POLITICAL BRIEFING

RETURN OF SUNUNU: If he isn’t immediately visible during Bush’s campaign stop in New Hampshire on Wednesday, John H. Sununu will surely be lurking nearby. . . . Given credit for helping Bush win the primary there in 1988, Sununu of late has been quietly politicking across his home state. Sununu was governor before he was Bush’s tempestuous White House chief of staff--the post from which he resigned in December. The blessings of Sununu’s political connections are complicated by the curse of his public image. A Boston Globe poll, taken in December, found that nearly half of New Hampshire’s Republicans had an unfavorable impression of him. . . . Undeterred, Sununu accompanied Vice President Dan Quayle across New Hampshire recently, and his puckish sense of humor seemed intact. When Quayle and local reporters met for a discussion, all the chairs were taken, so Sununu was dispatched to a corner. “The story of my life,” he mumbled.