In New Hampshire, They're Off!

Bush speaks for them all when he says, "You can't escape "

Ronald Reagan: "It's nice to be liked, but it's more important to be respected."

George Bush: "A President we won't have to train."

Howard Baker: "A leader for the '80s."

President Carter: "For the truth."

Edward Kennedy: "I think we can make a difference and do it better."

Up and down the Main Streets and Elm Streets of New Hampshire, from Colebrook to Concord, from Dixville Notch to Laconia, banners, posters, TV and radio ads proclaim the slogans aimed at achieving victory or avoiding defeat in the nation's first primary, on Feb. 26. The Granite State was a bit upstaged this year when the Iowa and Maine caucuses took on greater prominence than ever before. But New Hampshire is still the first state where voters cast an actual ballot.

Adding to this year's political fever is the fact that the races in both parties are considered too close to call with any assurance. Carter and Kennedy, Reagan and Bush are battling fiercely for those few extra votes that may be decisive in their campaigns. A victory, however slight, in an early primary gives a candidate momentum going into subsequent contests. Carter clobbered Kennedy 2 to 1 in Iowa, but then won more narrowly last week in Maine, 43.6% to 40.2%, with California Governor Jerry Brown picking up a surprising 13.8%. Bush upset Reagan 32% to 29% in Iowa, though Republican results in Maine will not be known until March 15. Some 36,000 people participated in the Maine Democratic caucuses, five times the number that turned out in 1976, and a similar increase is expected in the New Hampshire primary.

There is no escaping the political onslaught--the price New Hampshirites pay for wanting to be first. They may be going fishing or to church or to lunch or to nowhere in particular, yet there is usually some candidate or at least some poster of a candidate staring them right in the eye. At a Ramada Inn in Manchester, where young workmen were taking down the WELCOME GOVERNOR REAGAN Sign and putting up GREETINGS AMBASSADOR BUSH, one of them groused, "As soon as he's through, we've got to get ready for John Anderson."

New Hampshire is sometimes disparaged as being too white, rural and conservative to reflect national opinion, but the state is fast changing. An influx of residents from Massachusetts into the southern part of the state is giving it, for better or worse, the look of much of the rest of the nation: the same kind of suburban sprawl. Its population has been growing faster than that of any other Eastern state except Florida--from 780,000 to 938,000 in the last decade. To reach these greater numbers, candidates are relying more than ever on TV. One pitch follows another in a dizzying succession of 30-second spot commercials. "President Carter--a man of resolve, a man of achievement," drones one typical effort. Soon after that comes the voice of Ted Kennedy intoning, "New Hampshire can make the difference."

Nobody is campaigning harder, or more exuberantly, than the newly established Republican front runner, George Bush. Indeed, he once barely avoided shaking hands with a mannequin in a department store. "No fair hiding," he chided a diffident bystander. "You can't escape. I'm George Bush. I would love to have your vote." When an English professor at Plymouth State College morosly observed that Bush was offering the same shopworm "miracles" as other politicians, the candidate replied: "They are not miracles , they are fundamentals. Come on, Cheer up a little bit." The student audience burst into applause. Bush is equally cheery in looking ahead. Says he: I really think I can beat Carter. It's not like I would be up against some heavyweight in purple trunks. I really believe Carter is the little marshmallow whom Kennedy set out to beat last fall."

But Bush is keenly aware of the perils of his new preeminence. "If somebody comes out with something that shows me way out front, I'll be poor-mouthing it," he said in an outburst of candor aboard his chartered jet. "I'll say, This is ridiculous. God, how could you expect that from a little guy like me?' "

The Bush campaign is under the near total control of former Governor Hugh Gregg, who ran Reagan's campaign four years ago. The "Ayatullah Gregg," as Bush staffers call him, brooks no interference as he keeps the candidate moving with the precision of Mussolini's trains. "We work Bush like a dog," admits Gregg, who allows the candidate 22 minutes for lunch on some days, six minutes for a sandwich on busy ones.

Bush's New Hampshire nemesis is irascible, archconservative William Loeb, publisher of the Manchester Union Leader. Though the state's largest daily has lost some of its clout, it still packs a powerful below-the-belt punch. Scarcely an edition goes by without Loeb's patting Reagan on the back while he attacks Kennedy and Bush. Contending in a frontpage article that ex-CIA agents are working in Bush's campaign, Loeb charged that Bush's victory in Iowa had "all the smell of a CIA covert operation." Loeb also played up a charge rehashed in the Los Angeles Times that Bush had not properly reported a contribution of $106,000 from a Nixon slush fund for his unsuccessful Senate campaign in Texas in 1970. DIRTY, DIRTY, DIRTY headlined the Union Leader. "I am clean, clean, clean," insisted Bush. In a rare display of anger, he asked, "What the hell are they raising that for now?" He claims he reported the contribution in compliance with the laws then on the books. When he was named CIA director, Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski investigated the transaction and cleared him of any wrongdoing.

Reagan, who had been coasting along as the leading Republican, has abandoned his pose of Olympian statesmanship and now repeatedly attacks Carter for a foreign policy "bordering on appeasement." But he also tries to counterpunch Bush as too liberal on welfare, abortion, ERA and gun control. And on every issue he has a ready quip or a slogan. Asked about the public school prayer amendment, he says he is for it and adds: "If we can get the Federal Government out of the classroom, maybe we can get God back in." But often there are fluffs, which nobody in his entourage will admit are a sign of his age. Several times, he has switched Afghanistan and Pakistan. In one speech, he charged that the White House turned its back on Taiwan "when Andy Carter came along." Andy Carter? Smiling, Reagan corrected himself: "A member of my staff is named Andy Carter."

Reagan is ill at ease pressing the flesh, but he has been reaching for as many hands as possible. One day his aides added an unscheduled stop in Merrimack, and his motorcade drew up at the Rainbow Pharmacy so that he could buy a Valentine's Day card for his wife Nancy. With TV crews jostling around him, Reagan got two housewives to help him select not one but three cards, but he had to be reminded by an aide to hustle a few votes. "I'd be very proud and happy if you could support me," said Reagan. "That's it," gushed Madeline Morris of Merrimack. "I'll vote for him. I'm easy."

Reagan watchers detect a note of anxiety in this frantic activity. Last week Reagan canceled a commitment in Illinois to schedule more New Hampshire activities. The purpose is not only to meet more voters but also to keep his campaign workers on the move. "I'm going to stay right through the election," Reagan jocularly told them. "I'm going to go out and spy and see if you're ringing doorbells." And as a final concession to the new demands on him, Reagan agreed to a TV debate with his G.O.P. rivals on Feb. 20 and one with Bush alone three days later.

The other Republican candidates range from somewhat visible to out of sight. Howard Baker is a tough campaigner, but he has a much weaker organization than the two front runners. Anything less than finishing a strong third would probably doom his campaign, and he is being threatened by, of all people, tell-it-like-it-is John Anderson, who has been attracting financial support from liberal Democrats. John Connally has practically written off New Hampshire and has been concentrating his resources in the first Southern primary, South Carolina on March 8. Phil Crane is expected to siphon off some Reagan votes in New Hampshire, just enough to keep him going until Illinois. For Robert Dole, New Hampshire may be the end of the line.

On the Democratic side, the Carter forces briefly had hoped--perhaps unrealistically--to knock Kennedy out of the race in Maine. When they failed to do that, they became worried about New Hampshire. Patrick Caddell, the President's pollster, feels that the local polls showing Carter way ahead cannot be trusted. His own surveys indicate that the President's lead is narrowing fast. Carter's staffers are sure that his failure to campaign is hurting him in a state where voters are accustomed to looking a candidate in the eye. Every night, White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan and other aides anxiously await the latest comments from voters phoned by Carter volunteers in New Hampshire. Increasingly, people express their displeasure over Carter's absence. But Carter refuses to budge from Washington until the hostages are released. The President said last week, "I want the world to know that I am not going to resume business as usual until our hostages are back here."

Meanwhile, his forces are hardly inactive in New Hampshire. The White House has been shoveling federal funds into the state: $34 million for highway improvements, a $1.5 million loan guarantee to American Skate Factory in Berlin, an $850,000 housing grant to Nashua. White House surrogates--Rosalynn, Chip, Miss Lillian, Vice President Walter and Joan Mondale, Muriel Humphrey--have made New Hampshire a second home. But the biggest campaign boost of all would come from Iran. Jests a White House aide: "Do you think folks would yell 'partisan' if we flew the hostages back to Pease Air Force Base [outside Portsmouth, N.H.]?"

Like a first-term Congressman, Kennedy lumbered around New Hampshire last week in a scruffy chartered bus overflowing with reporters. He slogged through streets, grimy factories and high school gyms in a determined effort to rescue his shaky political fortunes. But the Maine results had at least revived his hopes. Contributions, which had dried up after Iowa, were coming back in (to about $750,000 as of last week), and staffers were going back on the payroll.

In every speech, Kennedy is strenuously attacking Carter from the liberal side on both foreign and domestic issues. Explains a top aide: "He's only comfortable with that, not tailoring his opinions to this group or that poll." Kennedy opposes draft registration. "I would rather do with less gas than shed American blood to defend OPEC pipelines," he shouts. And nuclear power: "There is no position for nuclear power in a Kennedy energy program." And on the economy: "I will stop inflation in its tracks." His aides believe that Kennedy draws most blood when he assails Carter for "not coming out of the Rose Garden." Says Kennedy at every stop: "Jimmy Carter ought not to be given a blank check. The last time we did that was to Richard Nixon. Once is enough."

Kennedy's performance remains uneven. He delivers a speech sometimes firmly, sometimes haltingly. He seems to operate on two levels: strident or somnolent. He may bellow on one occasion, whisper on another. At breakfast one morning, he bored the Southern New Hampshire Association of Commerce and Industry. Later in the day, he barely caused a stir among high school students in Plaistow. But that night he wowed the crowd at the University of New Hampshire.

One result of Kennedy's heightened attacks on Carter has been to launch, even if only by long-range salvos, the debate that the Senator has long sought. "It looks like we finally got his attention," Kennedy laughed after one White House outburst. Carter has indeed been stung into answering Kennedy's accusations. To one charge, that he risked "spilling American blood to top off gas tanks here at home," Carter exploded to an aide: "It's disgusting!" Increasing bitterness between Carter and his chief rival could lead to a party split of serious proportions.

After all the sometimes exhilarating but often dreary campaigning, after all the charges and countercharges, for all the flesh pressing and mind reading, the New Hampshire results may be largely determined by events beyond the candidates' control. Both Democratic camps realize that Carter would be given an enormous lift if the hostages in Tehran were freed before the primary. If that happens, Kennedy must somehow try to hang on until the acclaim for the President subsides and voters remember his lackluster performance in handling inflation and energy. Losing in New Hampshire, however, will be more crippling for Kennedy than Carter since the next series of primaries takes place in the South, where the President has the commanding lead of a native son.

New Hampshire will be just as crucial for the Reagan-Bush race. If the Californian comes in second and then loses to Bush in Massachusetts, as expected, he cannot count on his support in the South and West holding up. Already there are signs of erosion to Bush in Reagan territory. On the other hand, now that Bush has raised expectations, he must continue to show momentum. Admits Bush: "I know that what goes up can get shot down." Once again, doughty little New Hampshire has accomplished what it set out to do by establishing the nation's first primary--the making and breaking of presidential candidates.

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