efore the official memorial service for the late Senate President Clesson ''Junie'' Blaisdell got underway in Representatives Hall last week, his Senate colleagues assembled across the hall for their own private goodbye. The president's chair at the front of the ornate Senate chamber was draped with a single black ribbon; a gavel lay at rest on the podium. A big presence here for 28 years was gone. You could feel it.
As the members, past and present, along with Senate staffers arrived, state Senator Debora Pignatelli, a Nashua Democrat, walked alone across the Senate floor and gently placed a white lily and a spray of baby's breath on the desk where Blaisdell had gone about the people's business with humor, a little bombast and a lot of heart. Then Pignatelli put a snapshot of Blaisdell on the back of his empty chair - one she had taken the day he was sworn in as Senate president.
The State House was Junie Blaisdell's domain, a source of power for a plain-speaking man who never forgot his roots as a poor boy growing up in Keene. Blaisdell, 72, was a politician from the old school of Democrats, a lawmaker who saw himself as an emissary for the disadvantaged, the elderly and the handicapped. And he was a pol who knew when to play a winning card, and when to fold.
''Sit down. Tell me your story. Let me see what I can do,'' the Senate president's son, Peter Blaisdell, recalled his father told a constituent who needed help. ''My father had time for all of them,'' he said. ''He felt so bad when he couldn't help all of them, and believe me, he tried.''
In the Senate chamber, the chaplain, Rev. David P. Jones, told the members he had visited Blaisdell's hospital room just a few days before his death. Jones, the rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Concord, had joined hands with family members around the senator's bed and said a prayer. Then, Jones told the Senators, he took the cross he wears around his neck and left it at Blaisdell's bedside. It is a symbol of faith and a reminder of everyone who loves you, Jones said. It's a gesture he has made before for others gravely ill.
''Junie,'' he said, ''this is from the Senate, even the Republicans.''
There were tears in the Senate chamber as Jones described how he told Blaisdell he loved him. Jones said he had seen him again, on Aug. 26, the day Blaisdell died. Last week, Michael Blaisdell, the late Senate leader's son, returned the cross to Jones.
When it was time, Jones led the senators in a somber procession onto the House floor where Jones remembered Blaisdell as ''a crusty and outrageous character who was so filled with tenderness and generosity.'' No need for an oil portrait or a plaque or even a bill with his name on it to remember Junie, Jones said. His legacy should be car ing for others, and respecting them.
Blaisdell had ear of those in power
They say it's part of the job of the vice president of the United States to attend funerals. The Blaisdell family had asked Al Gore to come to last week's memorial service; Blaisdell was, of course, a high-ranking Democrat who was courted each presidential season, and Gore got to know him pretty well. Blaisdell was proud of his access to power and wasn't shy about taking his causes ''to the top,'' as he would say. When President Clinton met privately with New Hampshire Democrats earlier this year, it was Blaisdell who bent Clinton's ear with his crusade to save an elderly housing project in Keene.
So it seemed fitting that Gore would be there to pay his respects, which he did, in a very low-key way, with a mixture of anecdotes and consolation. Junie Blasidell, the vice president said, knew both the ''nobility of self-government'' and the ''nuts and bolts.'' As it is written, Gore said somberly, paraphrasing the Bible, ''he walked uprightly, and he has entered into peace.''
When the memorial service was done, Gore hugged each member of the Blaisdell family as they left the hall.
Son has message: `You can get it done'
If there was a moment during the memorial service that truly stirred the hearts of those who remember Junie Blaisdell, the character, it was when his eldest son Peter took the podium and lovingly remembered his father. What struck the crowd was how much Peter Blaisdell was his father's image. He rubbed his hands together and fiddled with his rings, just like Junie used to do. He pulled his sports jacket back and put his hands on his hips as he was making a point - you could see his father doing that. Even his words - delivered without a single note - had a heartfelt emotion that echoed the voice of the late Senate president.
''So proud to be my father's son,'' Peter Blaisdell said. ''So proud to stand here and represent my family.''
It was Peter Blaisdell who took the occasion to make a political point - in his father's behalf. ''You've got a problem to solve in the next 60 days,'' he said, referring to the $100 million shortfall in the education funding bill. To those who would protest there's no more solutions left, Peter Blaisdell said ''horse hockey,'' taking a phrase from the TV show ''M*A*S*H.''
''I know what my Dad would say,'' Peter Blaisdell told the standing-room-only crowd. ''You can get it done. You will get it done.''
Before he left the podium, Peter Blaisdell described a vision - a presence that will never disappear from the the conference rooms and hallways of the State House that Junie Blaisdell roamed for three decades.
''If you hear a noise, a shuffling of the feet and turn around, not to worry,'' Peter Blaisdell said. ''It's just my Dad.''
Wife says just look at Quayle's record
Marilyn Quayle was in Concord the other day to address the Capitol City Rotary Club, and we spoke with her about her husband's struggling run for the presidency, and her description in an Arizona newspaper about the lead GOP contender, George W. Bush, as a ''party frat boy.'' Mrs. Quayle says she was just repeating how George W. had described himself during those days when in his words he was ''young and irresponsible.'' And she says it is ''annoying'' that the media wrongly characterized her husband as that kind of a guy, back in 1988, when, as she sees it, that's what George W. really is, by his own description. She talks a lot about ''the media.''
Still, Mrs. Quayle, who grew up in the 1960s, says there ought to be a ''statute of limitations'' on what you did in college, and she says she wishes Bush had ''stuck to his guns'' and refused to respond to persistent questions about whether he ever used cocaine. She said ''we ought to accept'' Bush's statement that he is a new person.
What would she tell New Hampshire voters about Dan Quayle, who seems almost indelibly marked by that image the whole world saw in 1988 as he bounded into the public eye, seeming boyish and overwhelmed by excitement, as George Bush's surprise choice for a running mate? Look at his record, Marilyn Quayle says.
''You're not picked if you're not accomplished,'' she said. And that's what she told the Rotarians, about Dan Quayle's record in the Senate, his foreign policy experience, his steadfast views on family values - even in the face of mockery from TV's favorite single mom, Murphy Brown, and her fans.
As to the caricatures and mean portrayals of her husband, Marilyn Quayle, who practices law when she's not campaigning, recalled some advice she got once from President Ronald Reagan. ''Remember, according to the national media, I was a B-grade movie actor buffoon too dumb to be president,'' she says he told her.
''Sure it would be nice'' if it never happened at all, said Marilyn Quayle, who is gracious but just a little on guard during an interview. Who could blame her? ''I don't look back very much. You can't change it, so why dwell on it? You just make yourself miserable,'' she said about the past.
McCain: I'd support antiabortion move
At a press conference last week, part of his week-long bus tour called ''The Straight Talk Express,'' Senator John McCain of Arizona continued to try to clear up the muddle he created a while back about his views on the future of abortion rights. Antiabortion forces have accused McCain of softening on the issue, but he points to his ''17-year record of pro-life voting.''
McCain told reporters in Concord that if he were elected president he would ''immediately support efforts'' to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the US Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, that legalized abortion in 1973. (He set off the flap himself by saying something very different to a San Francisco newspaper in mid-August - that he'd ''love'' to see Roe repealed but ''even in the long term'' he wouldn't support overturning it because that would force women to undergo illegal abortions.) McCain says he also wants the ''pro-life'' plank to remain in the Republican party platform, but he would also like more ''inclusive'' language added. When asked if the bottom line is that he doesn't think women have a right to chose whether to end a pregnancy, he said, ''I believe life begins at conception.''
On the $792 billion tax bill now before President Clinton (who says he will veto it), McCain readily acknowledged ''the dirty little secret'' behind the bill is that the government is ''as we speak'' spending the surplus that was supposed to underwrite the cuts. And, according to McCain, the bill has other ''egregious aspects,'' including big tax cuts for special interests. So why did McCain vote for the bill?
He said he didn't want to be responsible for killing off a piece of legislation that could eventually be used as grounds for compromise or negotiation with Clinton. The vote in the Senate had been very close, 50-49, and largely along party lines.
As McCain left a Concord restaurant to get back on his bus (along with an entourage of local and national media), he was greeted by Bill Bradley supporters holding a huge blue sign for their Democratic presidential candidate. McCain shook their hands, and then he was off.
Buchanan considers switch, aide saysP>
P at Buchanan 's state director, Shelly Uscinski, was fighting off inquiries about her candidate's future last week after a flurry of newspaper articles about whether Buchanan would jump the GOP ship and head over to the Reform Party. ''He's considering it ... that's all I know,'' said Uscinski. ''It's like waiting for a baby to be born.'' Meanwhile, late last week the ''GoPatGo2000'' Web site featured no fewer than three articles about Buchanan and his possible future in the Reform Party, which was Ross Perot's presidential train in 1992.
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