Stakes Are High as N.H. Voters Go to the Polls

New Hampshire voters go to the polls today to decide one of the closest and meanest primary campaigns in recent history, an impossible-to-call Republican presidential contest whose results will reverberate across the country over the election-heavy next five weeks.

With Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan locked in statistical dead heats in most polls--and former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander close behind--the outcome could hinge on undecided voters, estimated at up to 17% of the electorate.

New Hampshire political experts were steering clear of predictions. “It’s just so hard to say,” said Charles M. Arlinghaus, head of the Republican State Committee. “Everything is so volatile.”

Aside from shaping the remainder of the compressed nomination race--roughly 70% of the GOP convention delegates will have been selected after California holds its primary on March 26--today’s results will probably spell the end of the road for some second-tier candidates in the eight-man battle.

First results from the hamlets of Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location gave Dole 14 votes, a 1-vote lead over Alexander, very early this morning. Buchanan had 5 and Steve Forbes 4. Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and dropout Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas each had 1, along with a write-in for ex-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin L. Powell.

The eve of the first-in-the-nation primary--which appropriately fell on the Presidents Day holiday--began with a pancake breakfast straw poll among senior citizens at a local hotel (Buchanan won) and the odd sight of a spatula-wielding Forbes, tentative in a pristine apron.

A small group of angry demonstrators, accusing Buchanan of anti-Semitism and racism, picketed his campaign offices here on Monday, while at appearances throughout a packed last day of campaigning, the conservative commentator said he would not allow “out-of-the-closet homosexuals with a flamboyant lifestyle” in his administration. And he vowed to remake the Republican Party: “We’re going to make it working class,” he said in a television interview. “We are revolutionaries.”

Alexander walked the final leg of his 100-mile odyssey across the Live Free Or Die state, ending up at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. Dole, his status as the GOP’s front-runner now threatened, finished the day with a torchlight parade down the main drag of Milford.

And in keeping with a campaign in which mudslinging itself became an issue, the leading candidates continued to trade shots. Dole’s ads target Alexander, while the Tennessean lobbed several rhetorical barbs at the Kansas senator.

As one of the smallest states in the nation prepared to make the biggest splash to date in the 1996 campaign, the stakes were clear. “Historically, the big thing you need to know is that no Republican has been elected president without winning in New Hampshire first,” said Arlinghaus.

Along with undecided voters, Mother Nature may play a part: Freezing rain and sleet are expected, which could give Buchanan and his fervent supporters the edge.

“Our people will turn out in any kind of weather,” unlike supporters of the other candidates, said Mike Hammond, Buchanan’s New Hampshire campaign chairman. “Our people believe passionately.”

But Arlinghaus disputes the conventional wisdom that more-mainstream voters don’t like to get wet. “A snowstorm helps organized candidates,” he said. “Bob Dole has a great organization in this state,” spearheaded by popular Gov. Steve Merrill.

Dole himself predicted that the Granite State results would be “not unanimous, but it’s going to be a very friendly verdict.”

The final polls offered a more muddled picture. Two tracking surveys conducted over the weekend showed Buchanan ahead by a razor-thin margin, one showed Dole leading and another showed the two tied. All showed Buchanan gaining ground, Alexander in third place and Forbes at No. 4.

Buchanan had charged into New Hampshire with momentum gained from his close second-place finish behind Dole in last week’s Iowa caucuses. And although he suffered a blow when it was revealed a top aide who is a leading gun-rights advocate has frequently shared podiums with white supremacists, Buchanan’s populist economic agenda dominated much of the New Hampshire campaign.

Dole took note of that during a speech at a manufacturer of computer components in Rochester, N.H., on Monday. “I didn’t realize that jobs and trade and what makes America work would become a big issue in the last few days of this campaign,” he said.

Dole immediately added that it was “fortunate for us” that the state’s voters remained focused on the economy and job security. He then called for vigorous free trade with foreign nations and attacked Buchanan’s protectionist appeals.

“We believe in trade, and we believe in jobs,” Dole told workers in the company cafeteria. “One of the candidates running for president [says], ‘Oh, we don’t need that. Build a wall around America. We don’t need to export.’ Well, it’s totally wrong. No one who would share that view is concerned about the future of this country.”

Buchanan made his last campaign appearance at a lumberyard north of Manchester, an event attended by so many reporters that the candidate’s nephew was nearly crushed and the visit was cut short. “Stop it! You’re squashing the kid,” yelled a Buchanan aide, as the boy got caught up in the media madness.

The questions were about as gentle as the crowds, as Buchanan gave interview after interview and his positions on racial issues were probed. Asked about appointing African Americans in a Buchanan administration, he said: “I would certainly not rule that out. I would probably rule that in.”

Buchanan chose the TimCo Lumber Co. for his final stop to illustrate the threat of unfair competition with Mexico and Canada in the timber trade, a problem that he blamed on international accords the U.S. has entered into.

“All we want is fair competition with the Canadians,” he said, “because we can beat them with fair competition.”

As a reporter at the event identified himself as an Israeli and prepared to ask a question, Buchanan smiled and said: “Let’s get some Americans up here.”

As Alexander, who first started walking across New Hampshire as a little-known candidate last year, finished up the final 1.6 miles Monday, he made clear he hopes to emerge as the alternative to Buchanan and his policies.

Alexander delivered his harshest attack to date against Dole, suggesting that the Senate majority leader should step aside and allow him and Buchanan to fight for the GOP nomination one-on-one.

“I’d like nothing better than to have a three- or four-week race with Pat Buchanan over the direction of the Republican Party,” Alexander said at a Dunkin’ Donuts campaign stop here. “Get Sen. Dole over to the side, because he has no ideas, and let Pat and me contest it.”

Speaking to boarding school students at the Phillips Exeter Academy, Alexander reiterated his disdain of negative campaign ads. But his comments served as a prelude to further attacks on Dole.

“Sen. Dole is virtually in seclusion,” Alexander said. “There have been more sightings of Elvis in the last three days than there have been of Sen. Dole.”

An Alexander campaign spokesman later acknowledged that Dole has maintained a full schedule of campaign appearances but noted that the Kansan has not been available for press interviews.

Turning from Dole to what he promotes as his “new ideas,” Alexander listed as his most important proposals the creation of a new branch of the armed forces to control illegal immigration and drug running across the border; the enactment of a “GI Bill” for schoolchildren to allow a wider choice of schools, and creation of a part-time citizen Congress.

Although attention is focused on the Dole-Buchanan face-off, the Dole campaign is running all of its final negative ads against Alexander, attacking him as “too liberal.”

Sources say that decision reflects a hardheaded calculation by aides to Dole: While he could recover from a loss here to Buchanan, it would be difficult to revive the campaign if he finishes behind Alexander.

Times staff writers Ronald Brownstein, Sam Fulwood III, Michael Hiltzik, Gebe Martinez and Bob Sipchen contributed to this story.

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