Laconia's Bernie Boutin, prince of Kennedy era politics in New Hampshire, dies at 88

LACONIA — Bernard "Bernie" Boutin, a former mayor of Laconia who in 1906 engineered the triumph of John F. Kennedy in the New Hampshire Presidential Primary, passed away at the age of 88 on Wednesday. Most recently he was a Meredith resident.

(See obituary on page 14.)

Born in Belmont, Boutin was just 32 when he was elected to the first of his two terms as mayor of Laconia in 1955. He was one of a talented corps of local Democrats that included future United States Senator Thomas McIntyre, United States Representative J. Oliva Huot, United States District Judge Hugh Bownes and prominent local attorney Paul Normandin whose efforts were rewarded by the ascendancy of the party throughout the state in the 1960s.

After managing dark horse Estes Kefauver to victory in the 1956 Democratic presidential primary, Boutin was named to the Democratic National Committee. He twice topped the ticket as a candidate for governor in 1958 and 1960, losing each time primarily because he devoted his skills and energies to the campaigns of others.

In 1960 he turned his hand to Kennedy's fortunes, spearheading his primary and presidential campaigns in New Hampshire. The day after Kennedy was elected president, he called Boutin, who had returned to his insurance agency, telling him "sell the business and come to Washington with me." Boutin was named deputy administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), the first of a string of appointments that kept in Washington for the next seven years. Within a year he rose to head of the GSA, leaving in 1964 to coordinate Lyndon Johnson's presidential bid in New England and New York. In the Johnson Administration he served first at deputy director of the Office of Economic Opportunity and then as administrator of the Small Business Administration.

In 1967 he returned to New Hampshire as director of corporate information services at Sanders Associates, Inc. in Nashua and two years later returned to his alma mater, St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont as its president. He joined Burlington Savings Bank in 1975 and a year later became president, a post he held until he retired in 1980. All the while he served as a director of numerous private corporations, public institutions and non-profit organizations, earning fistfuls of honors for his diverse contributions to the community.