Bush to Visit N.H. Today in Bid to Energize Backers : Primary: The President’s team hopes his presence will boost enthusiasm for him. GOP challenger Buchanan sharpens his sting.

President Bush’s New Hampshire team looked forward to his arrival here today, hoping, with fingers crossed, that a burst of presidential campaigning would shore up the spirits of wavering and unenthusiastic supporters.

Bush has held a strong lead in recent polls, but the Achilles’ heel of his campaign has always been a perceptible lack of ardor among many of his backers.

Bush campaign officials suggested they are less worried about challenger Patrick J. Buchanan than about their own supporters taking the election for granted and not showing up to vote.

“We need to energize the troops,” said Bush adviser Thomas Rath, who paid a grudging compliment to Buchanan’s ranks of supporters. “They have it over us in that regard,” he said.

Voters interviewed in recent weeks have testified to a kind of pallid support for Bush that could spell difficulty for him if the race is tight.

Vice President Dan Quayle’s recent visit here was marked by relatively small crowds, and within those crowds, even Bush’s supporters were not always effervescent.

Phyllis Mecheski, who showed up to hear Quayle speak at a town forum in Amherst, said she had told friends the night before about her plans to attend.

“People said they really could not get enthusiastic about what was going on,” she said. “Maybe things are just too hard.”

Asked for whom she planned to vote, Mecheski paused.

“Bush,” she said finally. “I am hesitant because I don’t feel I have that much of a choice. . . . I’m not 100% happy.”

Support can shift like quicksilver in the last frenetic week of the primary campaign here. In that regard, Bush appears to be in a better position than Buchanan.

A Los Angeles Times poll, published Sunday, showed Bush leading Buchanan, 61% to 30%. Asked if they were “certain” to vote for the candidate they supported at the time of the survey, 71% of Bush’s supporters said yes, as did 65% of Buchanan’s.

But 28% of Bush’s supporters and 32% of Buchanan’s said they might change their minds. It is on that turf that the campaigns are being waged this week.

The President’s visit to New Hampshire today will be his second this year. He plans to return Saturday and campaign through the weekend.

The visits alone may give Bush a boost in the opinion polls. Surveys taken after the President’s initial visit last month showed him rising 7 points immediately, an advantage he kept for several days.

Buchanan, speaking to the New Hampshire Legislature on Tuesday, took credit for Bush’s sudden attention to the state.

“Until I came to New Hampshire, those people in Washington behaved as if they did not care,” he said. Now, “surrogates are here by the dozens. Dan Quayle has been here--Danny boy--the First Lady has been here, and Millie (the Bush family dog) is on the way.”

Buchanan later sharpened his tone and blamed Bush for the state’s economic slump.

“What caused this depression in the state of New Hampshire? It is the work of wrong-headed ideas and bad policies,” Buchanan said.