CAMPAIGN ’96 : Enough Already, Weary N.H. Voters Say of the Electioneering

Wednesday cannot come too soon for Federal Express worker Laura Hughes.

“I’ve had it,” says the 31-year-old voter from Barnstead who is fed up with pollsters calling her an average of twice a night asking which Republican she supports for president.

The phone calls, the television and radio commercials and the hubbub of Campaign ’96 have been enough to frustrate even the most experienced voters in this first primary state. Even businesses that cater to electioneering are saying, enough already.

New Hampshirites love the attention that comes to their doorstep every four years in this New England state, which traditionally has decided which candidates continue on and which ones will call it quits.

Reveling in the political hoopla, yet fatigued by the media-intensive campaigning, Manchester voter Bob Duval is beginning to feel a hangover.

“It’s like going to a New Year’s Eve party, and around 1 o’clock, you’re glad it’s over,” said Duval, a 40-year-old civil engineer. “The attention is exciting. The fact that the candidates really care how you feel is good while it lasts . . . but the return to normalcy will be good.”

But this year, the door-to-door, handshake-to-handshake, “retail” campaigning that is a trademark of the Granite State seems to have lost a bit of its charm. By all accounts, there are fewer public events and far more television commercials. And voters express chagrin at the negative tone of the ads flooding their airwaves.

Magazine publisher Steve Forbes, pouring millions into television advertising here, is often mentioned as the candidate who most threatened the traditional “retail” politics here.

But Sen. Robert C. Smith (R-N.H.) said that, as the New Hampshire primary comes to a close, it is Bob Dole, Patrick J. Buchanan and Lamar Alexander--all “retail” campaigners--who are in the lead. And Forbes, once a highflier, has fallen to fourth in the polls.

On the eve of the primary, many voters had mixed emotions about their moment in the spotlight coming to an end.

For months, candidates coddled the voters, stopped by their homes and businesses, shook their hands and took photographs with them. And residents themselves also became neighborhood celebrities as visiting journalists called on them to become instant political analysts.

But the luster was all but gone by the final week. Few, perhaps, are as annoyed as 65-year-old Ruth Jean of Manchester, who had the misfortune of having a home telephone number very similar to the one for the Alexander campaign headquarters.

It started in earnest the morning after the Iowa caucuses--which made Alexander a hot property, she said. “There were about six calls in a row. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.”

“On top of that, I watch his commercials and hear his mealy-mouthed talk. That’s what makes me angry when I get his calls too,” she said, laughing. Jean, an independent who is not voting at all this year, complained about “all this backstabbing.”

Deborah Lavoie, 36, of New Boston, has resorted to turning down the sound of her television at each commercial break so that she doesn’t have to listen to the campaign ads.

“We have enjoyed the spotlight, but it’s going to be nice to see all the hoopla and some of the mudslinging go away. It was bordering on insanity at one point,” Lavoie said.

And at a time when they most wanted to see the candidates--in the final days of the campaign--voters complained that their access to the presidential hopefuls was cut off by a mob of news photographers.

“It’s just when you want to see or talk to a candidate, you can’t do it,” said Herb Fitzgerald, 68, a retired insurance sales manager who attended a presidential pancake breakfast Monday in hopes of getting one last glimpse before the primary. “Every time you turn around, there’s a camera stuck in your face.”

Car salesman Tim Hogan, 37, says he doesn’t mind all the attention to New Hampshire right now, although it’s almost getting ridiculous. Listening to the radio as he drove home to Goffstown, Hogan recalled how “I heard the announcer come on and apologize for all the political ads. I heard very little of the show.”

At Custom Dry Cleaning, workers joked about picking up 71 bags of laundry at the downtown Manchester Holiday Inn. “We know the personals on everyone,” joked Jodie Upham. “It’s been a nice boost for business, but it will be nice not having to tag underwear for three hours a day.”

Holiday Inn rooms division manager Kim Roy figures she’s seen everything and is ready for an end to chaos. “Photographers were crawling on top of the planters here and the furniture,” to get to a candidate. “They jumped over the coat section. That’s wild. There’s nothing you can do.”