Intensity, Stakes Both High in New Hampshire

Under a blanket of arctic cold, presidential candidates scrambled across New Hampshire on Saturday, trying to stoke support in a crucial contest that promised to further narrow the field for the Democratic nomination.

At hockey rinks, bowling alleys and country stores, the hopefuls descended on the brave souls willing to venture out in temperatures that hovered between zero and the midteens. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean spent part of the day seeking housebound voters by going door to door.

The race’s onetime frontrunner also took on the new leader, calling into question the foreign policy judgment of Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. Dean cited Kerry’s Senate votes against the 1991 Persian Gulf War and in favor of the congressional resolution authorizing last year’s war in Iraq.

“I would be deeply concerned about that kind of judgment in the White House,” said Dean, who took the opposite stance on the two conflicts. “I think my position has proven to be right twice.”

A Kerry spokeswoman fired back by questioning Dean’s temperament. “When is Howard Dean going to realize that voters are tired of these same old angry attacks?” said Stephanie Cutter. “Voters are looking for a steady hand, not a clenched fist.”

New Hampshire’s proudly contrarian voters have a history of upending expectations, and political pollsters have often embarrassed themselves trying to predict the outcome of the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Still, all evidence pointed to Kerry as the likely winner heading into Tuesday’s vote. Dean, retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina are locked in a close battle for second place, according to several polls.

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut lags behind in the surveys, while Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio and the Rev. Al Sharpton have minimal support.

The order of finish could be key as the race hurtles forward from New Hampshire to a weeklong steeplechase across seven states, from Arizona to South Carolina. At that point, cash-strapped candidates will have to count heavily on momentum and whatever free publicity they can generate with a strong showing here.

In a sign of New Hampshire’s increased import, Dean canceled all of his national television advertising until the campaign can reassess its position after Tuesday’s vote. Dean significantly boosted his spending on ads in New Hampshire, a step matched in recent days by Edwards.

Explaining the national advertising pullback, a Dean strategist said the campaign decided “why spit all that money into the wind,” given Kerry’s strong momentum coming off his victory in the Iowa caucuses Monday.

Kerry had been written off by most political experts until his last-minute push, which produced a 20-percentage-point lead over Dean on Monday night. Edwards surged into second, while Dean faltered to third.

Apart from boosting Kerry and Edwards, who has also climbed in New Hampshire polls, the caucus results helped moderate the tenor of the Democratic contest, which changed from nasty to mostly nice virtually overnight.

Dean and Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri had engaged in bitter back-and-forth attacks in the closing days of the Iowa campaigning, which ended up badly hurting both. Gephardt finished a distant fourth and quit the race the next day.

Until Dean’s shot at Kerry on Saturday, the Democratic candidates had largely steered clear of such direct attacks. Even that criticism -- spoken to a handful of reporters in his van -- was mild compared with the punches thrown in Iowa.

The more civil discourse appeared to suit many New Hampshire voters just fine.

The economy, the war in Iraq, heath care and education all come up in conversation. But finding someone who can beat President Bush appeared to be uppermost in the minds of many planning to cast ballots in Tuesday’s Democratic race.

“I’m so tired of looking at that face,” 79-year-old Mary Fecteau said of Bush on Saturday, as Clark pressed through crowds in the narrow aisles of her family’s 70-year-old country store in Epping.

“No question: It has to be someone who can beat Bush,” agreed Nancy Andrews, a 45-year-old homemaker whose 11-year-old son, Mark, had just endured a hug his mother invited from the retired general.

“There are some wonderful Democrats running this time, but which one has the best chance?” wondered Andrews, who is weighing Kerry’s Washington experience against Clark’s military experience and Edwards’ potential appeal in the South.

As the candidate atop the polls, Kerry appeared to benefit the most from the taming of the campaign’s harsh tone.

Although he shuns the label, the senator has conducted himself as the frontrunner. Many of his appearances consist of largely content-free photo opportunities: shaking hands in a diner, playing ice hockey with legendary Boston Bruins players, shaking some more hands at a picturesque village skating rink. He has stuck to the same message, hitting themes of education, health care and the environment, while reaching out to one of his safest bases -- veterans.

Talking to reporters Saturday on his campaign bus between an ice hockey game in Manchester and a town hall meeting at Dartmouth College in Hanover, Kerry insisted that his efforts were “comeback trail, still.”

“We’ve had one step in that comeback effort, but we’ve still got some business to go,” he said. “I don’t take anything for granted.”

He continued to reap the benefits of his Iowa victory. Kerry began the day by picking up the endorsement of the League of Conservation Voters. President Deb Callahan said it was the earliest presidential endorsement in the group’s 34-year history.

“John Kerry understands that the American people need a president who will never roll over to corporate contributors at the expense of the health and safety of the public,” she said.

Kerry, in turn, reminisced about nature walks he took with his mother as a child. He spoke of his support of the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act and, hitting a familiar populist theme, pledged to prevent current environmental protection measures from being eroded by special interests. “When I am president of the United States, no law will be written by polluters in exchange for campaign contributions,” he said.

Clark, who skipped the Iowa caucuses to focus on New Hampshire, had been the candidate with the energy and forward motion in the state -- until Kerry and others showed up. Clark’s campaign has tried to seize back momentum by jamming new events into an already hectic schedule -- not always with great success.

Fewer than 100 people turned out for a hastily arranged speech at Rivier College in Nashua on Friday, leaving a sea of empty seats for TV cameras to record. However, there was better luck Saturday when a quick meet-and-greet in the town of Epping turned into a rally with several hundred supporters.

Dean began his day greeting volunteers at a Somersworth high school. Their goal: to knock on 6,123 doors. “I want your emotion and your intensity to show this is about taking back America for ordinary people,” Dean told them. He boiled his message down to three points he asked them to share: his honesty, integrity and health insurance proposals.

Later, Dean drew an overflow crowd of nearly 500 at a resort hotel at Wentworth-by-the-Sea. His mother, Andree, made a rare campaign appearance. When the candidate was asked what he got from having a relative along on a campaign stop, his mother said under her breath: “Great advice.”

Edwards spent Saturday trying to replicate his strong Iowa finish. He returned to the politics of empathy, seeking to link his rural Southern roots to the lives of voters in sparsely populated northern New Hampshire.

Speaking to more than 200 people in a wood-floored auditorium in the former Gorham Town Court building, Edwards said he had witnessed the devastation that came to small towns when local factories closed.

“We need to do something about our trade policy in this country -- not just have free trade, but how about a little fair trade?” Edwards said, condemning what he saw as federal policies that encouraged U.S. corporations to shift jobs overseas.

Edwards referred, as he often did, to his father, who worked in textile mills -- a beleaguered industry that played a key role in New Hampshire’s past as well. “When the mill closed in our hometown, it was devastating,” Edwards said.

Campaigning with him was actress Glenn Close, one of a raft of Hollywood celebrities who have descended on New Hampshire in the primary’s closing days. They include actor-director Rob Reiner, stumping for Dean, and actors Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, who attended a pancake breakfast with Clark on Saturday.

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Times staff writers Nick Anderson, Faye Fiore, Maria L. La Ganga, James Gerstenzang, Scott Martelle and Eric Slater contributed to this report.