In New Hampshire, Cheney questions Kerry's judgment

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Vice President Dick Cheney brought the presidential campaign to New Hampshire yesterday, telling a crowd of supporters just over the border from Senator John F. Kerry's home state that the Democratic nominee can't be trusted with leading the nation in such a crucial time.

"He's gotten it wrong most of the time," Cheney said to about 150 supporters at the Radisson hotel in downtown Manchester, referring to Kerry's Senate record on national security and economic matters. "I don't question his patriotism. I question his judgment."

The vice president's visit to New Hampshire is the latest sign of the Bush campaign's intensifying efforts in New England, Kerry's home turf. The president stopped by Nashua for a question-and-answer session during his pre-convention swing last week, and Laura Bush is scheduled to campaign in Manchester and Lewiston, Maine, on Friday in events aimed at female voters.

The Bush-Cheney campaign would love to be able to lock down New Hampshire, as the GOP did in 2000, and deny Kerry a New England sweep. But the state is also important to Kerry, who needs to win states that 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore lost.

New Hampshire's famous independent streak, and the fact that Kerry is from neighboring Massachusetts, make predictions difficult at this point, said Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. Recent polls have shown Kerry to have a slight edge, but no major polls have been released since the Republican National Convention.

"It's definitely going to be in play all the way down to the election," Smith said.

Bush carried New Hampshire in 2000 by just 7,211 votes, or about 1.1 percent of the vote. Republicans comfortably outnumber Democrats in the Granite State, though voters without a party affiliation have long been the largest segment of the state's electorate.

Kevin Madden, a Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman, said the campaign is confident that it can turn its strong ground organization into a victory in New Hampshire, and can compete for votes in Maine, where the Bush family has a vacation compound.

The message of keeping taxes low and the importance of national security will resonate in New Hampshire in particular, and will appeal to independent voters, Madden said. Both Cheney and Bush used the issue of taxes and the war in Iraq to criticize Kerry during their most recent visits.

But Madden acknowledged that the campaign faces a difficult battle in a part of the country where Kerry is so well known. The campaign has spent little on television advertising in New England, though Madden said the grass-roots network is more important.

"We're on the right side of the issues, and we have the organization to deliver the president's positive message," Madden said. "We expect it to be close this time around, too. It's John Kerry's backyard. He spent a lot of money there during the primaries."

Gore won Maine by about 5 percentage points four years ago. Kerry appears poised to win the state this year, though his campaign isn't taking it for granted -- vice presidential nominee John Edwards is scheduled to campaign on the University of Maine campus in Orono today. Maine and New Hampshire have four electoral votes each.

Kathy Sullivan, chairwoman of the Democratic Party in New Hampshire, said the Kerry-Edwards ticket's plans to expand health coverage and stop jobs from going overseas have resonated with voters.

"They're going to win in New Hampshire because they have the best plan for the middle class and the working class," she said.

So far, independent voters have broken slightly more for Kerry, who has a strong ground organization and is a known quantity after two decades as senator from Massachusetts. But familiarity cuts both ways, Smith said.

"He gets some benefit, but he also gets dinged a little bit, too," he said. "The downside is, there are a lot of people in New Hampshire who moved here from Massachusetts, and associate Kerry with liberal Democrats."

Tom Rath, a New Hampshire-based GOP strategist with close ties to the Bush camp, predicted that Bush's ground organization and visits from high-profile surrogates will win the state for the president. But he said polls may not show that until the eve of the election, as residents wait for the last moment to decide.

"This state is very much its own person in terms of picking presidents," Rath said.

Rick Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com.