It’s Not a Total Victory, but Taste Is Just as Sweet for Buchanan Backers : Conservatives: For them, the vote is the opening salvo in a bid to advance their agenda and seize control of the Republican Party.

In a corner of Patrick J. Buchanan’s campaign celebration Tuesday night, reporters were crowded around Frank Luntz, hanging on his every utterance. Suddenly, the reality of his first national campaign hit the 29-year-old pollster.

“It dawned on me,” Luntz recalled a little later. “I’m a pollster for a campaign that’s in the process of having one of the major upsets in New Hampshire campaign history. “That’s pretty cool.”

Others might argue that a second-place finish does not constitute a “major upset,” and could stingily point out that the road ahead promises to be even tougher for Buchanan. They might even write off the conservative television commentator’s strong finish as a mere protest vote aimed at President Bush.

But at the Manchester restaurant where Buchanan’s conservative faithful had gathered to hear the election results, Buchanan’s healthy share of the Republican vote was a sweet and total victory. Paul Nagy, the candidate’s euphoric state chairman, even picked up a saxophone and joined a local combo’s rendition of “Old Time Rock and Roll.”

An hour before the candidate was to appear, supporters and members of the news media stood 20 deep in a chilly drizzle outside, waiting for others to leave so that they might squeeze inside.

One of them, Robert Dumas of Manchester, had been working a Ward 4 polling place for Buchanan since shortly after dawn, but he was perfectly happy to stand patiently until a spot inside opened for him.

Buchanan, Dumas said, “offers the values that America needs. This is more than sending George Bush a message.”

In fact, to hear Buchanan describe it, the election results were the opening salvo in a new American revolution.

“Today, from dawn to dusk, the Buchanan brigade has met King George’s army all along the Concord-Manchester-Nashua line,” he told his cheering supporters. “And I am here to report they are retreating back into Massachusetts. . . . We have won New Hampshire.”

If it wasn’t the shot heard ‘round the world, Tuesday’s vote was certain at the least to have set ears ringing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

“Tonight, the campaign that was just a dream 10 weeks ago has taken the full measure of the whole Republican Establishment in Washington, D.C.,” Buchanan declared, to shouts of “God bless America! God bless Pat!”

The room was decorated with scores of plastic balloons, shaped to resemble giant red lips, a reminder of Bush’s broken promise--”Read my lips. No new taxes.”

Buchanan’s ads had invoked that phrase relentlessly, and it had become almost a mantra of his presidential campaign.

To hammer their message home a last time, the crowd at one point began chanting, “Read our lips. No second term.”

“We are going to take our party back from those who have walked away from us, and forgotten about us,” Buchanan promised. “And when we take our party back, we are going to take our country back.”

But Buchanan, who has little campaign organization outside this tiny New England state, added a note of caution.

“Now begins the battle to the South,” he said. “We need recruits in the hundreds and the thousands in states like Maryland and Colorado and Georgia and Florida and Texas, so we can take the battle to the entire country.”

A Key Race for Incumbents

Over four decades, five sitting Presidents have been challenged in New Hampshire. Four were seriously tested, and their party lost in the fall:

1952 Democratic Primary Estes Kefauver: 55% * Harry S. Truman: 44.2%

The fallout: Truman dropped out of the race. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won the general election.

1968 Democratic Primary * Lyndon B. Johnson: 49.6% Eugene J. McCarthy: 41.9%

The fallout: Although L.B.J. won, his margin was so small that he decided not to seek reelection. Republican Richard M. Nixon won the general election.

1972 GOP Primary * Richard M. Nixon: 67.6% Paul N. McCloskey: 19.8%

The fallout: Nixon’s overwhelming win propelled him toward the nomination and a win in the general election.

1976 GOP Primary * Gerald R. Ford: 49.4% Ronald Reagan: 48.0%

The fallout: Ford had to battle Reagan for the nomination and lost the general election to Jimmy Carter.

1980 Democratic Primary * Jimmy Carter: 47.1% Edward M. Kennedy: 37.3%

The fallout: Carter’s narrow win signaled a tough nomination fight, and he lost to Reagan in the general election.

* incumbent