Kemp, Robertson, Du Pont Trailing : N.H. Favoring Moderates Despite Its Conservatism

Is New Hampshire a conservative state? Does the sun rise in the east?

Yes, but tell that to Republican presidential hopefuls Jack Kemp, Pat Robertson and Pierre S. (Pete) du Pont IV, the three candidates furthest to the right in 1988, and the three who, along with Alexander M. Haig Jr., have the furthest to go to win their party’s primary here.

These are the candidates who rail loudest against the Soviet Union, higher taxes and government spending and who speak up most often for the preservation of traditional family values. Their sluggish start here, however, has caused political experts to wonder if New Hampshire conservatism has lost some of its sap.

“Maybe there is some validity to the notion that the New Hampshire Republican voter is more mainstream than our reputation. Maybe we are reflecting a national correction away from the ultra-right trend that Ronald Reagan came in on,” said Elsie Vartanian, who heads the state Republican Party.

From the start of the campaign, Vice President George Bush, a man conservatives love to hate and who lost to Reagan in the 1980 primary here, has been the chief beneficiary of Republican sentiments. Bush has built a respectable lead in public opinion polls, attracted the support of important politicians, including Gov. John H. Sununu, and shrugged off the fire arrows of the state’s biggest newspaper, the caustic Manchester Union Leader.

Meanwhile, Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, who can sound downright liberal on occasion, has maintained a solid second.

A Gallup poll released this week not only gives Bush the lead, with 38% of the votes, it characterizes his support as “broad and deep” and especially strong among Republicans most loyal to Reagan. Dole was second in the poll, with 23%, and Kemp third, with 15%. Du Pont, who has the Union Leader’s endorsement, received 5%. Robertson and Haig got 4% each.

Failure to do well in New Hampshire could signal the end of the road for Kemp, Du Pont or Haig. Haig has already pulled his campaign resources out of Iowa in order to concentrate them here.

Test of Secular Appeal

For Robertson, best known as a former television evangelist, New Hampshire will be an important test of his secular appeal in a state that does not have a broad base of evangelical voters. However, if he does poorly, Robertson’s expected strength in Iowa and in the South could help him survive New Hampshire.

There is a month left before the New Hampshire primary, the nation’s first. Nothing is written in stone in the Granite State, with its history of toppling front-runners--including George Bush eight years ago. If exit polls in past elections are any guide, about half of the voters will make up their minds during the last few days of the primary campaign, and they will be influenced by what happens in the Iowa caucuses one week prior to the Feb. 16 primary here.

Still, there is a whiff of desperation in the air around some of the conservative candidates as they try to persuade voters that Bush and Dole are not suitable heirs of President Reagan. One of Kemp’s recent campaign commercials bashes Bush and Dole for supporting a tax increase--one that Reagan signed.

Kemp’s most prominent backer here, Republican Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey, last week appeared on the Statehouse steps beside a cartoon of Bush that pictured the vice president in an oversized cowboy hat hobnobbing with Arab royalty and calling for an oil import tax that would be devastating to New England.

Bush Called ‘Elitist’

Humphrey described Bush as “an elitist” and “a Rockefeller Republican” who “is probably the best friend that OPEC has ever had.”

Bush has denied advocating an oil import tax.

Robertson, eager to portray himself as an entrepreneur in a state that values business acumen, bridles at people who refer to him as a former evangelist or televangelist. A four-page campaign ad supplement entitled “the total picture of Pat Robertson” published in local newspapers this week makes no mention of Robertson’s religious background. The words “Christian” and “evangelical” are missing from the supplement, which focuses instead on Robertson’s activities as a Korean War veteran, an educator and a businessman.

This week, the conservative challengers are girding for battle with Bush and Dole at Dartmouth College in the first televised debate in New Hampshire. The Dartmouth debate on Saturday may also be the last crack that the lower-tier candidates get at Bush and Dole in front of a television audience before the Feb. 16th primary. So far, the two front-runners have not agreed to any other debates in New Hampshire.

Kemp and Du Pont already have accused Bush’s friends in the state party hierarchy of manipulating the format of the Dartmouth debate to shield the vice president from hostile questioning by his opponents. The debate is being organized by state party officials with help from faculty members at Dartmouth and the University of New Hampshire.

Squabble Seen as Contrived

The squabble over the debate has a vaguely contrived aura about it, somewhat akin to the hype that wrestling promoters might generate for a grudge match with “Gorgeous George.” But it is meant to remind people of the presidential debate eight years ago in Nashua, N. H., when Bush tried unsuccessfully to ignore four other candidates who were trailing him in the polls. The incident figured prominently in his 1980 defeat here.

Bush aides here insist that they have made no effort to stage-manage the Dartmouth debate and dismiss their opponents’ protests as a publicity stunt.

“They are trying to make this into ‘Son of Nashua,’ but it won’t work,” said Ron Kauffman, who heads the Bush campaign in the Northeast. “We’ve said we’ll accept the debate format they’re proposing. Why would we object to questions from other candidates when the vice president has answered them so well in previous debates?” Kauffman asked.

Although the conservative challengers have been raising questions about Bush and Dole, their line of attack does not appear to have sparked much new voter interest in their own campaigns.

“They’ve got to provide an electricity to their own campaigns,” said Vartanian about the second-tier candidates. “That electricity hasn’t struck.”

Kemp has been the biggest surprise so far. He is well known here as a godfather of Reaganomics and a dynamic congressman from New York. Yet, his campaign has been slow to catch on, although his rating in the Gallup poll just released is five points higher than it had been in previous surveys.

For Kemp, a Style Problem

Kemp’s troubles often are blamed on style rather than substance. Critics say his fierce enthusiasm puts off voters and is out of synch with their edginess over the budget deficit, the balance of trade and the stock market. However, aides here continue to believe that success will come if Kemp can persuade voters that he is the one bona fide conservative in the race.

“The problem in ’88 is that all of the Republican candidates are passing themselves off as conservatives,” said Paul Young, Kemp’s chief of staff in New Hampshire. “The reality is that George Bush and Bob Dole are moderates. Their records show that, and it is important to get that across.”

Kemp’s message to New Hampshire voters is primarily an economic one. He argues that a stable currency along with a freeze on spending and a refusal to raise taxes will lead to lower interest rates, lower unemployment and a burst of entrepreneurship.

But there is a populist side to Kemp, including an outspoken solicitude for the poor, that leads some Republicans in New Hampshire to question his conservatism.

Against Subsidies

For example, Kemp says that he is against all forms of subsidies, particularly those benefiting corporations, except those necessary to take care of poor people.

“I’m not the Establishment candidate. I don’t believe in corporate subsidies,” Kemp likes to tell well-heeled audiences.

“I don’t think Jack Kemp is really a conservative, and that’s one reason I’m not supporting him,” said state Sen. Rona Charbonneau of Pelham.

David Moore, a University of New Hampshire political scientist who has done as much polling on presidential candidates here as anyone, does not hold out high hopes for conservative candidates who stress their ideological credentials at the expense of other qualities.

“If the candidates are harping on conservative themes, they are missing the boat. It would be more effective for them to talk about experience,” Moore said.

Moore maintains also that New Hampshire’s reputation for ultraconservatism has been exaggerated.

“The fabled New Hampshire conservatism is just that, a fable,” he said.

Victories by Centrists

Moore points to several Republican primary elections over the last 35 years in which strong conservatives lost to more centrist opponents. Ohio Sen. Robert A. Taft was defeated by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater lost to a write-in candidate, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, in 1964, and Ronald Reagan lost the 1976 primary to former President Gerald R. Ford.

“The New Hampshire voter is pretty conservative, but he is also much more pragmatic than he is given credit for,” Moore said. “Voters here are looking for signs of leadership and electability.”

Jeffrey Hart, a Dartmouth professor, a former speech writer for Richard M. Nixon and an editor of the conservative National Review, has a similar view of New Hampshire voters.

“They are as much Establishment voters as they are conservative voters,” Hart said. “They’ll stick with the tried and true. They are not risk takers.”

If that sounds like a recipe for a Bush victory, it is not meant to.

Both Hart and Moore think Bush is vulnerable here despite his lead in the polls, including Moore’s polls.

Bush Defeat Predicted

Indeed, Moore has been predicting for several months that Bush’s lead in New Hampshire will evaporate and that he will not win the state’s primary.

“I think he will be beaten in New Hampshire after he is beaten in Iowa,” he said.

Moore, who happens to be one of the people responsible for shaping the Dartmouth debate format, said he does not believe Bush will suffer a dramatic body blow like that in Nashua in 1980.

“I don’t think it will be a sudden thing. I think people will absorb information over a period of time, whether it’s about his role in the Iran-Contra affair or something else, and their confidence in him will gradually erode.”

Moore was a contributor to a recent book on the New Hampshire primary which argues that voters here are influenced more than anything else by what happens in Iowa the week before the New Hampshire primary.