Perhaps the most prolific controversy came in late November 1973 when Thomson announced that he would support Aristotle Onassis's effort to build an oil refinery in Durham. The town's residents signaled their disapproval of the project by voting 1254-144 against the project at their annual town meeting. Thomson was not deterred by this setback and attempted to bypass the local residents by working with his allies in the legislature to introduce a bill that would allow the state to authorize its construction without the approval of the town's planning board. The bill, which was considered in a March special session, was also defeated. This struggle was profiled on New Hampshire Public Radio's The Exchange last year and can be heard here. It was also profiled in the book, "Small Town, Big Oil," which focuses on the role of local activists in the proposal's ultimate defeat.
Thomson also spent his first term embroiled in other battles against what could be described as liberal causes. In 1973, Thomson vetoed the acceptance of federal funds for legal aid for indigent clients, only to be overruled by the federal government and the funds distributed anyway. He was not deterred by this snub and decided to attempt to exercise a little known provision in the federal VISTA program to weaken New Hampshire Legal Assistance, the state's legal aid program, by stripping them of their VISTA workers. He couched his opposition largely in the fact that NHLA would file lawsuits against state agencies on behalf of indigent clients and his belief that this was an inappropriate use of tax dollars, a position that was in lockstep with what Governor Ronald Reagan was doing in California at the time (and I profiled here). NHLA's director George Bruno warned the loss of the VISTA workers forced NHLA to close their Lebanon, Portsmouth, and Belknap County offices. In Belknap County and Lebanon, this meant that the indigent poor in those rural pockets of New Hampshire would now be without a place to seek legal help.
Thomson's position was criticized by members of his own party, including New Hampshire State Senate President David Nixon who told the Boston Globe, "[t]he governor has an obvious distrust or distaste for effective representation of the have-nots of this state ... it's a damn shame." Within a couple of weeks announcing that he was stripping the workers from NHLA, Thomson reversed course. Bruno speculated to the Globe that the federal government had once again overruled Thomson and he decided to save face by making it look like this reversal was his own doing.
He also chose fights that could be best described as bizarre. He also entered 1974 in a battle with the Gay Students Organization at the University of New Hampshire. Thomson had tried to ban the group's existence on campus by threatening to withhold state funding if the university recognized them. The federal courts however would rule that the group could not be blocked and that LGBT students had the same rights to assemble and organize as other students on campus. In 1970s politics, this was a minor political loss for Thomson but it was symbolic of his tendency to insert himself into controversies.
Given his polarizing numbers and tendency of finding controversy, it should perhaps come as no surprise that Thomson would find himself in a tough re-election fight. On May 1, the aforementioned David Nixon announced that he was entering into a primary fight against the incumbent governor. He was immediately welcomed into the race by Republican voters and it looked possible that he would be able to defeat the sitting governor in the November primary. A June New Hampshire Public Television poll found that Nixon was leading Thomson, 49-38. However, a poll done by the pro-Thomson Union Leader found that Thomson was leading. Nixon accepted his role as an underdog and set out on a tour of the state to introduce himself to voters.
As the summer wore on, the two frequently found themselves on opposite sides of different political controversies. When the Concord Monitor called out irregularities in Thomson's 1972 campaign filings, Nixon called for the governor to provide clarification and accused him of using his campaign to establish a slush fund. When Thomson released his tax returns, Nixon refused to do so. When teachers in the Timberlane School District in Plaistow went on strike, voters were reminded of the fact that Nixon had supported a 1973 collective bargaining bill for public employees, which the governor had vetoed. Nixon even attempted to set himself apart from Thomson on the question of supporting President Richard Nixon, who resigned in August and was deeply unpopular with New Hampshire voters. Thomson had been a long time supporter for President Nixon, a position not shared by David Nixon. Nixon also had the support of former Governor Walter Peterson, though he avoided casting himself as a liberal Republican, preferring to instead position himself as a moderate with conservative leanings. He hoped to not only win Peterson voters but also conservatives who might have been disenchanted with Thomson's governing style.
In contrast with previous elections, the tax issue was rarely actually raised on the campaign trail in the Republican primary. This is perhaps no surprise, given the low numbers for any kind of broad based taxes. In a March 1974 Boston Globe poll, only 26% of Granite Staters supported any kind of broad based taxation. William Loeb did attempt to use the tax issue as a point of distinction in his Union Leader by noting that Nixon had voted for an income tax as a freshman legislator in 1969.
In the Republican primary, Thomson won a narrow victory over Nixon, whose political map largely resembled Peterson's four years prior. Thomson won with 54.7% of the vote, hardly commanding and indicative of his still polarizing status within the party.
On the Democratic side, Richard Leonard, a former state senator from Nashua, Hugh Gallen, a state representative from Littleton, and Harry Spanos, the State Senate Vice President from Newport, faced off for their party's nomination. DuPris ultimately decided to not enter the race. Leonard ran as a fiscal conservative, pledging to fight against new taxes and promising to veto an income and sales tax. Gallen and Spanos positioned themselves as liberals, a move that threatened to split the liberal vote in the primary and benefit Leonard. Spanos was also a target of the Union Leader, who bestowed the nickname "Midnight Harry" upon him. Spanos and his supporters attempted to dull the effect of this nickname by embracing it in their own campaign literature. Gallen supporters noted that the Union Leader's attacks on Spanos may even boost his campaign among liberals, who might be persuaded to vote for him as a knee-jerk reaction to the newspaper. In the primary, Leonard won a narrow victory over his two rivals, garnering only 36.6% of the vote compared to 31.2% for Spanos and 28.9% for Gallen. While the liberal wing of the party had won the majority support in the primary, the standard bearer for the Democratic Party would once again come from its conservative wing.
As New Hampshire voters prepared for the general election, they found themselves in a similar predicament as 1972. The nominees from both major parties represented the conservative wings of their parties. However, Thomson proved to be enough of a boogeyman that no third party candidates emerged. Leonard attempted to create unity in his own party by appointing his primary opponents as co-chairs of his campaign. They unified around a central message, that Thomson was abusing his executive power and had to be defeated. To illustrate this point, Leonard used the Onassis oil refinery and Gay Student Organization battles. At a candidate forum in October in Claremont, Leonard painted this picture by stating, "the biggest difference between myself and Mel Thomson is I like to listen to people. I do not believe in one-man rule." However, early indications were that Leonard was having a hard time garnering traction with the electorate. An October Boston Globe poll gave Thomson a 52%-32% lead over Leonard, with 43% respondents indicating that they knew very little about or had never even heard of him. New Hampshire Democrats disputed the results of the poll and said that it overestimated Republican strength. To counter the Boston Globe poll, the Democrats released their own poll, which found Thomson leading 49%-41%. Even by the Democratic Party's own measure, Leonard was still an underdog.
Election Day 1974 was, by any measure, an interesting day in New Hampshire. In the governor's race, Thomson won a narrower than expected win over Leonard. The final margin was approximately 4,000 votes, which gave us a 51-49 race. Contemporary media accounts attributed Leonard's better than expected performance to fall out from the Watergate controversy that had hurt Republicans across the country. Perhaps the biggest contributor to Thomson's win was the fact that he carried Manchester, a Democratic stronghold that had only once before voted for a Republican. As you will see in future pieces, Manchester's shift to the Republican Party was not a one time occurrence.
The shift in Manchester's politics could at least partially be attributed to William Loeb's vigorous support for Thomson in the Manchester Union Leader. Loeb and Thomson enjoyed a close relationship, dating to his Loeb's early support for Thomson in 1968. After all, Thomson had built his anti-tax conservative brand through the Union Leader and after his election, the newspaper continued in its role of enhancing Thomson's brand. According to a October 1974 report, Thomson and Loeb spoke on the phone at least 256 times during the preceding 18 months, often before big decisions were made by the governor. The governor dismissed claims that Loeb was influencing his decisions by saying that he often phoned Loeb to inform him of how to report a story and to tell him which portions of a decision to emphasize. For the governor to be able to influence his own coverage in the state's largest newspaper means that he can also shape the perception of voters, contributing to his own popularity. It also means that he can control the media spin on his own decisions, an important attribute when your decisions tend to create controversy. During Thomson's time as governor, the Union Leader essentially functioned as his PR arm, allowing him a public venue to spin his decisions and minimize public fallout. Regardless of whether or not Loeb was influencing the governor's decisions, he was certainly influencing the perception of those decisions.
Despite the controversies of his first term and the anti-Republican wave on the national level, Thomson narrowly won re-election. This was a major win for Thomson and his political allies since it cemented their hold on state politics and served as a mandate for their vision of the state's future. How would this play out in Thomson's 2nd term and could they hold the state in 1976? Join me in two weeks as I explore this question. Due to a pre-existing engagement, there will be no Lone Pine Policy next week.
(If anyone is curious about the Senate race in 1974, I wrote about that here. In that race, the Democrat John Durkin virtually tied Republican Louis Wyman, forcing a revote the next fall.)
As New Hampshire voters prepared for the general election, they found themselves in a similar predicament as 1972. The nominees from both major parties represented the conservative wings of their parties. However, Thomson proved to be enough of a boogeyman that no third party candidates emerged. Leonard attempted to create unity in his own party by appointing his primary opponents as co-chairs of his campaign. They unified around a central message, that Thomson was abusing his executive power and had to be defeated. To illustrate this point, Leonard used the Onassis oil refinery and Gay Student Organization battles. At a candidate forum in October in Claremont, Leonard painted this picture by stating, "the biggest difference between myself and Mel Thomson is I like to listen to people. I do not believe in one-man rule." However, early indications were that Leonard was having a hard time garnering traction with the electorate. An October Boston Globe poll gave Thomson a 52%-32% lead over Leonard, with 43% respondents indicating that they knew very little about or had never even heard of him. New Hampshire Democrats disputed the results of the poll and said that it overestimated Republican strength. To counter the Boston Globe poll, the Democrats released their own poll, which found Thomson leading 49%-41%. Even by the Democratic Party's own measure, Leonard was still an underdog.
Election Day 1974 was, by any measure, an interesting day in New Hampshire. In the governor's race, Thomson won a narrower than expected win over Leonard. The final margin was approximately 4,000 votes, which gave us a 51-49 race. Contemporary media accounts attributed Leonard's better than expected performance to fall out from the Watergate controversy that had hurt Republicans across the country. Perhaps the biggest contributor to Thomson's win was the fact that he carried Manchester, a Democratic stronghold that had only once before voted for a Republican. As you will see in future pieces, Manchester's shift to the Republican Party was not a one time occurrence.
The shift in Manchester's politics could at least partially be attributed to William Loeb's vigorous support for Thomson in the Manchester Union Leader. Loeb and Thomson enjoyed a close relationship, dating to his Loeb's early support for Thomson in 1968. After all, Thomson had built his anti-tax conservative brand through the Union Leader and after his election, the newspaper continued in its role of enhancing Thomson's brand. According to a October 1974 report, Thomson and Loeb spoke on the phone at least 256 times during the preceding 18 months, often before big decisions were made by the governor. The governor dismissed claims that Loeb was influencing his decisions by saying that he often phoned Loeb to inform him of how to report a story and to tell him which portions of a decision to emphasize. For the governor to be able to influence his own coverage in the state's largest newspaper means that he can also shape the perception of voters, contributing to his own popularity. It also means that he can control the media spin on his own decisions, an important attribute when your decisions tend to create controversy. During Thomson's time as governor, the Union Leader essentially functioned as his PR arm, allowing him a public venue to spin his decisions and minimize public fallout. Regardless of whether or not Loeb was influencing the governor's decisions, he was certainly influencing the perception of those decisions.
Despite the controversies of his first term and the anti-Republican wave on the national level, Thomson narrowly won re-election. This was a major win for Thomson and his political allies since it cemented their hold on state politics and served as a mandate for their vision of the state's future. How would this play out in Thomson's 2nd term and could they hold the state in 1976? Join me in two weeks as I explore this question. Due to a pre-existing engagement, there will be no Lone Pine Policy next week.
(If anyone is curious about the Senate race in 1974, I wrote about that here. In that race, the Democrat John Durkin virtually tied Republican Louis Wyman, forcing a revote the next fall.)
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