A Day in N.H.: Bush Is a Man of Many Faces

The real George Bush traveled the breadth of New Hampshire Thursday, leaving in his wake only one question--which one was he?

Was he the George Bush who drank coffee at Cuzzin Richie’s Truck Stop, then gleefully hopped into an 18-wheeler and drove down the highway like a kid with a new bike, a Secret Service agent hanging on the running board and his bulletproof limousine and support car bringing up the rear?

Or was he the George Bush who stood in the basement of a senior citizens complex and, in a poignant address, defended himself as a man whose shortcomings and lack of eloquence mask a passionate commitment?

Both, said Bush. “This is the real me,” he joked, appearing relaxed and confident.

Bush’s disparate identities came together as the carefully controlled Bush campaign junked its country club game plan and tried a little meet-the-people spontaneity.

Dole Rising in Polls

With Kansas Sen. Bob Dole climbing in the polls here to virtually erase Bush’s longtime lead, the vice president is scrambling before Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Gone, at least Thursday, were the elegant backdrops and genteel gatherings. Gone too were vague nameless references to Dole.

Criticizing Dole by name for the first time, Bush belittled Dole’s advocacy of a partial freeze on spending to ease the deficit.

“Bob Dole, my opponent, says the answer is a freeze. . . . That kind of freeze is a bad answer,” Bush told senior citizens in Portsmouth. “It isn’t leadership. It’s followship.”

With his candidacy hanging in the balance, Bush is trying to extend himself to voters as both a hard-nosed worldly leader and as a bantering, just-folks populist.

The campaign’s long-planned schedule had Bush in New Orleans Thursday, speaking before Republican Party leaders. But the Iowa loss shook up his plans and brought him back to New Hampshire with a blank schedule Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday evening, aides tried out the populist approach by depositing the vice president unannounced at a Nashua mall, where he shook hands with workers at Herbert’s Potato World and later munched a chocolate chip cookie. One voter voiced the campaign’s shaky dreams: “President Bush,” he addressed the candidate.

Aides scattered Wednesday to find appropriate sets for the new-style Bush and ended up Thursday sponsoring a free-wheeling tour through the snowbound countryside with a few destinations in mind and several up in the air.

Bush showed up first at the East Coast Lumber & Hardware Co. in East Hampstead, where workers had been alerted to his visit a half hour earlier when Secret Service agents arrived to scan the place.

Operates Forklift

Trailed by more than 100 reporters and camera crews, Bush visited with workers, apologized for the disruption in business and took a turn operating the company’s massive forklift.

“Notice how I did it,” he joked later. “Done with aplomb.”

Eric Morin, a lumberyard employee, grinned at the scene.

“A little crazy,” he said as news crews battled for spots near Bush. “A lot of hype goes on real quick.”

But Morin, a Bush supporter, took pride in the visit.

“How many others would waste the time to come here?” he asked.

Next stop was Cuzzin Richie’s in Greenland, on Thursday the host to a score of trucks, a dozen diners, and the Bush entourage.

In the truck stop’s shop, a clerk explained the commotion to a curious buyer. “Bush,” he said drolly. “He’s from Washington, I think.”

Shakes a Few Hands

Bush strolled into the diner, shook a few hands and spied a man in the rear clad in a work jacket. “I’m sure I saw you standing in the back of a place in Iowa,” he said. “Have you got a twin?”

Unfortunately for Bush most of the people in the diner were visiting the state, not voting residents. “Listen, the South is rising,” he said after meeting some truckers from Texas and Tennessee.

Bush took an empty 18-wheel Mack truck for a guarded spin around the block and came back enthusiastic.

“I feel especially good around here,” said the Massachusetts-born Bush, who Tuesday launched an appeal to voters based on their joint New England roots.

“It feels like home.”

The picture-taking frivolity took a sharp turn in the afternoon, when Bush unveiled a new and more personal speech that defends his perceived shortcomings.

“Here I stand, warts and all,” he told senior citizens in Portsmouth. “I guess I have a tendency to avoid going on with great, eloquent statements of beliefs. Some are better at that than I am.

‘Little More Taciturn’

“Maybe in some ways I’m a little more taciturn,” he added. “ . . . Don’t take that private side of me for lack of passion. . . .

“I don’t always articulate but I always do feel,” he said. “And I care too much to leave now. Our work isn’t done and I’m working my heart out here. And asking your help.”

Bush will appear Saturday night before New Hampshire voters in a half-hour campaign ad broadcast on all local television stations. His aides spoke confidently Thursday that Bush had weathered an erosion in support since his Iowa loss and predicted that upcoming polls will reflect stability.

“The hurricane has now passed,” said Ron Kaufman, Bush’s Northeast organizer.