A chilling memory from the 1980 N.H. presidential primary

The buildup to the 1980 presidential primary in New Hampshire was a long time ago in a galaxy not all that far, far away, and I'm old enough to report that I was there.

I worked as a political reporter for the Concord Monitor from 1977 to 1981, so the 1980 primary was the only one that I covered while at the Monitor. In hindsight, most of what I witnessed during that campaign was no more memorable than a race for any other political office, but happenstance led me to overhear a telling remark that year. It was so brief it was over within seconds, but it has stuck with me ever since.

In the Democratic race, Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts mounted what proved to be an unsuccessful bid to wrest the nomination from President Jimmy Carter. One day shortly before New Hampshire voters headed to the polls, I was standing around at a local airport, waiting for Kennedy to arrive by plane for a campaign swing that I had been assigned to cover.

Kennedy’s motorcade was lined up, engines running. With time to kill, I found myself walking alongside the motorcade, from the back toward the front. It was near the lead car that I found myself eavesdropping on a Secret Service agent who was wrapping up a briefing for the drivers huddled around him.

“And remember this,” the earnest agent told the drivers as I got within earshot. “If something unexpected happens and the senator’s car has to take off fast, do not try to keep up with us.”

Coming as it did 17 years after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in a Dallas motorcade (on my birthday, no less) and 12 years after Bobby Kennedy was gunned down at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, the implication of that warning could not have been clearer. I got goose bumps that morning, and not because I was standing on a chilly New Hampshire tarmac in the dead of winter.