Despite challenges, N.H. primary thrives

CONCORD, N.H. -- Last year, the New Hampshire primary appeared to be on its deathbed -- again.

First, Democrats allowed Nevada to hold caucuses in the eight days between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, squeezing another contest ahead of the traditional first-in-the-nation primary.

Then, state after state, jealous of New Hampshire's privileged position in the presidential selection process, joined a rush to schedule their primary contests in early February, or even late January.

With the likes of New York, California, Illinois, and Florida threatening to vote just days after New Hampshire, how could a tiny state in northern New England still matter?

Fast-forward to this week: All the leading candidates are participating in nationally televised Democratic and Republican debates in Manchester today and Tuesday. John Edwards is opening an office in Concord tomorrow . Five Republican candidates, in cluding Mitt Romney, plan to attend the state GOP's annual dinner on Wednesday; yesterday, every major Democratic candidate or a high-level surrogate spoke at the state convention.

It's almost as much political commotion as New Hampshire sees the week before the primary itself.

"That's the irony -- everyone's talking about the demise of the New Hampshire primary, and yet next week is going to be the very peak of the excitement and focus that the New Hampshire primary always gets," said Fergus Cullen , chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee.

To Bill Gardner, the secretary of state who has been the keeper of New Hampshire's first-primary status since 1976, the assault on the primary this year is nothing unusual. He has a legal mandate from the Legislature to move the primary date forward if necessary to keep New Hampshire first -- and he has done so in the past.

"Every four years we hear a challenge from somewhere," he said. "And we have made it pretty clear that we think that what happens here is beneficial to the country, we have had it a long time, we never took it from anybody else, and we don't have to give it up just because another state was bigger or had better weather."

Nonetheless, some of the most stalwart defenders of the first-in-the-nation primary are concerned about how their cherished ritual is changing this year. The candidates' visits are shorter than they used to be, a day or two instead of three or four days at a stretch. The campaign offices of the top-tier candidates are already crowded with out-of-state staffers, interns, and volunteers, edging out activists who did not join up early. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama draw arena-sized crowds which, for all their intoxicating energy, make it harder for voters without political connections to have a word with the candidates.

"Even if we're still first, I think the intimacy part is dwindling," lamented Deborah Butler , an accountant from Concord who, 20 years after she volunteered for Al Gore's first presidential run, still exchanges phone calls and e-mails with the former vice president.

"We had something very special, and it's largely gone," she said.

A secondary anxiety festering among Granite Staters is whether the 2008 primary will be their last in the spotlight. More than two dozen other states will hold primaries or caucuses on Feb. 5, effectively creating a super-primary that could determine the nominee overnight. If the winners of New Hampshire and Iowa lose the nomination, both states could be rendered irrelevant in 2012. Or the foreshortened nominating season could become chaotic enough to force the parties to finally agree on a new primary schedule, as they have tried to do unsuccessfully for decades.

"I think there's a lot of angst and a lot of worrying about how it's all going to play out," said Mike Biundo , a Manchester political consultant who is advising former governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin. "It could end up lasting another cycle, but I tell everyone I'm working with, even people in other campaigns, 'Enjoy it now.' "

Biundo is one of the hundreds of New Hampshire activists who have launched careers thanks to the primary. Biendo had been a baggage handler for American Airlines before the day in 1992 when he and a friend ventured into Pat Buchanan's Nashua headquarters and found the candidate himself presiding over a noisy group of reporters. Thrilled by the excitement -- a Long Island transplant, he had never seen a politician up close -- Biundo volunteered for the campaign. Four years later, he was second-in-command of Buchanan's winning campaign.

Today, Biundo works in a sleek converted condo in Manchester, where he is a partner in a public relations firm, Meridian Communications. If New Hampshire lost its first-primary status, he said, the firm would still survive on local races and corporate clients, but "it would certainly change our business, and it would certainly leave a hole."

The stakes feel just as great to Scott Mason , chairman of the Republican committee in Coos County, the state's northernmost county. A dairy farmer in North Stratford who also raises about 400 acres of corn, grass, and alfalfa, Mason sees the primary as a critical opportunity to relay concerns about land use, milk prices, and other farming matters to the people who might lead the country. He started talking to Romney about such issues two summers ago, well before Romney entered the race, when he and other Republican activists were invited to a barbecue at Romney's vacation house at Lake Winnipesaukee.

"Do you think if New Hampshire didn't have the first-in-the-nation primary that some darn dairy farmer who couldn't pay all his bills every week would be invited to the summer camp of one of the major primary candidates?" he asked.

This year, the candidates appear to be investing heavily in New Hampshire, and at a faster clip than ever before.

In a typical week, the Granite State will see three presidential candidates, at least one a leading contender. Reliable primary voters are getting a phone call about once a week from one of the campaigns, and three candidates are already running television ads.

Nearly all the campaigns have established headquarters in the state, and the six major candidates have stocked them with at least a dozen staffers apiece. Both the Obama and Clinton campaigns are expecting an unprecedented 50 college interns to arrive next week.

All the candidates, even Obama and Clinton, are holding intimate gatherings as well as larger rallies and town hall meetings, and lower tier candidates are banking on winning New Hampshire the old-fashioned way, one voter at a time.

In fact, many in New Hampshire believe that, paradoxically, the early super-primary could actually make New Hampshire more powerful than ever before. They answer critics' complaints that New Hampshire is too white and too rural to set the tenor of the national race by pointing to the state's unique strengths -- not least that it has developed a powerful political culture where average voters take the time to meet the candidates and force them to answer tough questions face to face.

"No other state -- in a natural way, not an artificial way -- can pay attention the way New Hampshire folks do," said state Representative Michael Whalley, the House Republican leader.

Raymond Buckley , the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party , has little patience for those who suggest the primary is in jeopardy. New Hampshire will always schedule its primary first, he said; the candidates will always come, and the media will always cover them.

"I refuse to spend enormous amounts of time worrying about something that's just not going to happen," said Buckley. "We are all united in this. There is no more debate. Enough."