NEW FANS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

As published in The The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 9, 2005

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Gov. Bill Richardson’s two-day trip to New Hampshire, which included an overstuffed schedule of speaking engagements, interviews and news conferences, won him praise from many who heard him.

A typical comment came from Eric Drouart, a professor of business administration who heard a Wednesday breakfast speech by the New Mexico Democrat.

“I was impressed by his bipartisan approach to solving the problems of education and security,” Drouart said. “And he was very funny.”

Richardson, who claimed his trip officially had nothing to do with any presidential ambitions, told anyone who asked that he is keeping his options open for the 2008 race. New Hampshire traditionally holds the first presidential primary in the election cycle.

Most of those interviewed seemed to assume that Richardson is running for president. At a Tuesday breakfast event, when Richardson said “I’m not running for anything,” a woman in the audience laughed and said “Sure.”

Many praised Richardson for his sense of humor. “I like the fact he is self-deprecating,” said Chris Williams, vice president of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, who was part of a small audience Wednesday at a breakfast for leaders in the local Franco-American community.

In that talk, Richardson poked fun at his girth and laughed at his attempt to speak French. (Though Richardson said he minored in French in college, his command of that language is far less impressive than his Spanish.)

He also made frequent jokes about his real intentions for 2008.

“I’m not asking you for anything. ... Yet,” he told the Franco-Americans.

Many praised Richardson’s knowledge of issues. “He spent a good deal of time talking about education,” said Jim Brett, president of the New England Council, a business group that sponsored Tuesday’s Politics and Eggs breakfast.

Karina Mera, who heard Richardson at a luncheon for the New Hampshire Latino Summit on Tuesday, said it’s good for young Hispanics to see an example of a successful Hispanic like Richardson. “I really hope he runs for president,” she said.

New Hampshire reporters and radio interviewers who talked to Richardson seemed to be interested in two major topics — the governor’s opinion of recent comments by Democratic National chairman Howard Dean and two small-town New Hampshire police chiefs who recently began arresting undocumented Mexican immigrants on charges of trespassing.

On Dean, Richardson said he stands behind the chairman, though he said Dean made a mistake with his recent controversial remarks about Republicans.

On the police chiefs, Richardson said he didn’t think they should make such arrests, but said he sympathizes with them, saying the situation is the result of a failed federal immigration policy.

One Republican who heard Richardson on Wednesday said she found Richardson charming and full of common sense.

But Georgi Laurin Hippauf, a former vice chair of the New Hampshire GOP, predicted Richardson would not end up on the top of the Democratic ticket.

“If Hillary (Clinton) runs, I can see Gov. Richardson as being the perfect geographical match,” Hippauf said. “She’s from the East and he’s from the West. And he emulates a warmth she doesn’t necessarily have. If I were running the Democratic campaign, that would be my strategy.”

RICHARDSON: THE NEW HAMPSHIRE RITUAL

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 8, 2005


MANCHESTER, N.H. — Many of the New Hampshire political veterans who came to hear Gov. Bill Richardson on Tuesday at a “Politics and Eggs” breakfast and at the 2005 New Hampshire Latino Summit assume Richardson’s trip here this week is a classic testing of the waters.

They have no doubt the New Mexico Democrat’s grueling schedule of speeches, interviews, fundraisers and private meetings with party honchos is part of the same ritual that scores of other would-be presidents have gone through.

At a news conference, Richardson remained officially noncommittal about his intentions in New Hampshire, traditional site of the nation’s earliest presidential primary: “I haven’t ruled anything out.”

On other occasions, he joked about presidential ambitions. He said he is too busy with local issues to run for president. “Like the new snowmobile trail in Dixville Notch,” he quipped, referring to a New Hampshire state park.

It’s an election process that starts so early that most average citizens here — people who work in stores and restaurants — don’t seem to know or care about the politicians making “Hey, look me over” trips through their communities.

“No one’s going to declare their candidacies until after the midterm elections,” observed Michael Chaney, president and CEO of the New Hampshire Political Library, an organization dedicated to preserving the history of the New Hampshire presidential primary. “But it does not hurt to come up here and make friends with political leaders.”

James Pindell, managing editor of a Web site called politicsNH.com, said of Richardson: “He’s the third Democrat to come up so far. His agenda is to be mentioned as many times as possible as a potential candidate.”

State Senate Deputy Minority Leader Lou D’Allesandro said the 2008 primary clearly has started already. “I was with (U.S. Sen.) Joe Biden (a Democrat from Delaware) last night,” he said. “I helped Gov. Richardson set up his schedule.”

D’Allesandro, who supported former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina in the 2004 primary, said he would be inclined to support Edwards again if he runs. But he said Richardson is making the right moves in New Hampshire.

“The person who wins is the person who connects,” he said in an interview at his state Capitol office in Concord. “If he comes and he connects and people see him and want more Bill Richardson, he’ll get momentum. These visits are in that category.”

A sense of state boosterism about the New Hampshire primary is one area in which Democrats and Republicans share the same view. Warren Henderson, state chairman of the New Hampshire Republican party, said Tuesday that early — and frequent — visits by national candidates are good for the people of New Hampshire. “I don’t know about the Democrats,” he said, “but Republicans ask over and over for national politicians to come visit. It helps us raise money and draw crowds.”

In an interview at his office across the street from the Capitol, Henderson said the New Hampshire primary is an opportunity for candidates to not only promote themselves, but to promote issues they care about. “In Washington, there are only four or five issues they talk about,” he said. “But when you come to a place where politics is always in season, you can make your issue part of the national debate.”

Richardson got belly laughs from politicians and business leaders Tuesday when he joked about the New Hampshire primary’s traditional first-in-the-nation status.

“Being from New Mexico, I believe very strongly in a Western primary,” he said. People from the West should have a say in who is chosen for president, he said. “The people of Keene should have the same right as the people of Manchester.”

(For those unfamiliar with Granite State geography, Keene is in the western part of the state, Manchester in the east.)

Later in the speech, Richardson went back to the subject, saying despite his support for an early Western-state primary, New Hampshire should remain the first primary in the presidential-selection process.

“Besides the fact that it’s your birthright,” he said, “you are the grass-roots state.”

Reassuring people in New Hampshire that he does not want to usurp their first-primary status was a good move on Richardson’s part, several political observers agreed.

New Hampshire voters are protective about their primary — which by state law must be held before any other state’s presidential primary.

Both Democrats and Republicans here seem to think this status is under siege. The national Democratic Party has a commission studying various plans to restructure the primary process.

Richardson and other Western governors have for more than a year been talking about an early Western presidential primary.

“The advocacy of an early Western primary won’t hurt as long as it’s after (New Hampshire’s),” Linda Fowler, a political-science professor at Dartmouth College, said in an e-mail last week. “Otherwise, the hostility will be pretty thick.”

The New Hampshire primary dates to 1916, when it was one of three states to conduct a primary to elect delegates to party conventions. For many years, the state selected uncommitted delegates to the conventions and didn’t vote directly for candidates. That changed here in 1952, a year when Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower proved he could win votes by defeating Republican Party favorite U.S. Sen. Robert Taft in the GOP presidential primary and U.S. Sen. Estes Kefauver upset President Harry Truman in Democratic Party voting.

Unlike New Mexico, where the state pays for primaries in which only major-party voters can participate, New Hampshire allows independent voters to cast ballots in either the Democratic or Republican primaries. More than 40 percent of voters here are registered as independents.

Although Richardson trails far behind in a recent New Hampshire poll, many state residents feel he would have a decent shot.

Westerners like Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado have emerged victorious in New Hampshire — at the expense of the perceived front-runner.

And one little quirk about New Hampshire: Due to the intense news-media and political-professional-class analyses of the primary and “horse-race” coverage, you don’t actually have to come in first in order to “win” the primary.

Ask Democrat George McGovern, who came in behind front-runner Edmund Muskie in 1972, or Bill Clinton, who came in 8 percentage points behind U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts in 1992.

Most New Hampshire residents interviewed said they expect to see a lot more of Richardson in the next two and a half years. And the governor did nothing to dispel such talk. Concluding his speech at the Latino Summit luncheon, Richardson said, “See you soon.”

The early polls:

A recent poll by The Survey Center at the University of New Hampshire indicates New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has a long way to go to win the New Hampshire primary.

In April, pollsters read a list of potential Democratic candidates and asked 178 voters which ones they would support if the election were held now. Richardson’s numbers were in single digits — a distant fifth behind better-known potential candidates.

Smith said it’s not surprising Richardson scores so low in New Hampshire at this point — about two and a half years before the next presidential primary.

Several New Hampshire political observers have noted that Granite State voters sometimes back candidates initially seen as long shots.

On the Republican side, a Smith poll of 195 voters showed former New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani in the early lead with 29 percent, followed by Arizona Sen. John McCain with 25 percent. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was a distant third with 9 percent.

NEW HAMPSHIRE BOUND

I'm heading to New England Monday to report on Gov. Bill Richardson's trip to New Hampshire.

Here's what I had in this morning's paper:

As published in the Santa Fe New Mexican
June 5, 2005

As usual, Gov. Bill Richardson has a full schedule this week.

On Tuesday and Wednesday he'll be giving at least four speeches before political, business and cultural groups; doing a couple of radio interviews and appearing at various meetings with Democratic Party officials. He'll be attending breakfast, lunch and dinner events, at least one political cocktail party and conducting at least one news conference.

On Wednesday, Richardson's public itinerary starts at 6:30 a.m. and runs until 9 p.m.

But it's not in New Mexico where these events are happening.

It's New Hampshire.

Politicos and those who watch them know the significance of the Granite State. It's traditionally where the first presidential primary is held.

Richardson, who routinely brushes off questions about his possible candidacy for president in 2008, denies this week's trip has anything to do with the primary.

"He was invited to speak to these groups," Richardson spokesman Billy Sparks said Friday. Sparks said the governor has had long-standing invitations for some of the functions. He added his oft-repeated mantra: "The governor is focused on his re-election campaign."

The Democratic Governors Association - of which Richardson is chair - is paying for the trip, Sparks said.

However, publicity for some of the events mentions that Richardson is a "potential" presidential candidate in 2008.

And serious political observers assume that, despite any official denial, the main purpose of Richardson's trip is to make contacts and build relations with Democratic Party activists and to start getting his name out in front of New Hampshire voters.

"Bill Richardson is something of a blank slate to New Hampshire Democrats at this point, even to the core of activists who are paying attention now," said Dante Scala, a professor at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester.

"He doesn't come with sizable negatives or strong baggage," Scala said in a telephone interview. "I'm sure he'll find a receptive audience here, but people aren't really anticipating his arrival like they are Hillary Clinton."

Although the primary is more than two and a half years in the future, Scala - author of a 2003 book titled Stormy Weather: The New Hampshire Primary and Presidential Politics - said this is a good time for a potential candidate to begin making overtures in New Hampshire "especially for someone like Richardson who is not that well known here," he said. "It's good for someone
to come and get his face known, especially to the core activists who could end up working in his campaign."

Linda Fowler, a political-science professor at Dartmouth College agreed. In an e-mail last week, Fowler wrote, "this is the type of visit for meeting the activists who organize grass-roots primary campaigns in the state. The state legislators and party people will be looking him over, and like every Democrat, they will be looking for someone who can win."

Richardson isn't the only early bird to visit New Hampshire. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and retired Gen. Wesley Clark have trips planned in the near future.

On the Republican side, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Virginia Sen. George Allen, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney have paid recent visits. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska spoke last month at the "Politics and Eggs" breakfast, where Richardson is scheduled to speak Tuesday.

New Hampshire voters are "spoiled," said Larry Sabato, director of the Virginia Center for Politics. "They're going to expect to see more of Bill Richardson than New Mexicans do. They're tough to read, and they don't intend to make their final decision until the last minute. That's why there are so many upsets in New Hampshire."

Fowler agreed: "The state has a tradition lately of boosting relative unknowns in the fall polls before the primary," he said.

What will New Hampshire Democrats want in a candidate?

"Typically they are attracted to a candidate with a message of reform and a willingness to stir the pot," Scala said. "They like new ideas, candidates from outside the Beltway instead of résumé candidates."

Could that be trouble for someone like Richardson, who campaigned on his résumé for governor three years ago? (His employment record includes stints as U.S. Energy secretary, ambassador to the United Nations, a long Congressional career, as well as being governor of New Mexico.)

"He's going to have to find a way to turn his résumé into something like 'a reformer with results,' " Scala said, borrowing a catch phrase used by President Bush in the 2000 election.

Voters there will pay special attention to the issues of education and health care, Scala said.

The fact that Richardson is a westerner shouldn't in itself be a handicap with New Hampshire voters.

"New Hampshire voters are not parochial," said Paul Manuel, also a political-science professor at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.

"Westerners have as good a shot of winning the primary as New Englanders. People here pride themselves for being independent thinkers and try to select a candidate best able to lead the country. In that regard, (New Hampshire) Democrats will probably be on the look-out for a candidate who can articulate a clear, perhaps centrist, message, as well as have broad electoral appeal. As is probably the case elsewhere with Democrats, they are tired of losing national elections."

Sabato said Richardson might "intrigue" New Hampshire. "They will give him a close look," he said. "Being Hispanic could be a plus. Some New Hampshire Democrats are sensitive about the fact the state is 98 percent white. This could be their opportunity to go for a minority."

Here are some of the stops on Gov. Bill Richardson's New Hampshire itinerary. (All events in the Manchester area unless otherwise noted):

Tuesday June 7

Politics and Eggs Breakfast
Richardson is the featured speaker at this monthly breakfast sponsored by the New Hampshire Political Library and the New England Council, an economic development group. The breakfast was started in 1996 and, according to some New Hampshire press accounts, has become a "must-stop" for presidential candidates.

The 2005 New Hampshire Latino Summit
Richardson is the luncheon speaker at this conference sponsored by Visión Hispana-NH, an organization for Hispanic professionals, and Vote Now New Hampshire Hispanics. While New England isn't generally thought of as a hotbed of Hispanic culture, event organizers say more than 25,000 Hispanics live in New Hampshire. This is New Hampshire's second annual Latino Summit. Richardson will speak at a press conference immediately before the luncheon.

Meeting with Gov. John Lynch at state Capitol in Concord.
Lynch is a Democrat elected last year and up for re-election next year.

Event for the New Hampshire Democratic Party
This is a meet-and-greet cocktail party at the Common Man restaurant in Concord. However, the common man won't get to attend, as this is a private event. The press isn't invited either.

Wednesday, June 8

The Charlie Sherman Show
Richardson will be interviewed on this early morning radio show on WGIR-AM, a Clear Channel station that broadcasts popular right-wing talk shows by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Breakfast speech for Franco-American citizens at America's Credit Union
Museum
New Hampshire Commissioner for the Department of Cultural Resources Van McLeod organized this event for a group of New Hampshirites in the local business, academic and cultural communities who have ties to Quebec and northeast Canada. Richardson was invited, McLeod said, because he speaks French as well as English and Spanish.

The Exchange, New Hampshire Public Radio in Concord
Richardson is scheduled to be a guest on New Hampshire's only statewide call-in show.


The 10th Annual Grover Cleveland Dinner
Richardson is the featured speaker for this event sponsored by the Carroll County Democratic Party and held at the Grand Summit Hotel in Bartlett, N.H. While President Cleveland was a Democrat, the former mayor of Buffalo, N.Y. originally was from New Jersey, not New Hampshire. But he used to vacation in New Hampshire and his grandson George Cleveland lives there. George Cleveland is scheduled to make an appearance at the dinner impersonating his grandfather.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 3, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Cohost: Laurel Reynolds

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Countrier Than Thou by Robbie Fulks
Honky Tonk Shadows by The Waco Brothers
I'm a Ramblin' Man by Waylon Jennings
Johnny Armstrong by Michael Martin Murphey
What Am I Doing Hanging Round by The Monkees
Your Husband, My Wife by Bobby Bare with Skeeter Davis
Ghosts of Hallelujah by The Gourds
Funky Tonk by Moby Grape

Nixon in '96 by Doodoo Wah
Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues by David Bromberg
Runaway Mama by Merle Haggard
I Thought I'd Die by Karen Hudson
Bohemian Rhapsody by Grey DeLisle
Maybe the Devil by Eric Hisaw
Border Radio by Dave Alvin with Katy Moffat
The Mansion You Stole by Johnny Horton

JOHN PRINE SET
Crazy as a Loon
Illegal Smile
In Spite of Ourselves (with Iris DeMent)
Bear Creek Blues
Ain't Hurtin' Nobody
Grandpa Was a Carpenter (with The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)

Mike the Can Man by Joe West
Dancing Days by The Bad Livers
Ripple by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Broke Down Palace by The Grateful Dead
Horseflies by Butch Hancock
If I Needed You by Townes Van Zandt
Legend in My Time by Leon Russell with T. Graham Brown
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

TERRELL'S TUNEUP:GOOD JOB, GOV!

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 3, 2005

Here’s one of those strange incidences where my main job as a political writer creeps into my “fun” job as music columnist.

The first time I heard the new John Prine album Fair & Square, a line from the first song leaped out of my car stereo and smacked me in the face.

“I got some friends in Albuquerque, where the governor calls me `Gov’ …”

Dang, I thought. This is better than six appearances on Larry King Live .
First chance I got, I asked Gov. Bill Richardson’s spokesman Billy Sparks whether his boss knows Prine and if so, does the governor call Prine “gov”? Sparks said he doesn’t think the two “govs” are friends. And for the record, unlike fellow musicians Quincy Jones, Herb Albert and Andy Williams, Prine isn’t listed among Richardson’s campaign contributors.

One pal of mine suggested that the governor Prine sings about might be former Gov. Gary Johnson. The key to this theory lies in Prine’s old song “Illegal Smile.” (I think my friend was smiling that way when he brought this up.)

But notwithstanding that political wild goose chase, I love this album. Backed by a small, mostly acoustic group (with a smattering of guest harmonies by Alison Krauss, Dan Tryminski and Mindy Smith), Prine shows there’s still gold in those classic three-or-four-chord melody structures he does so well.

Fair & Square is Prine’s first album of new material since 1999’s In Spite of Ourselves, a collection of duets with a bevy of female singing partners, and first album of primarily original new material since 1995’s Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings.
During this last decade, Prine has struggled with throat cancer. His voice has dropped an octave or so, but that always was a scratchy instrument. The important thing is that he didn’t lose his sense of humor nor his sense of poignancy.

There are some classic Prine tales here.

One of the best is “Crazy as a Loon,” about an ambitious young man with “a picture of another man's wife tattooed on my arm” who heads off to Hollywood “just to have my feelings hurt.” From “the wrong end of a broom” in Tinsel Town, the hapless protagonist ventures to Nashville and New York with the same result.

In “Other Side of Town,” a live cut, Prine sings of a henpecked husband whose mind wanders, during his wife’s nagging, to a fantasy bar on the astral plane.

On the slow but sturdy “Some Humans Ain’t Human,” Prine rails against unfeeling people.

“You open up their hearts/And here's what you'll find/A few frozen pizzas/Some ice cubes with hair/A broken Popsicle/You don't want to go there.”

But later in the song, gets political.

“… you're feeling your freedom, and the world's off your back, some cowboy from Texas, starts his own war in Iraq.”

It’s obvious that Prine still believes that a flag decal won’t get you into heaven anymore.

Prine’s songwriting is the main draw on Fair & Square. (He collaborates on some tunes with partners including Keith Sykes and “Funky” Donnie Fritts.) But he also includes a couple of excellent covers. “Clay Pigeons” is a sad song by the late Texas sultan of sad songs, Blaze Foley. And the most rocking track on the album is “Bear Creek,” a Carter Family song.

Concert alert: According to his Web site, Gov. Prine is coming to the Kiva auditorium in Albuquerque on July 29.

{Hear a whole lotta John Prine Friday night on the Santa Fe Opry, KSFR Santa Fe Public Radio. Show starts at 10 p.m., the Prine segment will start about 11 p.m. }

(Check out www.ohboy.com)

Also recommended:

Georgia Hard by Robbie Fulks. Back on his second album South Mouth, Fulks had a hilarious little ditty called “Fuck This Town,” a vitriolic tirade against the Nashville music establishment. “I thought they'd struck bottom back in the days of Ronnie Milsap,” he barked in the song.

Since that time, Fulks and Milsap appeared, though not together on an album, (a Disney various-artists tribute called O Mickey, Where Art Thou?)

It’s not hard to imagine Mac Davis or even Milsap himself crooning Fulks tunes like “You Don’t Want What I Have,” “I Never Did Like Planes,” “It’s Always Raining Somewhere” or the title song.

Fulks flirts with country schlock here. Maybe he even steals a kiss. But with a strong band, including Merle Haggard vet Redd Volkaert on guitar and Lloyd Green on steel and Sam Bush on mandolin, the performances are all solid.

And with Fulks writing the lyrics, there’s enough twistedness to give the songs strange edges. “Doin’ Right (For All the Wrong Reasons)” might sound like a Jimmy Buffet song on the surface, but the story is about a guy who avoids infidelity only because his wife is rich.

There’s some good hard-core honky stompers here, such as “each Night I Try” and “All You Can Cheat.” And there’s a couple of madcap Fulks novelty tunes like the ones that made fans love him in the first place.

“I’m Gonna Take You Home (And Make You Like Me),” a song about a sloppy-drunk pick-up attempt is a fun-filled duet with his wife Donna Fulks.

“Countrier Than Thou” starts out as a wicked slap at practitioners of C&W purism. But then it turns political.

“He’s got a ranch, with a Stetson / He's a hip-shooting ex-oil king/ He even talks like Buddy Epson/ But he’s sittin’ in the West Wing … won’t somebody please explain/ How you get a county sheriff walkin’ with a frat boy’s brain.”

Along with Prine’s song listed above, this one definitely won’t be found on the president’s iPod.

{For for Fulks’ apology to Ronnie Milsap, CLICK HERE }

ROUNDHOUSE BLUES: CLOSING THE WATERGATES

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 2, 2005

It was the late ‘80s or early ‘90s. I was working on a story about some problems in the state Corrections Department. One of my sources knew someone who had access to some documents that would nail the story for me. But that person didn’t want to actually meet with me for fear of being seen. For fear of being labeled a “rat.” And he didn’t want to be seen anywhere near The New Mexican office.

So I made arrangements through my source to be in a certain parking lot at a certain time that afternoon. I described my car to my source. Sure enough, I drove to the parking lot, found an empty space, waited just a few minutes until a vehicle pulled up behind me. A man with an envelope — someone I’d never seen before — got out and approached me. I don’t actually remember if we even spoke. He might have said something like, “You Steve?”

I took the envelope. He rushed back to his car and drove away. The documents were as promised. I had my story.

To my knowledge, I’ve never seen the guy with the envelope again. I wouldn’t be able to give you his name even if you tortured me.

The weird thing is, I honestly don’t even remember what the story was about. It obviously wasn’t as consequential as, say Watergate.

But this story, with this little dash of cloak and dagger, is the closest I’ve come in my newspaper career to the moving-flower-pots, underground-parking-garage-rendevous world of Deep Throat journalism.

This week’s revelation of the identity of the mysterious “Deep Throat” — former FBI number two man Mark Felt — comes at a time when using anonymous sources is coming under more and more scrutiny.

It’s something you try to avoid as a reporter. But sometimes it’s neccessary to uncover what’s really going on. Workers for instance are almost always hesitant to see their name in print criticizing their bosses. And I would never have gotten honest opinions from Democratic delegates about Gov. Bill Richardson’s convention speech in Boston last year had I insisted on using their names.

But the days of secret super-sources like Deep Throat do seem to be over.

Appearing on MSNBC’s The Abrams Report Tuesday, former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw said, “if a ‘Deep Throat’ had emerged now, you would be talking about it every night. Chris Matthews would be talking about it. Bill O‘Reilly would be talking about it. It would start with the news cycle in the morning. Rush Limbaugh would be on the air demanding to know who it is. And you wouldn‘t have the opportunity to have the kind of reporting that was going on then because there would be so many distractions. It would become kind of a sideshow.”

To which Limbaugh responded Wednesday, “So people questioning the motives and work of the media is a sideshow. We would have been a distraction because they wouldn't have been able to do the great work that they did, and they're unable to do it now. They are distracted by people like me. We are nothing but a sideshow. ... that's why they're going back and reliving Watergate, because that's when there was nobody to stand in their way.”

Reliving Watergate: The flood of Watergate retrospectives that broke following the Deep Throat story dredged up a lot of Nixon-era memories for those of us old enough to remember that strange time.

Bob Johnson, executive director of New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, was in New York working as managing editor for the Associated Press during Nixon’s final days.

“I had to oversee most of the reporting that was coming out of Washington,” he said Wednesday. “Woodward and Bernstein got ahead of everyone on the Watergate story. They jumped on it and never let up. It took the rest of us a lot to catch up.

One of his hardest tasks was overseeing the story about the White House tapes released by the House Judiciary Committee. Basically he had to condense a 30,000-word summary into 10,000 words — being careful not to leave out anything important in the cases for and against Nixon.

Before Nixon resigned in 1974, Johnson said, “I didn’t get to go home for a month. I was living on coffee and sandwiches, sleeping at a hotel and putting myself to sleep each night with a couple of stingers.”

Billy Sparks, deputy chief of staff for Gov. Richardson, had been an intern as a teenager for North Carolina Sen. Sam Ervin, the grandfatherly constitutional scholar who chaired the Senate Committee investigating the Watergate scandal.

Sparks didn’t work for Ervin during those years, but he stayed in touch. He recalled talking to Ervin after Nixon’s autobiography was released. “He was very disturbed,” Sparks said. “I remember he said ‘Nixon still doesn’t admit that he was guilty. He wouldn’t recognize the Constitution if it fell on his head in the middle of the Rose Bowl parade.’ ”

Camelot: New York Attorney General Eliott Spitzer was in town Wednesday for a a $500-a-ticket fundraiser at the home of his friend, art gallery owner Gerald Peters. He was up in the office of his other local friend, Gov. Richardson in the afternoon for a quick session with a couple of Capitol reporters.

Spitzer apparently was impressed by the huge round marble table in the governor’s cabinet room. The moment he walked into the room he said, “Wow! Look at this table. Where does King Arthur sit?”

DEEP THROAT THOUGHTS

Tuesday's Deep Throat revelations brought back lots of Watergate memories.

Sitting in Okie's every afternoon during a period of unemployment in the summer of '73, watching the Senate Watergate Committee hearings on TV. ... Learning the phrase "twisting slowly slowly in the wind" ... Listening to my grandmother defending Sen. Joe Montoya, whose questions at the hearings became something of a national joke. "They're not dumb questions," Nana would say. "He just has to go last, so most the good questions have already been asked." ...

Watching Nixon resign on a black 'n' white TV in the projection booth of the Master Adult Theater in the summer of '74. Hey, it was a job. At least I wasn't hanging out at Okie's every day. Plus I read a lot of Hemingway and Fitzgerald in that room that summer, and back then country radio was really good. When Nixon made his announcement, I figured that this was a goddamn historic moment and the guys in the auditorium had a right to know, even if they were just a bunch of pathetic old porn scum. So I shut down the projector, walked into the theater and told them Nixon had resigned -- only to get answered with a bunch of "boos," "fuck yous" and "turn the movie back on, dammit!!!!" ...

Interviewing John Ehrlichman for The Santa Fe Reporter at Fenn Gallery in the early '80s, and how he later sent my editor a note calling my effort "sleazy," which I took as a badge of honor. ... Interviewing Egil "Bud" Krough, another Nixon man who did time in prison for Watergate, when Ehrlichman died in 1999 ...

Visiting Nixon's grave with my son in the 1990s and feeling vaguely sad. The last time I'd been that close to Nixon was a '72 campaign stop in Albuquerque, and I, along with a few hundred protesters, was screaming my lungs out. A nice old Republican lady came up to me and said, "You shouldn't do that. We don't come boo your candidate." She was so sincere, I was kind of embarrassed. "Sorry ma'am," I muttered. "I just have to." Say what you want about Tricky Dick, in those days candidates actually went out and came face to face with protesters.

My favorite read on Deep Throat so far is by Hank Stuever of The Washington Post (and formerly of The Albuquerque Tribune). Read it Here

My favorite passage from Hank's essay is this:

Had he lived in this era, Deep Throat might not have lasted long. He'd be blogged to bits. He'd be Drudged, smudged, Romenesko'd. People would disprove him with their own Deep Throats. His identity would be discovered within a news cycle or two, spun around, and he'd be left holding a book contract.