Elizabeth Dole in N.H. for ‘Major’ Speech

Elizabeth Hanford Dole brought her question-mark candidacy to New Hampshire on Monday night, using her first campaign outing to offer a critique of the country’s political climate but no clue about her personal plans.

In a broadly thematic speech to a local Chamber of Commerce audience, the possible presidential candidate called for lower taxes, better schools, a redoubled effort to fight drugs and a stronger national defense--but offered few specifics. Rather, Dole seemed to strike a vague middle ground between classic conservatism and a more activist approach to issues like public education and helping the needy.

Her most pointed comments were aimed, albeit indirectly, at President Clinton. “At a time when the presidency has been tarnished, when words have been devalued and institutions have squandered respect, our confidence in our leaders is shaky,” Dole said. “But we can rebuild it.

“Only one thing would be worse than the status quo,” she went on, “and that would be for the status quo to become the norm. If today’s politics seem irrelevant, it falls to us--all of us--to make them more relevant.”

Dole’s banquet appearance before a sellout crowd of 1,200 guests officially was billed as a nonpartisan, nonpolitical event. The invitation was extended by the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce several months ago when Dole was still head of the national Red Cross.

No matter.

This is New Hampshire, site of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. So any time sentient politicians touch Granite State soil the speculation turns to their White House ambitions, real or fanciful.

In Dole’s case, given her exploratory efforts and position near the top of opinion polls, the speculation proved almost more than traffic could bear. Representatives of more than 40 news organizations, including television crews from as far away as Germany and Japan, converged on a downtown exhibition hall for a 36-minute address that aides touted--forget what the chamber said--as Dole’s “first major political speech.”

In her remarks, carried live nationwide on C-SPAN, Dole acknowledged the country’s booming prosperity. But she asserted that “a failure of leadership . . . has shaken our national confidence” and argued: “It isn’t enough to ask ourselves: Are we better off? What we should be asking is, are we better?”

Dole hinted at the possibility of seeking the White House, acknowledging “a little speculation” about her plans and once referring to “whoever the next president may be--he, or she.” But, speaking briefly to reporters beforehand, she indicated that any decision is not imminent.

“I’ve just been out of the Red Cross about three weeks now,” Dole said, “and so obviously this is the time when you want to talk with people, do some traveling, do some listening.”

Dole is married to the party’s 1996 standard-bearer, Bob Dole, and has campaigned for him in the state over the years.

As all the clamor surrounding her visit suggests, the New Hampshire presidential primary--the first potential make-or-break outing of the 2000 campaign--is just getting underway, even though some hopefuls have been plying the state for years.

“Wide open” is how Steve Duprey, head of the New Hampshire Republican Party, described the GOP contest. “Probably the most open fight since 1948.”

Among Democrats, Vice President Al Gore starts out a prohibitive favorite over former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, his only announced competition. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) is also considering a run but would start from scratch, notwithstanding his next-door-neighbor status.

So for now, anyway, most of the attention is on the Republican side, where the prospects of a Dole candidacy and the widely anticipated entry of Texas Gov. George W. Bush have frozen the race as solid as the Merrimack River.

This is a source of no small frustration to those candidates who have worked New Hampshire the time-tested way, by visiting early and often. Or, in the case of former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, serving lobster for 3,000 at a mega-crustacean feed last summer.

With a hint of asperity, Alexander, who ran for president in 1996 and never really stopped, suggested last week that the nomination should go to the candidate who works hardest--not to someone who inherits the mantle by dint of wealth, a la publisher Steve Forbes, or by having a brand-name identity.

“It ought to be won the good old-fashioned way,” Alexander said at a campaign stop in Portsmouth. “Somebody will have to earn it.”

Gary Bauer, the conservative activist and newly minted candidate who paid his maiden visit to New Hampshire over the weekend, suggested that there is more than a little froth in opinion polls buoying the Bush and Dole candidacies.

Of Dole in particular Bauer said: “I have two daughters and I certainly find it exciting to see competent women being thought about for the presidency. But at the end of the day, I still think that ideas are what matters. . . . I believe when we get to that stage of the race, the name-recognition issue will fade into the background.”

There is strong evidence, however, suggesting that at least some slice of the Republican electorate is less interested in specifics on issues than in something more prosaic: Namely, winning.

“Everyone’s talking about electability,” said David Carney, an old New Hampshire hand who served as White House political director under President Bush. “People are hungry for a winner.”