DOLE'S KITCHEN MAGICIAN

By Michael Kramer

New Hampshire haunts Bob Dole. When he first ran for the Republican presidential nomination, in 1980, Dole got 597 votes -- good for last place in a seven-man field. He did better in 1988, but he was supposed to win; finishing second to George Bush doomed his candidacy.

What is it about New Hampshire, and how do you go about winning there? Let Dole explain it. "People pay attention to the first of anything," Dole said earlier this year. "They pay even more attention if you're seen as the front runner, so if you stumble in New Hampshire, you're dead. Other folks become 'hot.' It's as simple as that."

But winning isn't that simple at all. "You can talk issues and vision for the country -- you can cover all of those bases and still lose," said Dole. "The key in New Hampshire is organization. Voters there get personal about their relationships with you and will stick with you and save you if you're in trouble. That's what happened in '88. I got myself elected President of Iowa. Bush came in third there, but his New Hampshire organization wiped out my Iowa bounce. I've learned. I will absolutely not be out organized in New Hampshire this time."

Which is where Dave Carney comes in. At 36, Carney is already a legend among Republican operatives. He cut his teeth running the field operations for John Sununu's losing 1980 race for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire. That was when Carney lived in an unplugged walk-in refrigerator in a bagel deli and showered at a YMCA across the street. Carney followed Sununu into Bush's '88 campaign and then served as the White House political director. The pinball machine in his office kept people coming by -- "and helped keep me in the loop," Carney concedes. "He's temperamental and a bit nuts," says Andy Card, who was Bush's Transportation Secretary, "but he defines action. He gets things done." After Bush's '92 loss to Clinton, which Carney says he has "almost completely repressed," he was instrumental in the G.O.P.'s brilliant 1994 senatorial campaign effort, in which the party picked up eight seats. Carney was recruited by just about every '96 Republican presidential wannabe and chose Dole, who says that "having Dave helps me sleep at night."

Carney is an "Etch-A-Sketch" politician. He begins every campaign from scratch and views each as a personal test to do the job better than it was done before. Consider just some of the New Hampshire moves Carney is helping oversee, work Dole's rivals can only envy.

New Hampshire has 259 towns and wards; Dole has two volunteer co-chairmen in almost all of them already. "Dole had only 20 regional chairmen statewide in '88," says Carney. "We'll have 500 people. Those are vested folks. They see their own reputations on the line, so they work hard." To goad their efforts, each chairman has been given a vote goal. Over the next seven months, their performance will be measured periodically and made known to their colleagues. "Politics is the state sport," Carney explains, "so competition is a powerful incentive."

Carney hopes to know the first choices of all 200,000 potential Republican voters in the state. "That way," he says, "we can strike for them if their first choice falters, like we did for Bush in '88 when Al Haig tanked." Dole already has 25,000 New Hampshire Republicans committed to him publicly, which is about the same number that Bush had at the end of his winning 1988 primary. To cement the allegiance of those supporters and encourage them to enlist others, each will soon get an audiocassette from Dole and the first issue of a newsletter, as well as constant calls from their town leaders. An elaborate fax and E-mail operation helps "everyone feel some ownership in the candidacy," says Carney. Affinity groups are being formed too. The leaders of some 20 such groups -- like Teachers for Dole -- will also have vote goals to reach. "Bind 'em in early," says Carney of the volunteers, "and you have 'em when things go wrong, which they always do."

If it seems that little is left to chance, that's because little is -- and Dole himself is working harder than ever. "He's here often, meeting quietly with small groups and making calls to selected Republicans," says Carney. Of the hundreds of calls placed so far, perhaps none have been so important as those that have won the endorsement of every one of New Hampshire's nine Republican county sheriffs, a first ever sweep. "They're kind of a secret weapon," explains Carney. "The sheriffs up here know everybody and are perceived as less political than the other elected pols, so their support carries a lot of weight, and not just with the pro-gun crowd." The special attention is "damn impressive," says sheriff Walter Morse of Hillsborough County. "I got calls from Dole and met with him three times. The others called only once, and they're a hell of a lot less busy than he is. You want to win, so you want to be with the most serious guys. That's clearly Dole and his people."

"I know how I got beat before, and I'm making the corrections," Dole deadpanned last February as he watched Carney buttonhole a prospective supporter. "You do it person by person, kitchen by kitchen. It's tedious, and it doesn't mean much -- unless you want to win."