Democratic Contenders Sweep Into New Hampshire : Politics: Appearances mark what many describe as the unofficial opening of the ’92 campaign. State looms as even more important than usual.

As Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey took his presidential campaign across this state early last week, someone asked him the same needling question at just about every stop: would he fire back if the Republicans barraged him with the kind of attacks that felled Michael S. Dukakis in 1988?

So when retired economics professor Sam Rosen raised the issue again during a crowded reception in Durham, N.H., Kerrey, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner in Vietnam, fixed him with a long exasperated look before answering.

“Do I look like someone who’s going to walk away from a fight?” Kerrey finally said after a tense silence.

Rosen didn’t miss a beat in response: “I don’t know that Sen. Kerrey,” he shot back. “I’m meeting you for the first time.”

That’s the intimate sound of presidential politics in New Hampshire--a place where many voters expect to see the candidates sweat before they close the sale. The men and occasional woman who would be President endure these inspections for a simple reason: since New Hampshire inaugurated its first-in-the-nation primary in 1952, no one has won the White House without first winning here.

This year, New Hampshire looms even larger than usual, because the candidacy of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has devalued the Iowa caucus that will precede the Feb. 18 voting in New Hampshire by eight days. For the Democratic contenders, says Kerrey, New Hampshire will be the first contest on neutral turf--”the jump ball state.”

That privileged status was underlined by the crush of candidates who jostled through the state last week, marking what many described as the unofficial opening of the 1992 campaign. As tourists arrived to sample the autumn colors exploding on the hillsides, Kerrey, Harkin, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and former Mass. Sen. Paul E. Tsongas all crisscrossed from intimate receptions to speeches at high schools and hand-shaking in coffee shops. Even Oklahoma Rep. Dave McCurdy, who is still exploring a bid, slipped in quietly last weekend.

Each of them found a state whose mood has palpably deflated since the 1988 primary that launched Dukakis toward the Democratic nomination. In 1988, with employment at 2.4%, New Hampshire was euphoric; today, with the jobless rate peaking over 7% and the state’s banking system in disarray, “people are scared,” said Marilyn Learner, a party activist from Hollis.

“Every major bank in New Hampshire is in trouble,” Tsongas said as he campaigned last Wednesday along Main Street in Hanover, the home of his alma mater, Dartmouth College. “You saw the reaction in California when the unemployment rate went up this week? That’s what you have here on a continuing basis. There is a sense that everybody is hurting and no obvious sense of when that is going to change.”

As if to underline the point, the owner of a ski shop Tsongas strolled into a few minutes later told the candidate the weak economy was forcing him to close down after nine years. “I don’t know enough about Tsongas,” said the owner, Steve Fellows, “but I think we need a radical change. The current Republican Administration isn’t doing us any good.”

Like Fellows, the vast majority of the roughly 100,000 Democrats and independents expected to vote next February know virtually nothing about these candidates. “I live, breathe, and sleep with this stuff,” says former state party Chairman Joe Grandmaison. “But other than their images I know very little about what they as individuals actually stand for. Consider the position that most real voters find themselves in at this minute!”

With the race beginning so late by recent standards, and the candidates so little known, many local observers suspect this New Hampshire contest will more closely resemble politics elsewhere, with television advertising rising in importance relative to the patient cultivation of voters in small groups.

But none of the leading Democrats are ready to abandon the traditional methods of tilling this rocky political soil. All are scrambling to open offices, attract volunteers, and complete the organizational tasks that candidates last time began more than a year before the vote.

Many local political observers give Harkin an early lead in attracting the support of well-known party and political figures, such as state House Minority Leader Mary P. Chambers. Between the sagging economy and the lingering disappointment over Dukakis’ defeat, Democrats here are angry--and the tenacious, sharp-tongued Harkin visibly reaches many of them with his populist contempt for George Herbert Walker Bush.

“We got clobbered last time with a wimpy candidate,” said Sam Rosen, the economist who challenged Kerrey in Durham. “I want a fighter, and I think a fighter can win. Harkin has the kind of message that can go this time.”

But Kathi Rogers, Harkin’s state coordinator, worries that if pressed too far, Harkin’s combative image may frighten away other Democrats, who doubt such a pugilistic approach can command a majority in November. And, just as the institutional stamp ultimately hobbled Walter F. Mondale in the 1984 primary here, “there are some voters who won’t support” Harkin simply because so many party insiders have embraced him, says Michael Eastman, a former state legislative aide.

Most observers here see Kerrey, Clinton and Tsongas most aggressively competing to harness that anti-Establishment sentiment, as Gary Hart did in toppling Mondale seven years ago.

Kerrey, who devoted an eye-catching eight consecutive days to campaigning here through the end of last week, has quickly won over many former Hart supporters, and drawn unusually large crowds. The former businessman and war hero has impressed many in his audiences as forthright, candid, and direct. “He’s not a career politician and that’s something I respect,” says State Rep. Gary Gilmore, a Dover carpenter.

But Kerrey’s freshness presents its own problems. After less than a decade in politics, Kerrey does not come into combat with a long list of detailed positions; he leans heavily on his ambitious plan to finance universal national health insurance through higher payroll and income taxes. At times too heavily: in Dover, Kerrey drew scattered titters from a generally appreciative crowd by initially steering the conversation back to health care when he was asked about education and the economy.

Clinton trails Kerrey and Harkin in establishing a local organization, but leads them on detailing his programs; for virtually every question, he has facts, proposals and international comparisons. For some listeners, these light shows of information appear to obscure more than they illuminate, though the breadth of Clinton’s knowledge measurably impresses others.

In a picturesque Portsmouth restaurant, he won sustained applause with his call for policies that demand greater personal responsibility from welfare recipients, absent parents and Wall Street executives.

“I think he’s more substantive than Kerrey,” said Keene attorney Greg Martin after attending receptions for both men. “But part of the problem of being more experienced is being smooth--you get the sense, rightly or wrongly, there’s no fire in what he’s saying. Kerrey’s not as smooth, he doesn’t have the right answer to all the questions, but . . . there was a sense of electricity you didn’t have here.”

“Now,” added Martin, who described himself as undecided between the two, “you have to decide: do you want someone who is a little more charismatic or someone who is a little more solid and substantive.”

Perhaps to a greater degree than elsewhere, Tsongas, who represented neighboring Massachusetts in Congress for a decade, is seriously competing for those Democrats seeking a new direction. His message that the party must work more closely with business seems precisely aimed at the state, and he has begun door-to-door canvassing with young volunteers and supporters imported from Massachusetts.

But he still faces some skepticism in the hard-headed inner circle of activists. “There’s the sense he’s in the race to offer some ideas, but he’s not going to be in the contest at the end,” says attorney Alan Cronheim of Portsmouth.

Both Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder and former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., who isn’t expected to declare his candidacy until next Monday, have little presence here. Wilder has virtually disappeared since a rocky August visit.

Though some activists still dismiss Brown with derisive references to “Gov. Moonbeam,” he could be more of a “wild card,” says Rogers, the Harkin aide. Several of those attending rallies for other candidates expressed interest in hearing from Brown, who some remember favorably from his 1980 bid here.

Economically uneasy New Hampshire “should be fertile ground” for Brown’s blistering anti-politician message--if his unorthodox and late-starting campaign enables him to effectively deliver it, says Brown supporter Robert A. Backus, the state party general counsel.

Coming just as the baseball season winds down with its annual installment of disappointment for the state’s rabid Boston Red Sox fans, these early assessments carry the intoxicating scent of spring training, when anything is possible and all new faces look like ascending stars. But all of the candidates know it is here that the first cuts in their roster will be made.