HE'S BEEN featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe, and on the ABC News Web site and more. He's been referred to as the most powerful man in America no one knows.

He's been portrayed by those in other states he utterly frustrates as a power-hungry, "star chamber" type, pushing proverbial buttons and pulling proverbial levers that affect political fortunes .

But who, really, is Manchester's William M. "Billy" Gardner?

He's the seemingly always blushing guy who sits in a tiny, paper-messy, barren-walled office in a small corner of the State House. He's a wide-eyed, aw-shucks guy who loves raising chickens and, at 58, playing basketball with his brothers and watching the Patriots and Red Sox. At first, he comes across as a grown up Opie Taylor -- "never a tough guy," according to his thumbnail in the 1966 Bishop Bradley High School yearbook.

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Well, he may not look tough. But when it comes to the New Hampshire primary, America, don't mess with Bill.

Gardner has those who would be President, their high-paid consultants, network executives and nationally-known political writers and pundits hanging on his every utterance, as rambling and imprecise as they sometimes can be.

Gardner, a lifelong Democrat who has been elected 16 times by a state Legislature that until last year had been dominated by the GOP, is the man who every four years sets the date of the New Hampshire primary. And this year especially, as other states press hard to crowd around the primary to steal a slice of its first-in-the-nation luster, setting a date is no simple task.

New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner poses in his State House office yesterday. (BOB LAPREE)

Gardner does much more in his job. He and his staff of about 80 oversee state elections and state candidate fundraising records, records of payments to State House lobbyists and laws regarding the filings of apostilles and certificates, businesses, trademarks and trade names. His office enforces securities regulations.

But Gardner says nothing he does is more important than protecting the "tradition" of the state's first-in-the-nation presidential primary. As Secretary of State since 1976, he has stared down powerful political party leaders and legislatures and governors in other states who have been determined to end the first-by-a-week tradition and grab the national spotlight for themselves.

Gardner says his job is to carry out a 1975 statute law requiring the Secretary of State to schedule the primary at least seven days before any "similar election." But, he says, no outsiders and few local insiders understand what's behind the law; the fact that it's the product of a tradition he says dates back to Revolutionary War days.

Talking history

Ask Bill Gardner about himself, and he'll stammer and squirm in his seat. His face may turn a pinkish red. But ask Gardner about the primary and he'll literally talk all day.

He'll begin at the beginning, with Paul Revere riding to Portsmouth in 1774 to alert the colonists there that the British had blockaded Boston Harbor and were heading north. He says that half of those who battled at Bunker Hill were from New Hampshire. He says that in January 1776, New Hampshire was the first colony to declare independence from the British monarch. New Hampshire delegate Josiah Bartlett was the first -- after John Hancock himself -- to sign the Declaration of Independence, he points out.

He'll talk about the first-ever national nominating convention, conceived at the Eagle Coffee House, across the street from the State House. In 1831, future President Franklin Pierce called Democrats (then called "Republicans," but unrelated to the present GOP) together to stop the hand-picked "king's caucus" of the time from choosing nominees. The Concord group passed a resolution approving Andrew Jackson for a second-term as President and calling on elected leaders of the party in all states to convene in Baltimore the following May.

He tells of how, in the 1860s, New Hampshire began holding its annual state general elections on town meeting day in March, before any other state. In that leadoff position, New Hampshire became a barometer of public political sentiment and its elections were closely watched by the rest of the nation.

He talks of an 1860 New Hampshire visit by Abraham Lincoln, and then, 53 years later, how farmer/legislator Stephen A. Bullock of Richmond sponsored a law requiring a presidential primary to be held on the third Tuesday in May 1916. That law was amended two years later to have the primary on the first Tuesday in March of 1916, to coincide with town meeting day.

New Hampshire's primary was not first in 1916, but by 1920, the states ahead of it had either moved back or had changed to caucuses, Gardner says. At that point, the first-in-the-nation primary was officially established.

He tells of how, in 1949, Concord attorney Richard Upton, who was Speaker of the House, sponsored legislation that allowed primary voters to choose delegates pledged to candidates, beginning the person-to-person campaigning that continues today.

"Why did these things happen, and why here?" he asks, and answers, "They happened because of the grassroots nature of this state, the fact that the shortest distance between citizen and government exists here. When you have this unique political culture, it creates this dynamic, the environment that exists here for a presidential primary."

Gardner recalls the saga of 1968, when President Lyndon Baines Johnson "lost" to Eugene McCarthy when he won only a slim majority of the popular vote. Johnson quickly dropped plans to seek re-election.

"The country took notice," Gardner says, and it has taken notice, with increasing intensity, ever since.

Fending off challenges

Gardner is again in the national spotlight this week as candidates trek to his office to file their candidacies for the upcoming primary. But his biggest day of the current cycle will be when he attempts to out-maneuver New Hampshire's detractors and sets the date for the primary.

Gardner has yet not shown his hand, except to say that with other states moving forward, the primary can not, under the law, be held later than Jan. 8. He has not ruled out a mid-December primary.

When Gardner was first elected Secretary of State in 1976, "I had absolutely no idea" that the primary would be under attack in nearly every election cycle since, he said. "It never came up when I was talking to (legislators) about running for the job."

The first big test came in 1984, when future a national Democratic official named Nancy Pelosi tried to dissuade fellow Democrat Gardner from jumping the primary a week ahead of Democratic "beauty contest" and Republican delegate selection vote scheduled for the same day in Vermont. Gardner would not budge.

But Gardner's toughest moment came in late 1999. Former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen called Gardner into her office, and with other elected leaders, tried to convince him to change the date he had set for the primary, which was just a day after the Iowa caucus, upsetting Democratic officials in that state.

Gardner again would not budge. The leaders floated legislation stripping Gardner of his power to set the primary date. But rank-and-file lawmakers backed Gardner, and the leadership quickly retreated.

"Those 15 seconds walking back from the governor's office to this office was the toughest walk for me, because if I had been wrong, that would be it, and I should be out," he said. Iowa blinked and moved its caucus date out of New Hampshire's way.

During that battle, Gardner confided in his long-time friend, former Gov. Hugh Gregg, who was a chief primary defender and political historian in his own right. They decided -- luckily, says Gardner -- to document the history of the primary in the 2003 book, "Why? New Hampshire." Gregg died at 85 shortly after the book was completed and before its release.

"They were very close," said former state Democratic chair Kathy Sullivan, who has known Gardner since childhood. "But now, I think it must be lonely to be Bill Gardner. Everything he does revolves around protecting the primary, and he gets no help.

"We all trust him to do the right thing and make the right decision, but it's an awful lot of weight for any one person to carry," Sullivan said.

But Gardner said he loses no sleep worrying about when to schedule the primary. He'll follow the law and, he said, "I want the primary to come out stronger. We've taken stands because we've had the will. We never backed down. And by 'we,' I mean all the people of New Hampshire. We're going to show the same will this time, and preserve our tradition."