POLITICAL GODMOTHER

The political influence of New Hampshire’s Union Leader as the leading newspaper in the state with the first primary has long been recognized. However, that paper’s clout is usually ascribed solely to the larger-than-life bluster of the late publisher William Loeb. Here, journalism professor Heckman shows how his wife, Nackey Scripps Loeb (1924-2000), extended the paper’s reach after taking over as publisher in 1981. The author also discusses how she helped give their shared conservative values voice during the newspaper’s ascendance, though she was always more comfortable in the shadows than the spotlight. Nackey (as she is referred to throughout the narrative) was almost universally admired as an effective manager and a principled journalist, even by those who disagreed with her ideological principles. Heckman lays out her complex legacy: Though she was underestimated due to both her gender and her disability (she was partially paralyzed after a car accident), she was adamantly anti-feminist, opposed the Americans With Disabilities Act, and served as a crusader against government encroachment and interference of any kind. Born into the Scripps journalism family, she was a reluctant newspaperwoman, but her marriage to Loeb was a match made in political heaven. “Somebody once said that he used a sword and I used a needle,” she told an interviewer. “But we were both aiming for the same target.” Throughout, Heckman makes a convincing case for her significant and lasting influence in conservative politics. From her friendship with Ronald Reagan to her support for Pat Buchanan, she was in the vanguard of the “right-wing populism” that would lead to the tea party and, eventually, the Trump presidency.

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