New Hampshire
Democrats reel from ‘terrible’ Biden debate performance as he defends candidacy • New Hampshire Bulletin
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden touched on a flood of criticism of his debate performance during a rally on Friday, while Democrats interviewed on Capitol Hill said the party must figure out a way to reassure voters after what they described as a “terrible” showing and a “bad night.”
Biden, speaking from Raleigh, North Carolina, acknowledged some of the blunders that plagued him during the Thursday night debate on CNN, which included a raspy, low voice and answers that often began one way before veering into a completely separate topic.
“I know I’m not a young man, let’s state the obvious,” Biden said. “I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to, but … I know how to tell the truth.”
Biden, 81, told the crowd that despite the mishaps, he’s still up for four more years on the job and said that his rival, the 78-year-old presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, is a “genuine threat to this nation.”
“When you get knocked down, you get back up,” Biden said. “I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high.”
Outside the Beltway, Democrats continued to try to absorb what they saw on Thursday night. In Colorado, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis would not answer directly when asked about calls from some Democrats for Biden to step aside. In the swing state of Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro as well as other Democrats came to Biden’s defense on social media and on the airwaves.
Hoyer rejects idea of Biden quitting
Back in Washington, D.C., lawmakers had mixed reviews for how Biden performed during the debate, with some saying one bad night shouldn’t lead the party to change its nominee in the weeks ahead, while others said Biden should reassess his decision to run for reelection.
Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer said Biden “had a bad night,” but said the president still showed respect for “people, the truth and the Constitution.”
“The other candidate, who respects none of those, showed that last night,” he said of Trump.
Hoyer rejected a question about whether Democrats need a new presidential candidate, saying they already had one and it “is Joe Biden.”
“He’s got an extraordinary record of accomplishments,” Hoyer said.
Minnesota Democratic Rep. Angie Craig said it was a “terrible debate.”
“We all have to acknowledge that and Donald Trump lied every time he opened his mouth,” Craig said, adding that she wasn’t worried about November, but focused on flooding in her home state.
Mood on House floor
New York Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks said he didn’t expect that all of a sudden members of the party would “jump ship” from the Biden-Harris ticket, but said Biden has a lot of work to do before Election Day.
“I know Joe Biden. I’ve sat across the room from Joe Biden in some very important meetings,” Meeks said. “And I know that he’s all there and he has the ability to do that. He did not do that last night. But I do know that he has that ability.”
The mood on the House floor Friday morning, however, was less than ideal, he said.
“You can’t hide that, people are not pleased. Nobody’s in there jumping for joy, saying that, you know, ‘That was a great night last night,’” Meeks said. “Is there concern? Yeah, because we know how important it is to make sure that we win this election.”
Meeks declined to speculate about whether Biden will back out of the second debate in September, but said “it might be difficult, maybe, to get out of it.”
Biden, he said, needs to get in front of voters much more before the election through town halls and interviews to provide reassurance.
Meeks also sought to draw a difference between Biden and Trump, saying that the lies Trump told during the debate signal he hasn’t evolved.
“Nothing has changed with reference to Trump. He is still that pathological liar that Lindsey Graham called him. He’s still the con man that Marco Rubio called him,” Meeks said, referring to Republican senators from South Carolina and Florida. “And I definitely don’t want a pathological liar and a con man to be president of the United States of America. It would be bad for us and will be bad for our allies.”
House speaker sees ‘serious problem’
House Speaker Mike Johnson said that Cabinet members should “search their hearts” on what represented the best path forward for the country, about “this alarming situation.”
“I think they know they have a serious problem – but it’s not just political, it’s not just the Democratic Party, it’s the entire country,” Johnson said. “We have a serious problem here because we have a president, who, by all appearances, is not up to the task.”
“This is a very serious moment in American history and it needs to be regarded and handled as such,” Johnson added.
The Louisiana Republican didn’t rule out that the 25th Amendment, which deals with presidential disability and succession, might be appropriate. But he noted that’s up to the Cabinet, not the House.
Trump, during the debate, “showed the temperament, the stamina, and the mental acuity that is necessary to do this really important job at this really important time,” Johnson said.
Biden, on the other hand, “showed last night that he was weak, sadly, that he is feeble,” Johnson added.
Democrats are moving forward with plans to nominate Biden as their official presidential candidate before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in late August.
The all-virtual roll call vote is supposed to take place before Aug. 7, the final date for candidates to get on Ohio’s ballot. The state requires candidates to be officially nominated at least 90 days before the November election.
That means any final decisions about Biden’s candidacy likely need to take place during the month of July.
No need to replace Biden
Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Richard Neal said he was taking the “long view” of the campaign and didn’t believe Democrats needed to replace Biden at the top of the ticket.
“I think that we are kind of caught up in a moment where personalities are a big deal in politics,” Neal said. “At the same time, I think that Joe Biden’s got a really good track record to run on … And I think we want to make sure that people see it in the fullness of his presidency.”
Neal said that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president in 2016, won her first debate against Trump, even though Trump went on to win the election.
He also noted that Walter Mondale, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1984, was widely considered to have won his first debate against Republican Ronald Reagan, though Reagan went on to sweep him during the election.
Florida Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel said that “there was only one decent, honest man who reflected my values, and that was Joe Biden.”
Frankel said she wasn’t too concerned about calls for Biden to step down from the top of the ticket, though she said she hasn’t been involved in those talks.
Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright said Biden’s performance reminded him of a 2022 debate he had where his own performance was “lousy,”
“He had a tough night,” Cartwright said, adding that he believes Democrats shouldn’t “overreact.”
Cartwright said he didn’t believe Biden’s debate performance would affect how voters in his district, which covers sections of northeastern Pennsylvania, including Scranton, will vote for down-ballot races later this year.
“People split their tickets where I live,” Cartwright said. “They know who I am and they know I’m not the same guy as whoever’s in the White House.”
Republicans react
Arkansas Republican Rep. Steve Womack said Biden’s performance “validated” a lot of the concerns that lawmakers and others had about his “cognitive abilities” heading into the debate.
“But at the end of the day, you have to assume that they’re both still going to be head-to-head in November,” Womack said.
Republicans, he said, need to move “full steam ahead” to hold the House, flip the Senate, and win back the White House in November, but that’s only the beginning of the hard work.
“If that happens, we’ve got a couple of years and we need to be able to demonstrate that we’re serious about leading America,” Womack said.
Iowa Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks said it’s up to “Democrats to determine whether or not they feel that their candidate is up to the task of running the country for the next four years.”
“From my perspective, what I saw last night emphasizes to me that he’s not and that I will be voting for President Trump,” Miller-Meeks said. “I thought President Trump’s answers and policies were well reasoned, show that he was very sharp, very in tune, and very well-informed.”
Miller-Meeks said it will be challenging for the Biden campaign and Democrats to brush aside concerns about Biden’s mental functioning following the debate.
“I think what has been appearing to a lot of people is now very apparent and difficult to hide, given the performance that everyone saw last night,” Miller-Meeks said.
Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, one of the lawmakers on Trump’s short list for vice president, said that Trump “did what he was supposed to do – demonstrated leadership, demonstrated command talking about the issues that are plaguing this country.”
“As far as I’m concerned, whether it’s Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or anybody else, the Democrat agenda has been a failure. Period.”
New Hampshire
Newly naturalized US citizens pledge allegiance in Exeter, N.H., where revolutionaries made history – The Boston Globe
EXETER, N.H. — Twenty-nine people from 18 countries became naturalized US citizens during a ceremony Friday at Exeter High School, where a federal judge shared an inspiring message wrapped in a piece of lesser-known local history from the American Revolution.
Judge Landya B. McCafferty, who presided over the ceremony, noted that New Hampshire enacted the first state constitution in January 1776 to establish a new democratic form of government, with its capital in Exeter, six months before the nation’s Declaration of Independence.
The royal governor had fled New Hampshire in 1775 as tensions rose and civil government collapsed, so a group of revolutionaries met in Exeter and drafted a constitution that sought to protect “the honest people of this colony” from being subjected to “the machinations and evil designs of wicked men.”
This temporary document — which remained in effect for eight years — accomplished “two radical things,” McCafferty said. First, it asserted New Hampshire’s independence. Second, it laid out a vision of democratic governance.
“Power in a monarchy flows downward, theoretically from God down to the king, down to the people,” McCafferty said. “This temporary constitution proposed a government that flowed up from the people to their representatives. And there was no king. The power came from the people.”
While many colonists who remained loyal to the monarchy regarded New Hampshire’s first constitution as treasonous at the time, McCafferty said, the document survived the Revolutionary War and came to inspire other state constitutions and the US Constitution that took effect in 1789.
“New Hampshire’s example of self-government persuaded other Americans that self-government, government by the people, could work,” she said.
With that history lesson in mind, McCafferty encouraged the 29 new citizens to commit themselves to productive civic engagement, by making informed decisions at the ballot box, serving as jurors with pride, and supporting their neighbors, whether by volunteering in the local community, raising children to be good citizens themselves, running for public office, or working in law enforcement or for the US military.
“We will be a better country because of you,” she said.
The milestone also delivered a sense of relief to those who began pursuing citizenship years ago, before the current Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.
“I was a little bit worried in the beginning,” said Maria Caroline Bertocchi of Milford, N.H., a native of Brazil who embarked on the naturalization process in 2021. “But now I’m totally relaxed.”
Bertocchi, 28, attended the ceremony with her husband, two children, and an entourage of in-laws celebrating the occasion.
“I feel like, ‘Oh my God, finally this process is over, and I can stay here with them,’” she said. “For me it means a lot.”
Randerson Michel Caracas Soares, who is also from Brazil and living in Milford, attended the ceremony with his husband and said he is grateful to reach the conclusion of a journey they began about four years ago.
“I feel like I have more freedom right now,” he said. “I can find better jobs here, opportunities. … We picked the United States because it’s the best country in the world.”
This story appears in Globe NH | Morning Report, a free email newsletter focused on New Hampshire, including great coverage from the Boston Globe and links to interesting articles elsewhere. Sign up here.
Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.
New Hampshire is full of historic homes, barns and churches that are at risk of falling apart. These structures often need a contractor who understands historic building techniques like timber framing or slate roofing, but there’s a shortage of people who know how to do that work. Advocates fear that gap could mean many historic buildings falling into decay or eventually disappearing.
“Whether it be stonework or blacksmithing, timber framing, window glazing, wooden shingles – all these trades are in demand,” stone mason Kevin Fife said. “But there’s less and less people that do it.”
Fife is one of the people who volunteers for a program that is trying to train more young people for careers in these historic trades. The New Hampshire Preservation Alliance’s Career Exploration in the Old Building Trades is a week-long program where high school students can spend their winter or spring break learning these skills hands-on.
Joshua Adams,17, signed up for the workshops during New Hampshire schools’ vacation week last month. He took Fife’s workshop on how to build a dry stack stone wall, meaning one without mortar or cement holding the stones together.
“I wasn’t really too sure about this one,” he said. “But I’m having a wonderful time here with the stone wall building.”
Joshua is in the construction program at the Concord Regional Technical Center where he learns electrical installation, plumbing and welding, but he’d never learned about some of these historic trades. He was interested in a barn repair class he took, where he learned about old-school timber framing and how buildings were once constructed without nails – just wooden pegs keeping the beams together.
He said he expect that learning these kinds of historic building skills could line him up for a lot of jobs.
“Around here, especially in places like New Hampshire and New England, there’s so much historical stuff,” Joshua said. “I used to go to historical places, museums, with my grandfather all the time. There was just so much work to be done, but I think people just aren’t pursuing it.”
Regional industry surveys show young people aren’t joining the historic trades workforce nearly as fast as tradespeople are retiring. That means the people who still do this work often have years-long waitlists for clients, which could lead to some people deciding that repair work isn’t worth the wait.
“That can mean loss of old windows, loss of old plaster, loss of an old porch that really gives the building its character,” Jennifer Goodman, executive director of the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, said. “On another level, we can see that there could be demolitions and total loss of buildings if there aren’t enough people around to do this work.”
The Canterbury Shaker Village is one of the places that will be hiring the next generation of tradespeople. The village was settled in the 1700s by followers of the Christian Shaker movement. The structures across the village – now a museum – date back centuries and are in constant need of maintenance.
To build the preservation workforce, the Preservation Alliance workshops are open to not only construction and carpentry students, but also people who are new to the building industry entirely.
Rowan McGrath, 18, said he knew how to use a drill, but not much more about construction. A computer engineering student at Concord Regional Tech Center, he is attending the spring workshops to give him career options in the future.
“AI: it’s a big thing that’s going to probably take over tech,” Rowan said. “So [with these skills] I have something I can rely on as a backup, and it makes pretty good money.”
Fife, the stone mason, said this line of work is rewarding. He’s made a career of maintaining the stone structures people put together centuries ago. He grew up in Canterbury, and his family goes back generations here.
“I like to do it the traditional way because that’s a part of our ancestry, our heritage, and that’s why people come to New England,” Fife said. “It’s just more fitting.”
If there are enough people who can do the work, they can keep history standing a bit longer.
The students had some tough decisions to make as they eyed phalanxes of Dixie Cups filled with water.
It’s a ritual of the New Hampshire Water Drinking Festival, where fourth and fifth-graders learn about how water systems work from state professionals in the Department of Environmental Services.
At the Manchester Water Treatment Facility on Wednesday, they participated in workshops touching on everything from how sewage treatment works to PFAS contamination. Then, students, teachers, parent chaperones and professionals sampled tap water from a handful of municipalities across the state. Blind to the origins of each water cup, they placed a vote for which one they thought tasted the best.
Each year, participating towns provide a cooler of tap water, poured that same day. Colder water generally tastes better, so organizers check to make sure it hasn’t been iced, and refrigeration is frowned upon. Water from the coolers is then dispensed into the paper cups in front of a corresponding letter to ensure the test is blind.
Relatively few towns and cities enter into the competition – this year, just Manchester, Concord, Hooksett and Plymouth – but still, there is some rivalry.
A water works employee from a city not competing in the contest completed the blind test and cast his vote. Organizers wouldn’t disclose which cups were which. As he walked away from the station with coworkers, he said, “As long as I didn’t vote for Concord.” He had, in fact, unknowingly selected Concord’s water as the tastiest.
Concord has been dominant in this taste-test for years, taking home the top spot for most of the last decade – including last year. With a well-protected surface water source in Penacook Lake, the city has invested in a system that delivers tasty, fresh water with minimal need for treatment. It’s paid off in the results.
This year, however, Plymouth took the top spot.
With an influx of federal money, Plymouth has been working to upgrade its water system for the last several years, including with a new well near Holderness. Department of Environmental Services staff at the tasting said this was the first year water from the new well had been “entered” by Plymouth in the competition.
The upgrades in Plymouth appear to be paying off, with the town taking home the award for best-tasting tap water in the state.
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Fourth and fifth graders sampled water from four towns and ranked which one was the tastiest. Plymouth came out on top. Credit: CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN / Monitor
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