Gregg Chief of Staff is a Known Quantity in New Hampshire Politics

by David Tamasi

WASHINGTON - Joel Maiola knows New Hampshire politics. At least President George W. Bush, former President George Bush, former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Gov. Craig Benson and U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg think he does.

Maiola, 44, currently serves in Concord as Gregg's chief of staff. He has worked for the New Hampshire senator for 20 years. And he has played a major role in the state's last four Republican presidential primaries - ultimately managing the current president's New Hampshire campaign -- and its most recent gubernatorial contest.

"He is widely regarded as one of the most able political organizers and strategists in the state," said longtime GOP operative and attorney Tom Rath.

Even the chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, Kathy Sullivan, agreed that Maiola was a "pretty well-respected" figure in state political circles.

Next year, Maiola's political prowess will again be put to use as Gregg faces a challenge from Democratic state Sen. Burton Cohen.

But in the last two years, Maiola has been in the news for a different reason. At issue are two separate but similar incidents involving elderly peace activists.

The Concord Monitor reported on October 7, 2001, that "Maiola refused to apologize for having argued repeatedly with a group of two dozen elderly peace activists" who were submitting a peace petition to Gregg and Rep. Charles Bass, R.-N.H., a few weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The event was caught on tape by New Hampshire Public Television.

The newspaper quoted a Republican operative saying, "It's this kind of error in judgment that cost Bush the primary in New Hampshire." Bush was soundly defeated in 2000 by Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

In October 2002, while the Senate debated whether to authorize the use of force in Iraq, 35 members of the Seacoast Peace Response organization headed to Gregg's Newington office seeking answers to 15 questions the group had previously submitted to the senator.

Among the peace activists was Macy Morse, an 82-year-old Portsmouth resident and longtime opponent of war.

Maiola reportedly confronted Morse inside Gregg's Newington office and told her to leave the premises.

"He was in the Concord office when he found out there were 25 of us outside and another five in the office," Morse said in a recent telephone interview. "He urged us to leave by 5 p.m. because that was when the office closed."

Morse said she never felt physically threatened by Maiola. Maiola, through a Gregg spokeswoman, declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this article. Public service has been a tradition in the Maiola family. His father, Tony, has been New Hampshire's liquor commissioner for the past 12 years and his mother has served on the Newport planning board and as town selectman. A

resident of Bow, Maiola graduated from Keene State College in 1980 and, even before he graduated, began working in politics in Bush the elder's first presidential campaign, , with the help of his connections to former New Hampshire Gov. Hugh Gregg, who recently died. "He was a child prodigy," Rath said of Maiola.

Maiola's affiliation with the younger Gregg began in 1983, when Gregg was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and has continued through Gregg's term as governor and now as senator.

Along the way, Maiola took time off from Gregg's staff to work on the New Hampshire presidential primary campaigns of the elder Bush in 1988 and 1992, and Dole in 1996. But it was Maiola's work with the current president in 2000 that caught the attention of Bush political adviser Karl Rove.

Despite the New Hampshire primary loss, Maiola was asked to join the Bush team for the campaign's final eight weeks. He went to campaign headquarters in Austin, Tex., where he was in charge of direct-mail operations and radio advertising. Serving as an assistant to Rove, Maiola got to know Bush; on election night, he was one of a small group allowed in the "boiler room," the first place where results come in.

After Bush took office, Rove asked Maiola to assist him in the White House political shop. He turned down the job to be with his wife, Karen, and children Ryan and Lauren in Bow, Maiola told the Bow Times last year.

Although he works in Concord for Gregg, Maiola remains in close contact with Rove, reportedly speaking with the President's chief political strategist as often as several times a week.

"He is probably one of the single most powerful men in the state," said James Pindell, managing editor of PoliticsNH.com, a political Web site, "and not just in Republican circles."

In fact, Business NH Magazine named Maiola one of the state's 10 most influential people. Maiola's boss, Gregg, did not make the list.

Two years ago, Maiola took a leave of absence from Gregg's staff to join Benson's general-election campaign immediately after his primary victory. Benson shook up the staff amid concern the campaign was haphazardly spending money. Pindell said an experienced political hand was needed to streamline and refine the campaign's message.

State Democratic Party chief Sullivan said Maiola was brought in to "make sure things were not messed up."

When Maiola joined the Benson campaign, he was reunited with one-time adversary Mike Dennehy, who had run McCain's successful 2000 New Hampshire primary campaign.

Rath dismissed talk that the two did not get along, saying disagreements between Dennehy and Maiola were "professional and not personal."

Now Maiola is gearing up for another race, this time on behalf of his longtime boss, Gregg.

"Maiola is the guy you call when you are in a pinch," Pindell said, although Gregg is favored to win the race. "He is to Judd Gregg what Karl Rove is to the President."