Uncertainty Among Voters Remains High in N.H., ‘the Graveyard of Front-Runners’ : Primary: Recent polls show support appears soft in both parties. The state’s fickle electorate is said to be independent to the point of contrariness.

With an unemployed husband and 9-month-old child at home, Diane Landry has good reason to be serious about picking a presidential candidate who could help her state through its economic travail.

But so far, Landry, 27, has thought about New Hampshire’s Feb. 18 presidential primary only enough to know she’s weighing two very different candidates: Columnist Patrick J. Buchanan, a conservative Republican, and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, a moderate Democrat.

“I don’t know what to believe,” Landry confessed over lunch at Pappy’s Pizza in Manchester this week just after Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat, stopped by on a campaign swing. “I just have a hard time grasping what everybody’s saying.”

Landry, who works for a public utility company, is part of a large group of New Hampshire voters who have yet to make up their minds about primary races in both parties that are expected to have a disproportionate influence on the outcome of the presidential campaign.

And much of the support that exists for the candidates seems soft.

In a recent poll released by the Boston Globe, a whopping 79% of likely voters in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary expressed no preference for a candidate until some were suggested by name. Even after that, 28% of those interviewed remained uncommitted.

There is uncertainty among Republican voters as well.

A poll conducted this week by American Research Group Inc. of Manchester found President Bush with a seemingly large lead over conservative columnist Buchanan, 60% to 19%. But not only were 21% of the GOP voters undecided, one-fourth of Bush’s supporters said they still may vote for Buchanan to protest the President’s handling of the economy,

Under New Hampshire law, registered Democrats and Republicans can vote only in their own party’s primary, but independents--who account for about 25% of the state’s registered voters--can vote in either contest.

The level of uncertainty remains large partly because the campaign didn’t get fully under way in New Hampshire until this month. And among the Democrats, none of the candidates except former Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, from neighboring Massachusetts, had much name recognition.

An unpredictable electorate is also part of the legend of New Hampshire voters, who are said to be independent to the point of contrariness. In past primaries, New Hampshire voters have delighted in confounding politicians and national news organizations by backing someone other than the anointed front-runner.

In the 1984 Democratic primary, they picked Colorado Sen. Gary Hart when former Vice President Walter F. Mondale was expected to win. Republican primary voters ignored the popular wisdom in 1980, when they rejected George Bush for Ronald Reagan.

“New Hampshire is the graveyard of front-runners,” says Robert L. Burkett, finance chairman for Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and an influential Southern California political fund-raiser. “New Hampshire is always a dilemma. It’s quirky.”

Two polls conducted for the University of New Hampshire show just how wobbly support can be in the state, and how fickle the voters are.

Pollsters surveyed a group of likely voters in the fall, then again in mid-January. Of those who said they had chosen a candidate in the earlier sample, 63% said the second time that they had chosen a new candidate, or were now undecided.

“People just don’t seem to have an undying loyalty,” said David W. Moore, the political science professor who directs the survey.

This prospect has given hope to the supporters of the trailing Democratic candidates, who in the last month have been discomfited to see Clinton spurt to a leading position in the polls.

The American Research Group poll conducted earlier this week gave Clinton his biggest lead to date in the state--34% of the likely voters in the Democratic primary backed him, with 22% supporting Tsongas and 13% backing Kerrey. A large number remained undecided--25%.

And some Clinton campaign officials acknowledge the mushiness of the numbers. Referring to a poll earlier this month that showed Clinton backed by 25%, Mitchell Schwartz, the candidate’s state campaign director, said he believed only about 10% of that number was “solid.”

The agonies of undecided voters are visible at every campaign stop.

Josh Gilbert, a 21-year-old Manchester resident, says that after studying the platforms, he has decided he needs a “sort of composite Democrat.” He likes Tsongas’ environmental record, Clinton’s oratory, Kerrey’s health insurance plan, and Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr.’s ideas about the corrupting influence of money.

“I wish I could find somebody with all of it,” said Gilbert, who showed up the other day to see Brown at a stop at New England College, in Henniker, N.H. “I probably won’t make a decision until somebody does something I really like--or something I really hate.”

For the Democrats, the large undecided bloc sends a message that promises to intensify the campaign. It suggests the trailing candidates have hope, but that they must do a better job of telling who they are and what they stand for--and take the offensive against Clinton before his lead becomes insurmountable.

The Kerrey campaign has embarked on the basic spade work of introducing their candidate with a new TV ad that explores Kerrey’s background. It discusses the Nebraskan’s war record in Vietnam, where Kerrey lost a leg and received the Medal of Honor, say campaign officials.

Harkin, in contrast, is said to be preparing an ad that takes a direct shot at Clinton. Some analysts describe this as an attempt by Harkin to portray the race as a two-man contest, with him representing the alternative for Democrats concerned about Clinton’s break with some of the party’s traditional liberal tenets.

But this path has risks. According to analysts, a candidate who is not known to voters--and Harkin is not well-known in New Hampshire--can come across as mean-spirited in attacks.

Regardless, Harkin is pointing to the large undecided vote to motivate his troops. At a campaign stop outside an empty Manchester storefront last week, the senator mentioned the Globe’s poll finding that 79% of the Democrats interviewed were uncommitted until given a list of names. He squeezed a supporter’s arm and said, “The campaign’s just begun.”