Back on the Trail With Few Following

It was the last day to campaign for the nation’s first primary and Dennis J. Kucinich, near the bottom in the polls here, was in the back seat of a dirty bronze van trundling across New Hampshire.

There was no bus following behind, because there weren’t enough interested media to fill one. No television trucks stalked him at the curb. No crowds overflowed the room during his stop in Wilton, a tiny town north of Manchester, in a breathless effort to see him one more time.

Just a roomful of high school students who spent half an hour listening to the Ohio congressman, then pledged on the spot to vote for him. If only they were old enough to vote.

“I thought he was awesome,” said Josh Sim, 16, a sophomore at High Mowing School, an alternative private school that encourages individual thinking. That, at least, provided the perfect forum for the iconoclastic candidate and his quixotic campaign for the White House.

Kucinich appeared undeterred by polls that have consistently showed him pulling about 1% support in New Hampshire. His campaign, though, seemed to limp along in the final hours, neglecting to post on its website notice of a 9:15 a.m. event until 9:20.

“Yeah,” campaign spokesman Dave Rogers conceded. “We have a fairly small staff here that is really bustin’ it to get him where he needs to go.”

But this is, after all, the politician who shattered convention decades ago when he became Cleveland’s “boy mayor” at age 31.

Three cellists at the high school prepared to play a soothing piece, assuming he must be tired from his campaigning. “Let me assure you of one thing,” he boasted, “I have an unlimited amount of energy.”

Indeed, he has taken his place in the Democratic race as a strong voice for peace and social justice. He assails global corporations that he charges exploit workers and forsake the environment. He criticizes his fellow Democrats for supporting a war with Iraq that he says is based on “supposition, hypotheticals and no proof.”

His followers tend to be free-spirited peaceniks, some of them vegetarians like him, who welcome his refreshing departure from the political establishment. His rumpled suits and photocopied leaflets don’t bother them.

On Monday, the candidate’s rhetoric occasionally soared, for those on hand to hear it: “When a nation is fearful, it can become incapacitated. When a people are fearful, they can’t even protect basic rights,” he told students and teachers at the school nestled in the woods.

Afterward, art teacher Susan Thompson said, “That was a nice surprise. We had no idea he was coming.”

She added that he was the only candidate since the Rev. Jesse Jackson who had inspired her disillusioned husband to register to vote.

For Kucinich, it was on to Merrimack and Eco’s cafe, where about six patrons were on hand when he walked in. He is used to that by now. He ordered the Brazilian bean dish. The customers all listened politely as he deplored what he termed a sorry lack of discourse over the Iraq war.

“I am saying there is an elephant in our living room and we better talk about it. Our nation’s morality is at stake.”

He talked for a long time, answering every question with great deliberation.

At one point, he called for his Blackberry and recited all of his rivals’ statements in support of the war.

Everyone stayed until the end. One woman, tired of standing, assumed a yoga tree pose.