With All Eyes on Them, N.H. Voters Want to Get It Right

It was snowing Monday morning, so John Kubit took his 12-year-old white Toyota, which runs in any weather, picked up his grandson and headed to the New Hampshire Primary Pancake Flip for one last, good look at the presidential field.

He got one last, good look all right, but not at the presidential field. Standing between this retired mail carrier and the men who would be president was a blockade of television cameras, boom mikes, bright lights and damp reporters five deep.

“Early on, you can actually go up and see the candidates and hear them and almost touch them. But the last week, forget it,” Kubit lamented as Texas Gov. George W. Bush seized a spatula and let one fly. All Kubit could see was the pancake in mid-flight, soaring to the edge of a giant American flag hanging from the ceiling of the National Guard Armory and landing heaven knows where.

“Wheeeeeeee!!!” the media scrum squealed, as if to rub it in.

It is practically a rite of residency that any New Hampshire voter who so desires can shake the hand of a presidential candidate. But in the final chaotic days before the pivotal first primary, New Hampshire turns from charming New England hostess to political circus as reporters stage their quadrennial invasion, taking over towns, knocking over tables and generally stomping all over the electoral ritual they came to cover.

“Don’t mind us, we’re just the voters,” one angry spectator growled as a reporter shoved past at the flapjack-fest.

And it’s not like there wasn’t plenty to see, as evidenced when Republican hopeful Gary Bauer flipped his pancake with such zeal that he fell off the stage, briefly disappearing behind a fluttering blue curtain. He rebounded unscathed, all 5-feet-6 of him, raising his spatula in victory and giving a big thumbs up.

Attention Does Have Its Advantages

The final stretch here is open mike time for every stray cause in America--from the tort reformer in the shark suit to the animal rights activists dressed up like big furry pigs, who tag along as candidates carom from stop to stop in a frenzy of last-minute stumping.

But there are certain advantages to all this attention (not the least of which is the $175-million windfall New Hampshire grossed from the last invading army four years ago). Where else, for example, could Pete Goyette of Pete’s Gun and Tackle Shop get half a dozen reporters to listen to his parking lot discourse on the joys of killing all manner of large animals? “Everybody’s against us shooting wild animals, but it’s all right to abort a baby,” he snorted, while the media pack awaited the arrival of the virulently pro-gun Alan Keyes.

Goyette is a large man with a cheery face and a store jammed with the stuffed remains of various creatures he has shot. In the back freezer are caribou steaks, moose steaks and the hind quarters of a bear. On the hors d’oeuvres table are crackers and smoked salmon, which seem oddly mainstream considering what’s in the freezer.

Keyes is running late and the store is getting cramped. One of the protest pigs has managed to squeeze in and is standing under a moose head. Bill and April Chartier, who haven’t quite made up their minds, are on hand to survey the candidate stock again, which seems to be getting harder by the minute.

Living at the center of a political swarm is a decidedly mixed blessing. As Keyes climbs atop a stool to assert the rights of every American to own every kind of gun, Goyette is fairly beaming, his store jam-packed with people and his mug a candidate for the nightly news.

The Chartiers, on the other hand, are squished up against a glass case full of ammo.

“It drives up the New Hampshire economy. It’s not as important as skiing, but it’s almost up there with the fall foliage,” Chartier bravely reasons, as a photographer nearly steps on his toe.

Still, New Hampshire voters are nothing if not persevering. Many of them will stand in line two hours for one last look in a candidate’s eye, one final question that might tip the scales.

They spend the weekend boning up on presidential politics, like college students cramming for finals. Connie Silver, a pastor’s wife from Manchester, may be one of a handful of voters in America who actually read Steve Forbes’ campaign tome.

Regular life gets put on hold. Ralph and Betty Burgess of Hudson, who usually spend Sunday with their 15 grandchildren, went directly from church to Pete’s Gun Shop to check out Keyes, stopping only to let the dog out. From there they drove 20 minutes in slush to a local high school and stood in the cold for an hour while Bush spoke in a gymnasium so jammed with reporters there was no room for the Burgesses.

Why? They are so torn between Keyes and Bush they have asked the Lord for guidance. “They are both such good men, we don’t know what to do, so we asked God to tell us,” Betty Burgess, a 70-year-old retired nurse, said. Just in case the heavens don’t respond forthwith, they planned to hit one last Keyes event Monday night.

By any measure, it is a sizable investment of time to vote in a primary, but that is the fabric of New Hampshire. With all the world watching, they want to do it right. So everybody gets an ear, from the front-runners to the fringe candidates.

Marginal Candidate Seeks Chance to Flip

Which explains why some here sympathized when Jim Taylor, massage therapist, USC film graduate and extremely marginal candidate, complained that no one would let him flip pancakes with the big boys, even though five of them didn’t show up. “It’s a collapse of democracy,” Taylor fumed.

“Let Jim flip! Let Jim flip!” a few souls chanted in solidarity for the man who is running for president “because everything is crappy.”

Overall, there is an air of excitement and good will and more than a little weirdness. By Wednesday, this will all be over, the lights will shift to South Carolina, and New Hampshire, like Alice, will shrink back to scale.

Even so, nerves wear thin. At a Sunday morning event, Forbes defended the “innocent lives” of unborn children, prompting one of the furry pigs to shout: “What about this innocent life!”

Forbes ignored the remark and got on his plush campaign bus. But not before one of his staff allegedly elbowed the pig.