Donald Trump has famously insulted Mexicans, Muslims, women, and his many, many presidential campaign rivals. But when he savaged a newspaper publisher this week, he was simply following an age-old New Hampshire primary tradition.
After the New Hampshire Union Leader of Manchester called Trump a "crude blowhard" this week, Trump responded in kind. The publisher, Joseph W. McQuaid, is a "real lowlife,'' Trump told a TV interviewer. The newspaper itself, Trump told voters at a Nashua rally, is a "pile of garbage."
With different words, in a different era, John F. Kennedy expressed sentiments not dissimilar about the paper and its then-publisher William Loeb, who had accused him of being soft on communism, among other sins.
"I believe there is probably a more irresponsible newspaper than the one right over there, somewhere in the United States," Kennedy said during an election-eve visit to Manchester in November 1960. "But I've been through 40 states, and I haven't found it yet."
For good measure, JFK added, "I believe that there is a publisher who has less regard for the truth than William Loeb, but I can't think of his name."
(Loeb later called Kennedy the "No. 1 Liar in the USA.'')
Twelve years later, Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie, too, railed against the Union Leader, amid a convoluted spat in which the newspaper had attacked Muskie's wife (for "unladylike" behavior) and himself (on a spurious charge of bigotry).
In a February storm, with snow — or was it tears? — streaming down his face, Muskie held a press conference outside the newspaper's downtown offices and called Loeb a "gutless coward." And then, he added: "It's fortunate for him he's not on this platform beside me."
Donald Trump is now united with Kennedy and Muskie — in their antipathy for the daily paper of Manchester, N.H. One more unlikely development in the still-young 2016 race.
Felice Belman can be reached at felice.belman@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @FeliceBelman.