Good Wednesday morning! A few quick notes for you:
1) I’ve just uploaded yesterday’s Substack Live with Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern, which you can watch above. It has also been produced as an episode of my latest episode of The Steve Marchand Podcast, which you can watch on my YouTube channel. Deaglan and I got into a wide-ranging conversation that I think showcased several of his skills:
He’s a very relaxed communicator, who uses language that is easily accessible whether you are a political junkie or a constituent who just wants the potholes filled and property taxes under control. Some of this probably comes from being in the public light for a while now (he’s in his sixth year as a local elected official, fourth year as mayor, and was a congressional candidate in 2018).
As a former mayor myself who used to audit cities for a living, I enjoyed spending some time thinking about the challenges in getting residents to serve on critical volunteer boards, especially land-use boards like the planning board, or the zoning board of adjustment. These are unpaid jobs that can be both very time-intensive and controversial. It’s a topical conversation, in that the legislature is considering a range of bills that try to get at housing supply by creating state laws that would override some local restrictions, and (theoretically, at least) make it easier to develop more housing. His local experience gives him a valuable perspective in any statewide conversation about housing.
2) If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to read yesterday’s piece about the recent spate of “tell all” books on President Biden’s final year in office. It’s titled “Everything We Needed to Know About Joe Biden We Learned 35 Years Ago,” and it really gets at how “meh” these current books are relative to the gold standard of such campaign deep dives, What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer. Much of this 1992 book, which recounts the 1988 presidential race, is about Joe Biden.
These current tell-all books are largely unfulfilling because they focus on the what, rather than the why, of the decisions of Biden and the people around him. But if you read Cramer’s book, it is almost entirely the why - going back to Biden’s childhood, tragic loss of his first wife and baby daughter, how he came to win a 1972 Senate race as a 29-year-old, chairing the Robert Bork Supreme Court hearings, overcoming his severe stutter, his relationship with his parents and siblings, and the multiple plagiarism charges that nearly got him booted out of law school and forced him out of the 1988 presidential race.
The current debate among Democrats about whether talking about Biden’s declining acuity is part of getting through the reckoning, or whether it is simply distracting the public away from President Trump’s problems, misses an opportunity to understand why it happened in the first place. I provide a brief theory of the case, based on Cramer’s writing, and I hope it piques your curiosity to learn more.
3) We officially have a Democratic primary in the first congressional district. Some of you may have seen this morning the video announcement from former Portsmouth City Councilor (and daughter of US Senator Jeanne Shaheen) Stefany Shaheen that she is running for Congress to succeed Rep. Chris Pappas, who is running for the U.S. Senate.
Shaheen joins Maura Sullivan, the Marine Corps veteran, former Obama Administration official, and 2018 congressional candidate, in this race. Sullivan announced in early April. After an initial flurry of media coverage of Sullivan’s candidacy, the combination of the lack of any other announced candidates and the long runway between now and election season predictably produced a quiet spring on this top-tier congressional seat.
That should change now, at least among the grassroots, who will now have a choice to consider. And the choices will likely grow in number shortly: Although longtime political journalist Hanna Trudo announced last week that she would not seek the nomination, three other potential candidates have contacted me (and I suspect others) since the end of last week indicating they intend on announcing in the near future. It is often the case that once the second person enters a primary, it quickly shakes in/out several others who have been considering it, as the field begins to take shape.
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