...
Joe McQuaid...
Matt
St. John: How do you think the primary has changed over the
years?
 McQuaid:
It has gotten more like what it proclaims to prevent,
which is the big money, top tier, name recognition
candidates. It has gotten that way. Some people say that
New Hampshire is now in a better position because of all
this front loading and people ganging up on us, so our
focus is... [more]
 Brittany
Card:
Historically, the Union Leader gets aggressively courted
by conservative contenders who are desperate for the
paper’s endorsement. How does this “courtship” usually
happen?
McQuaid: Flowers, candy,
anonymous love lines in the personal section of the
paper. “Hey you, Hey Big Guy....
[more]
 Josh
Elliott-Traficante:
Do you think the Union Leader influences the New
Hampshire Primary, and if so, how?
McQuaid: I think it influences the
Republican primary because we are viewed as a
conservative voice, probably the conservative
publication in the state...
[more]
 Brittany
Card:
Is the paper too conservative for the established media?
McQuaid: I don’t know how to answer that because our
views are our views and we are very straight forward
about them, but we are also very open to other views. I
don’t know if I said it on the radio show or not, but I
think we had the first blogs...
[more]
 Jill
Seitz:
Other states are moving their primaries forward, which
may alter the importance of New Hampshire’s First in the
Nation Status. How do you see this affecting New
Hampshire and the Union Leader?
McQuaid: Well, it would affect New
Hampshire more than the Union Leader. The primary comes
around I would like to say once every four years even
though it doesn’t seem so permanent, but that’s not our
main job. But New Hampshire, it might get pushed so far
as to lose its influence...
[more]
 Greg
Wallace:
The Union Leader is a state newspaper that has gained
national attention. How will you use this influence to
protect the First in the Nation Primary?
McQuaid: To try to be not as flip
as I am today when I get interviewed by national media
[laughter] trying to show the proper reverence for the
primary. I do believe strongly in the Primary...
[more]
Photography by Brian
Wozniack ~ Video by Jason Schachere
Matt St.
John:
How do you think the primary has changed over the years?
McQuaid:
It has gotten more like what it proclaims to prevent,
which is the big money, top tier, name recognition
candidates. It has gotten that way. Some people say that
New Hampshire is now in a better position because of all
this front loading and people ganging up on us, so our
focus is going to be on us more than it has been in the
past. Which may be true for the 24 hour news cycle
directly after our primary, but in this period before
the primary I don’t think it is cutting our way at all.
The candidates are not here nearly as much as they have
been in the past. Now that’s anecdotal. I haven’t and my
reporters haven’t totaled up the time that the
candidates have been on the ground here, but my sense
and perception is that they aren’t because they’ve got
to be in other places. Not only Iowa before us, but the
ones that are coming immediately afterwards. South
Carolina what the hell is that? Is that a state?
[laughter].
[Back to
Summary]
Brittany
Card:
Historically, the Union Leader gets aggressively courted
by conservative contenders who are desperate for the
paper’s endorsement. How does this “courtship” usually
happen?
McQuaid: Flowers, candy,
anonymous love lines in the personal section of the
paper. “Hey you, Hey Big Guy.” Well, they call up and
they want to do an editorial board. You guys know what
an editorial board meeting is? Well, some newspapers
write editorials by committee, which is why they’re so
boring. They take votes, and they’ll sit around a table
like this for hours on end. I don’t know how big a staff
they have, but they will discuss ‘what should we do on
this subject?’ And then they’ll assign one of the
editorial writers to write that particular editorial,
and before they make up their mind on a presidential
candidate they’ll have the editorial board, have the
candidate come in and he or she will expose his views
and then they’ll take a vote again. So, they call us up
and they say “We would like to meet with your editorial
board” and we say “We don’t have an editorial board.”
We’re almost apologetic about it. My editorial writer,
Drew Klein actually has a board in his office. Big
handle on the end. And he wrote editorial board on it.
We pretend we say well we don’t have an editorial board
but we’d love to have you come in and the managing
editor who’s a political nut and Drew Klein who writes
most of the editorials and I will sit with the candidate
and we’ll ask them a bunch of questions.
 Governor
Romney came in here a few weeks ago to meet the
editorial board, sat in that chair and we asked him
questions. I hadn’t really met him before and he
actually was the first one I ever heard, I think, who
said I’m formally asking for the Union Leader’s
endorsement. I said, "Wow cool.’ Put it in writing."
But, most they come in and they say they would
appreciate the newspapers help.
And you’re right, our
positive influence is on the conservative side and our
negative influence tends to be on the liberal side. We
tend to whack ‘em one.
So
things are good, things are going to change. Tommy
Thompson was in here a few weeks ago, Giuliani hasn’t
been in yet, which is kind of curious. John McCain has
not been in this time, but we know him pretty well from
the past ones, and I think they like to come in even
they don’t they’ve got a chance of winning the
endorsement because its more free media. You know it’s
another story for them and we’re pretty fair to them in
the news columns. About what they say. Bill Clinton was
in when he was running in 92. And Jimmy Carter was in
when he was running and I don’t think Muskie came in
then that year.
[Back to
Summary]
Josh
Elliott-Traficante:
do you think the Union Leader influences the New
Hampshire Primary, and if so, how?
McQuaid: I think it influences the Republican primary
because we are viewed as a conservative voice, probably
the conservative publication in the state, and have some
influence that way, and we have had that in state
elections too. But we’ve endorsed Democratic candidates
for president as well and I don’t think the people on
the Democratic side paid that much attention. But we
endorsed Bill Bradley against the climate man, right,
Gore because we just thought he was the more credible of
the two. We didn’t like a lot of his views, but we laid
that out.
[Back to
Summary]
Brittany
Card:
Is the paper too conservative for the established media?
McQuaid: I don’t know how to answer that because our
views are our views and we are very straight forward
about them, but we are also very open to other views. I
don’t know if I said it on the radio show or not, but I
think we had the first blogs. They’re called Letters to
the Editor. We get tons of them, but they are some of
the best reading in the paper. We’ll write some topic in
the paper today and the letters on the op-ed page
tomorrow are all about it. And half of them are “You
idiot” and the other half, “You’re right on.” They’re
great stuff. One letter after the 2006 general election
when the Democrats, won both houses as well as both
congressman in New Hampshire, the letter writer said,
“To the editor, I went to bed in New Hampshire and woke
up in Massachusetts.” It’s a great letter.
We run 3,000 letters a year. Loeb used to run 6,000 letters
a year. But he would run them from all over the country.
And we finally said ‘this is insane.’ Those people who
are writing those letters are from prisons in Alaska.
They are not buying the newspaper, so the hell with
them. We’ll take some from out-of-state. And because of
the website and because of our political notoriety, if
you will, we get a lot of readership around the country.
We have to be careful because the campaigns are all
aware of this very liberal policy for a conservative
paper so they have their people write letters to us. Now
I don’t mind it if it’s their own letter, but if they
write a form letter, at about the 412th time
we get one that says the same thing, we catch on and we
don’t run it.
[Back to
Summary]
Jill
Seitz:
Other states are moving their primaries forward, which
may alter the importance of New Hampshire’s First in the
Nation Status. How do you see this affecting New
Hampshire and the Union Leader?
McQuaid:
Well, it would affect New Hampshire more than the Union
Leader. The primary comes around I would like to say
once every four years even though it doesn’t seem so
permanent, but that’s not our main job. But New
Hampshire, it might get pushed so far as to lose its
influence. You know, the news media, the established
news media, are having a pretty tough time of their own
these days, in case you haven’t heard. Newspaper sales
and television ratings are not as good as they used to
be. And that’s in part because of the internet and in
part because there a lot of young people like you who
don’t care about the news media or what it does, unless
we do Anna Nicole Smith or that Sanjaya guy. And when
you lose market share, you don’t have as much money to
pay your staff to go around the country to cover all of
these crazy competing primaries. And I have good friends
who are on national political journals and they can’t
afford to keep running back and fourth to cover them
all. So if too many states try to come up too fast,
something is going to be lost and I hope it is not New
Hampshire. I think the news media are friendly and
comfortable with New Hampshire. You haven’t really seen,
I don’t think, much of the news media knocking New
Hampshire as being too small or too white or, you know,
too powerful. They think we’ve done a pretty good job.
We don’t necessarily pick the right candidate. But I
think we send the message about who you should not be
picking who you should not be looking at. It is like in
96 with Pat Buchanan. He didn’t win the nomination but
the people voted for him were saying pretty clearly the
Republican establishment. ‘Bob Dole? Are you nuts?’ And
they may say that this year about McCain for the same
reason. That he’s pretty shot and should not be anointed
just because he’s the best one.
[Back to
Summary]
Greg
Wallace:
The Union Leader is a state newspaper that has gained
national attention. How will you use this influence to
protect the First in the Nation Primary?
McQuaid: To try to be not as flip
as I am today when I get interviewed by national media
[laughter] trying to show the proper reverence for the
primary. I do believe strongly in the Primary. I think
it’s a good thing. We’ve done a pretty good job. The
people are very hospitable to the out-of-town candidates
and the news media. Those of you that went to that
dinner the other night heard that lady from the Chicago
newspaper saying how welcoming people were to her the
first time she came here. Which they shouldn’t have
been, because she was from the Boston Globe! [laughter]
But people are just nice up here, and they try to be
helpful because they are proud of the primary.
[Back to
Summary] |
