GUEST

The surprising strength of William Gardner

John Tabor
John Tabor

This past week, the showdown between Bill Gardner, the 70-year-old New Hampshire institution, and Colin Van Ostern, the young insurgent, shocked everyone.

Van Ostern, who lost his gubernatorial bid in 2016, raised more than $230,000, hired two full-time staffers and campaigned for nine months to replace Gardner as secretary of state. The object of his affection was the Legislature, which chooses the secretary of state in joint session every biennium.

Wednesday’s gathering was a momentous transition: Democrats had won control of the House 233-167 and the Senate 14-10. It seemed a sure thing that Van Ostern would be swept into office with them. The House chamber was packed as members of the third largest legislative body in the English-speaking world gathered from Hampton to Hart’s Location. The mood was buoyant as members were sworn in. Then the senators filed in for the joint session. There was the moving pageant of our Legislature, where voters can virtually all send a neighbor from around the corner to represent them, and where personal relationships are the dominant force.

In the press gallery, they were busy writing Gardner’s obituary. His 42 years of public service would be swept away. He had lost a Democratic caucus vote 179-23; the blue wave was seated and ready to vote. Van Ostern and his paid staff, his PAC, his $20,000 online organizing consultant and his white papers on how to modernize the office would prevail. It was time for new leadership, his supporters said.

Respectfully, but aggressively, his supporters made the case that Gardner was losing his grip. He had issued confusing directives about local elections in snowstorms. He participated in Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s abortive voter fraud commission, itself a response to President Trump’s 2016 whopper of a lie that fraudulent voters were “bused into New Hampshire by the thousands.” Twenty-year-old voting machines were breaking down, websites were outdated, financial controls were weak.

But one by one more senior members stood by Gardner. For 42 years, he had risen above partisanship. He forged a reputation for independence and honesty. He fought to keep our First in the Nation primary. The proof was in the results – high turnout, elections that were quick, clean, fair and transparent, with paper ballot trails, impartial decisions about recounts, one-day turnarounds for business incorporations, and an attitude of service to the public ingrained by the leader.

In a first ballot, Gardner led 208-207, but needed 209 to win. In a second and dramatic vote, he won 209-205.

Gardner is a soft spoken, scholarly man, a raconteur, but a quiet fighter. He told a story at the newspaper last week that crystallizes his independence. In the 1990s, Democrats (and Gardner is a Democrat) wanted to move the date of the primary to balance opportunities in Iowa. Gardner was called into Gov. Jeanne Shaheen’s office. He was surrounded by the governor, state party chair and national party chair, who pushed him hard. But, he told them he would stick with his date as the law allowed him to do, regardless of outside factors.

Many wondered if Van Ostern, the recipient of large gifts to his PAC from Democratic donors (including at least $10,000 from Martha Fuller Clark and her husband) would show anything like that independence. The legislators did too.

Gardner explained to us last week his knowledge of his constitutional prerogatives. I had a sense of a man with an indelible spirit of public service. He defended his role on the Kobach election commission. “I felt we needed to represent New Hampshire,” he said, and take on the Trumpian voter-fraud fairy tales within the commission rather than boycott it. He confronted Kobach and told him “there was no voter fraud.” Due to the respect he held with other secretaries of state, others then spoke up, like Matthew Dunlap of Maine. Dunlap filed in court to get working papers that showed Kobach had a pre-determined outcome in mind and the whole thing was a sham. Hearing his defense, I felt Gardner put his credibility on the line in the New Hampshire way – face to face, resorting to facts, debating the issues in open session before his colleagues. The results are telling. After the Gardner-Kobach confrontation, the commission dissolved.

In the end, Wednesday’s vote came down to respect and friendships earned and kept. That probably was the missing ingredient for Van Ostern. In our Statehouse, one’s character is measured over time. We are a small state where words and deeds are reckoned and remembered. Van Ostern’s partisanship and big money were the opposite of that.

“Secretary Gardner’s impartiality and integrity are above question. He is free from indebtedness,” said Rep. Ned Bristol.

“There is no term limit on relationships,” said Sen. Lou D’Allessandro.

And, perhaps Gardner, the career public servant, is actually the better politician. Van Ostern’s caucus vote made his candidacy appear a Democratic putsch, stiffening GOP resistance. Gardner realized 55 Democrats had voted for him or another candidate or had not been at the House caucus, revealing a path to victory with his unique bipartisan support. His team called on his relationships with Sens. D’Allessandro and Jeb Bradley, Govs. John Lynch, Steve Merrill, and party leaders like Steve Duprey for the Republicans and Terry Shumaker for the Democrats, and many House members.

However, coming within a vote of his political life, I’ll bet some old voting machines get replaced quickly. Indeed, Gardner would be wise to move on the reforms many voted for, so that he arrives in 2020 – the 100th anniversary of the New Hampshire primary – with his reputation enhanced not diminished.

John Tabor is a member of Seacoast Media Group’s editorial board and the company’s recently retired president and publisher.