New Hampshire
At the Athenaeum: In New Hampshire, all politics is personal
It’s the people of New Hampshire − much more than the politicians − who make the state’s presidential primary what it is.
Geno’s Chowder and Sandwich Shop in Portsmouth is still an essential stop for candidates, a tradition begun in 1964 by the late Evelyn Marconi, who that year favored Republican Barry Goldwater over Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson.
“She was a Goldwater girl,” Francesca Marconi Fernald said of her mom. “She was pregnant with me at the time.”
A 2011 photo of the mother and daughter and Republican candidate Newt Gingrich is among the many images featured in a Portsmouth Athenaeum exhibit opening Feb. 16, “First in the Nation: New Hampshire Presidential Primaries − 1920 to 2020.”
Fernald, 59, remembers being a teen when George H.W. Bush would stop by the Marconi home. He became vice president to Ronald Reagan (1980 to 1988) and president from 1988 to 1992.
“I’m a kid,” Fernald said. “it’s dinnertime in an Italian family. You sit down, and there’s a knock on the door. And I say, ‘Again?’ My mom says: ‘He may be president some day,’ and I said, ‘Not with my vote.’ I’ve eaten crow for that statement ever since.”
The biggest crowd Geno’s hosted was when Republican Mitt Romney showed up in 2011.”We had 250 people; we had to move some people outside,” said Fernald, who has been running the waterfront restaurant for about 30 years.
“In New Hampshire we get to see you, shake your hand … we’re a small state, but we get to really scrutinize you,” Fernald said.
Mary-Jo Monusky, who is co-curating the Athenaeum exhibit with Ceal Anderson and Mara Witzling, said the goal is to give a brief history of the primary and tell the stories of local campaign workers as well as the politicians who come to the state.
Political activist and retired attorney Susan Roman of Durham became interested in politics as a University of New Hampshire student and campaigned for George McGovern starting in the summer of 1971. The Democrat would go on to run against Richard M. Nixon in 1972.
That year Roman helped organize a mass voter registration on the UNH campus, primarily for students 18-21 able to vote for the first time due to the passage of the 26th amendment.
“There was a very large turnout,” she said. “I was watching the lines of new voters from the field house press box and directing monitors to help them through the process as easily as possible. It was an amazing day.”
Roman, a collector of political memorabilia, has loaned many items to the Athenaeum exhibit.
“My collection ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous,” she said with a laugh.
She was inspired in her 20s by an uncle who gave her Barry Goldwater and Lyndon B. Johnson dashboard dolls, and a pack of “I Like Ike” cigarettes from one of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidential campaigns.
Some of her favorite items relate to women’s suffrage. Thanks to the 19th Amendment, women were able to cast their first official ballots in a presidential election on Nov. 2, 1920.
One of Roman’s suffrage buttons was used as an end piece on a thread holder in a textile factory in Lowell, Massachusetts.
“It reads, ‘Souvenir of Sarah’s Suffrage Victory, Help Cut the Fetters,’” Roman said.
The Athenaeum exhibit will include a button from each of the winners of the primary from 1952 forward — that was the year candidates’ names began appearing on the primary ballot. Before that, voters chose delegates for each presidential hopeful.
There will also be a video montage of campaign songs by film and music producer Dennis Kleinman of “Reading Rainbow” Fame.
The exhibit’s Feb. 16 opening will feature a 5 p.m. talk by retired Associated Press photographer Jim Cole, who covered every New Hampshire primary from 1980 to 2016.
Cole, 66, was still a student at New England College in Henniker when he began freelancing for The Concord Monitor. He covered his first primary as a photographer for Foster’s Daily Democrat, starting in 1979. By fall 1981 he was working for The Associated Press.
Cole said he found himself in bigger and bigger crowds of reporters and photographers and learned to keep his distance.
“If you’re not playing rugby with other photographers, it’s easier to take pictures,” he said of the “scrum” of media that surrounds candidates.
In 1987 he watched the media board a plane with George H.W. Bush in Nashua.
“I stayed outside, hoping for a different shot, and he stuck his head out of the window and waved,” Cole said. “That was a two-page photo in LIFE magazine.”
Before the digital era, all photos were shot on film and had to be developed.
Cole remembers bursting out of a makeshift darkroom in Dixville Notch on Feb. 28, 1984, to beat the United Press International in transmitting a photo of midnight voting. His image of Neil Tillotson casting the first presidential primary vote in the nation went worldwide.
“I don’t miss driving to Dixville Notch,” Cole said of the township near the Canadian border.
Now you’re more likely to find Cole assembling a 1,000-piece puzzle near his wood stove, or tying flies and salmon fishing on Lake Winnipesaukee.
He combed through two rooms of personal archives to find images for the exhibit.
Photographers Renee Giffroy, Roger Goun, Meryl Levin and Michael Sterling are also featured in the free exhibit, which runs through June 29 in the Athenaeum’s Randall Gallery, 9 Market Square.
It will be open Tuesday to Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m.
The Leftist Marching Band, which frequently performs on Market Square, will be playing at the Athenaeum entrance during the 4 to 7 p.m. Feb. 16 opening.
As part of the Athenaeum’s annual lecture series, Thomas Rath, former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, will speak April 17 on the presidential primary. On May 15, James Pindell will talk about his experiences covering New Hampshire politics for the Boston Globe and other media.
The Portsmouth Athenaeum, 9 Market Square, is a nonprofit membership library and museum founded in 1817. The research library and Randall Gallery are open Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m. For more information, call 603-431-2538 or visit www.portsmouthathenaeum.org.
The son of Cher is scheduled to be in court Wednesday for a hearing over allegations he broke into a New Hampshire home earlier this month.
It was the second arrest in a matter of days for Elijah Allman, 49, of Malibu, California, who was detained Feb. 27 after allegedly acting belligerently at a prestigious prep school in New Hampshire. It was unclear if Allman had any connection to either St. Paul’s School or the home in Windham, New Hampshire.
Allman remains in the Rockingham County Department of Corrections in what is called preventive detention, Superintendent Jonathan Banville said.
Allman, whose father was the late singer Gregg Allman, faces two counts of criminal mischief, one count of burglary and a count of breach of bail for breaking into the home on March 1. Police said in a report that Allman did not have permission to be at the home and forcibly entered it .
In the incident at the prep school, Allman was charged with four misdemeanors: two counts of simple assault, criminal trespass and criminal threatening. Allman was also charged with a violation of disorderly conduct, which is illegal in the state but not considered a crime.
At about 7 p.m. that day, Concord police responded to reports that Allman was disturbing people in the dining hall of St. Paul’s School. After charging Allman, police said he was released on bail as his case works through the court system.
Allman did not respond to an email requesting comment, and a phone number for him was not working. It was unclear from the court records if Allman has an attorney.
In December 2023, Cher filed a petition to become a temporary conservator overseeing her son’s money, saying Allman struggles with mental health issues and addiction have left him unable to manage his assets and potentially put his life in danger.
The petition from the singer and actress said Elijah Allman is entitled to regular payments from a trust fund. But “given his ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues,” she is “concerned that any funds distributed to Elijah will be immediately spent on drugs, leaving Elijah with no assets to provide for himself and putting Elijah’s life at risk,” the petition says.
A few weeks later, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jessica Uzcategui denied the request, saying she was not convinced that a conservatorship was urgently needed. Allman was in the courtroom with his his attorneys, who acknowledged his previous struggles but argued that he is in a good place now, attending meetings, getting treatment and reconciling with his previously estranged wife.
New Hampshire
Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters
As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran overtakes the foreign policy debate in Washington, two Democratic governors with potential 2028 presidential aspirations — Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear — recently traveled to New Hampshire, introducing themselves to the state’s famously engaged voters. The two weighed in on the war and both criticized and questioned President Trump’s strategy and endgame.
“If a president is going to take a country into war, and risk the lives of American troops and Americans in the region, he has to have a real justification and not one that seems to change every five to 10 hours,” Beshear told CBS News after a Democratic fundraiser in Keene.
“This President seems to use force before ever trying diplomacy, and he has a duty to sell it to the American people and to address Congress with it,” Beshear continued. “He hasn’t done any of that. In fact, it appears there isn’t even a plan for what success looks like. He’s gone from regime change to strategic objectives and now is talking about unconditional surrender, which isn’t realistic where he is.”
Beshear also said he thought that Congress should have reined in Mr. Trump’s war powers.
“He is trying to ignore Congress. He’s trying to even ignore the American people,” Beshear said.
He went on to note that the president’s State of the Union address took place “three — four days before he launched this attack,” and Mr. Trump “didn’t even have the respect to tell the American people the threat that he thought Iran posed to us.”
Last week, both the House and the Senate failed to pass resolutions to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers and stop him from taking further military action against Iran without congressional support.
For Newsom, the war with Iran constitutes part of a broader criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At an event last Tuesday in Los Angeles, Newsom had compared Israel to an “apartheid state.” Later, in New Hampshire, he sought to clarify his comment.
“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman [New York Times] column last week, where Tom used that word of apartheid as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom explained during a book tour event Thursday night in Portsmouth. “I’m very angry, with what he is doing and why he’s doing it, what he’s going to ultimately try to do to the Supreme Court there, what he’s trying to do to save his own political career.”
Friedman wrote that at the same time that the U.S. and Israel are prosecuting a war in Iran, within Israel, Netanyahu’s government has undertaken efforts to annex the West Bank, driving Palestinians from their homes; fire the attorney general who is leading the prosecution against Netanyahu for corruption; and block the government’s attempt to establish a commission to examine the failures that led up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by Hamas.
CBS News has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.
On Iran, Newsom said, “I’m very angry about this war, with all due respect, you know, not because I’m angry the supreme leader is dead. Quite the contrary. I’m not naive about the last 37 years of his reign. Forty-seven years since ’79 — the revolution,” Newsom said. “But I’m also mindful that you have a president who still is inarticulate and incapable of giving us the rationale of why? Why now? What’s the endgame?”
Many attendees at Newsom’s book event said that the situation in Iran is a top-of-mind issue for them, too. Some said they’re “horrified” by what is happening.
29-year-old Alicia Marr told CBS News she decided to attend Newsom’s event because of his social media response to the war with Iran.
“There was one spot left, and I decided to pick it up, and it was due to his response to the war, that it is just unacceptable, and I would agree with that,” Marr said.
While some voters like Marr are eager to hear about where potential candidates stand on foreign policy, many at Newsom’s event said they care most about how potential candidates plan to address domestic issues.
“I’m more focused on getting the middle class back on track and fighting the oligarchy, and I’m less invested in international issues,” said Anita Alden, who also attended Newsom’s event,
“I wouldn’t call myself America first, but we have so many problems at home that are my priority,” she told CBS News.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who may also be weighing another White House bid, told Fox 2 Detroit last week that she “unequivocally opposes” the Trump administration’s military action in Iran and urged Congress to take action.
“If we want to stop Donald Trump with this random decision that he has arrived at, then Congress must act, and Congress must act immediately. The American people do not want our sons and daughters to go into this unauthorized war of choice,” Harris said.
Mr. Trump has lashed out against Democrats who have pushed back on his Iran strategy, calling them “losers” last week and arguing that they would criticize any decision he made on Iran.
“If I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this,” the president said.
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