Power Behind The Throne

Marty Plissner is the former Executive Political Director of CBS News. He is also a special contributor to CBSNews.com.

John McCain may have broken all prior records in the margin by which he defeated a national front-runner last week, but recall that the prior record holders (Estes Kefauver and Gary Hart) were never nominated, let alone elected president.

And Al Gore (who won Tuesday by just 4 percentage points) might reflect, fearfully, on what the significantly larger New Hampshire victories by fellow front-runners like Ed Muskie (9 points) and Lyndon Johnson (8 points) did for them.

There was a third winner this week, however, about whose ultimate success we do not have to wait for time to tell. He is Bill Gardner, a mild-mannered, balding bureaucrat who enjoys bipartisan support in Concord. Governors and senators come and go in New Hampshire, but Gardner, the Secretary of State, is forever. He is also, arguably, the most powerful figure in American presidential politics.

In more than 20 years on the job, Gardner has been New Hampshire's tireless, cunning and ever-triumphant sentinel against attempted power grabs by rival states and sporadic efforts by the national parties to give the rest of the country more of a role in picking their nominees.

In the early 1980s, Gardner and his allies in Iowa craftily turned a Democratic Party effort to get states to cluster their primaries inside a March "window" into a semi-sacred arrangement that guaranteed Iowa and New Hampshire their place in front of the window. The power-sharing with Iowa has almost invariably resulted, as it has this year, in New Hampshire's wielding by far the greater clout.

This year, Gardner decided on his own that he wanted more space for his primary's message to sink in before the next primaries were held. Not only did he want New Hampshire to hold the first primary, he also wanted to ensure that no state cast votes soon after. So, thumbing his nose at both parties' already generous rules and the wishes of all the candidates, the news media and even his state's governor, he peremptorily moved the contest forward three weeks. Everyone, of course, kicked and screamed; but Gardner, as usual, prevailed.

Behind the scenes, both parties are now working together for the first time towards creating a more rational nominating schedule for the 2004 campaign. Most of their attention so far has been aimed at breaking up the quasi-national primary scheduled for two dates in March the so-called Super Tuesday and Mega-Tuesday combo. This scheme was originally created for the purpose of reining in New Hampshire and Iowa. But the bipartisan "first in the nation" status of those states is still on their radar screens and theres plenty of sentiment to scrap New Hampshire. Most of the Republicans at work on the issue want to get rid of it. A owerful bloc on the Democratic side feels exactly the same way.

But is Bill Gardner worried? No way.

Whatever arguments the other side may have, Gardner has his videotapes.

Videotapes? Whenever candidates last year came to his office to file for the primary, he made sure the local reporters grilled them on whether they would protect New Hampshire's position as the first primary in 2004. Needless to say, all did, and the videotapes are in Gardner's vault. All, that is, except the vice president's he sent Tipper to file the papers. She, however, is on the tapes delivering her husband's pledge.

For Republicans to stiff New Hampshire, they would have to rewrite party rules at this year's national convention. That would mean, in effect, repudiating their own nominee, since both Bush and McCain are on Gardner's tapes, pledging to protect God and New Hampshire. The same is true for the Democrats. Theres no way, in other words, that anything bad for New Hampshire can happen.

So, whatever the future for the other New Hampshire winners, for Bill Gardner - and for who knows how many "all important first in the nation" New Hampshire Tuesdays to come - it can only come up roses.