Hoping for retail politics

DOVER, N.H. -- The clouds are gathering, though the crowds are not, outside the supermarket where Senator John F. Kerry's staff tries to coax shoppers to stop and shake the presidential aspirant's hand.

If there is a good time to be discussing US foreign policy in a frigid parking lot, the eve of the season's first major snowstorm is not it. Chris Cross is more interested in stocking up for his ski weekend at Sunday River. Pat Glynn just wants to get home with her provisions before the first flakes fly. The candidate wishes he had worn gloves.

This is the retail politics for which the New Hampshire primary is justifiably celebrated. There is no buffer between the voters and those who would be president, no filter between the people and the politicians who propose to speak for them on the world stage. But, with a northeaster bearing down on the Shaw's Supermarket here, democracy is a distraction from the single-minded pursuit of bread and bottled water.

"Catch you on the way out," promises a harried woman who rebuffs Kerry's extended hand at the entrance, but who confesses in the milk aisle a moment later that she had confused the candidate with the Salvation Army bell ringer working the same turf.

"I've got to get home to feed my dog," explains Cross, 31, a newlywed electrician who steers his cart past the Kerry outpost to his car. He says he plans to pay little or no attention to primary politics until after the holidays. "I have a life," he says.

There is something more than defensiveness to Kerry's claim that the pollsters are premature to write him off here, that more New Hampshire voters than not have yet to focus on the crowded field of candidates vying for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"There is a lot of time between now and Jan. 27," Kerry says of the date of the first-in-the-nation primary. "People will begin to focus intently on Jan. 1, and when they do, I will still be here."

Kerry's campaign cites exit polls from New Hampshire in 2000 that suggested that only 18 percent of Democrats surveyed made a final primary choice before Jan. 1 and that 14 percent of Democrats made their decision on Election Day. Another 12 percent of those surveyed decided on a candidate in the three days before the vote, and 21 percent chose a favorite in the week before that.

The few dozen parka-clad grocery shoppers who stop to chat with Kerry at Shaw's and a Market Basket store in Portsmouth bolster the Massachusetts senator's hope that time is still on his side. Most tell him they are undecided. More than a few tell him that they are committed to Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, who is running about 30 percentage points ahead of Kerry in New Hampshire, according to two polls released last week.

But, whether out of politeness or a genuine willingness to change, all but one of them tell Kerry they are open to being convinced that he is the best candidate to unseat President Bush. "I intend to convince you," he tells the Dean supporters. "I need your help. I am asking for it."

It is not clear how many votes will come from the hour Kerry spends outside each supermarket, but those numbers are not the only reason for standing in the foot-numbing cold, he says. If he had not come to Dover, he would not have heard that Sal Silvestre considers controlling the cost of medical care a paramount concern or that Ruth Mitchell is worried enough about events in Iraq to reconsider her support for the president.

"People want to see you fight for their votes," Kerry said. "You get to hear what's on their minds. They get to hear what you are going to do. Every time you stand out there, it spreads by word of mouth that Kerry is out talking to people. If you really listen, it's worth it, no matter how many votes it gets."

Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com.