Candidates aim at the undecided

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Democratic candidates for president, locked in an extraordinarily competitive fight for the nomination, campaigned with increasing intensity across New Hampshire yesterday in a final drive to sway voters still considering their options two days before the primary.

Although polling data indicate that the number of undecided voters is shrinking, several campaign strategists said as many as half the voters could change their minds before the election, especially because New Hampshire is stubbornly independent-minded.

Senators John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina reached out aggressively to Democrats who had supported Richard A. Gephardt until the Missouri representative dropped out of the race. Both Kerry and Edwards have hired former Gephardt advisers to counsel their campaigns after the New Hampshire race.

Kerry drew about 2,500 people yesterday at Nashua South High School, where he appeared with Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts -- as well as a new supporter, Representative Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, one of Gephardt's closest allies. Around Manchester, yard signs cropped up that read: "Doubting Dean? Vote Kerry."

Howard Dean, meanwhile, brought in his mother and wife to vouch for his affectionate side, amid signs he has recaptured some momentum since last week. The tactic is aimed at women voters, who historically have taken longer to decide on a candidate.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut launched a radio ad featuring voters who had made up their minds only after hearing him in the New Hampshire debate Thursday night.

In Nashua, retired Army General Wesley K. Clark encouraged undecided voters who attended a house party to ask him questions that would help them choose. At a separate event in Nashua, Edwards said, "I'm closing it every way I know how," referring to the final hours of the campaign. "For the last three to four weeks -- first in Iowa, and now in New Hampshire -- I've been doing every possible thing I can."With results of at least four public polls circulating, speculation on the outcome of tomorrow's race was rampant; if anyone does better or worse than expected, it probably will have a major impact on the dynamics of the race. A two-day Boston Globe/WBZ-TV tracking poll conducted yesterday and Saturday indicated that Kerry maintains a 20-point lead over Dean.

The poll, which has a margin of error of 5 percentage points, indicated that 37 percent of the likely voters surveyed said they favor Kerry. Dean had 17 percent, Edwards had 12 percent, Clark had 11 percent, and Lieberman had 7 percent. Fourteen percent said they were undecided.

Unlike past races in which voters have described a reluctant choice between the lesser of two lackluster candidates, this year the problem may be that the field is too rich. Voters repeatedly said they liked more than one contender -- one explanation, perhaps, for the unusually large crowds at almost every event.

At Kerry's event in Nashua, several audience members said they were leaning toward the senator but had warm feelings for some of his rivals, especially Clark, Dean, and Edwards. The chief concern was finding a Democrat who could present the strongest challenge to President Bush.

"I went to a living room party the other night to hear Wes Clark, and I was really taken by the fact that he's not afraid to say things definitively," said Todd Lyon of New Boston, N.H., holding his toddler, Miles, as Kerry prepared to speak. "Clark is prochoice on abortion, even though he's Catholic; he's not ashamed to say that. I had been leaning toward Kerry because I like his apparent profundity of thought. Now I'm divided between the two."

Before the rally, Kerry went to a suburban neighborhood in Merrimack and dropped by seven houses on Craig Drive. He met David and Diana Frothingham in their driveway, along with their young boys, Ben and Andrew, and made a pitch to the couple after they said they planned to vote for Kerry or Dean.

Kerry touted "the consistency of my positions," prompting Diana Frothingham to ask whether the senator thought Dean had shifted his positions. Yes, and worse, he argued, Dean is vulnerable to the Republicans over his opposition to the Iraq war and his plan to repeal the GOP-backed tax cuts. "The Republicans will just kill us on that -- between foreign policy and taxes, I think it's a serious problem," Kerry said.

Frothington, asked afterward whether she remains undecided, said, "I still want to think about it." Asked whether Kerry's visit would influence her deliberations, she said, "It's helpful."

At the Clark appearance, Liz Morgan, 59, of Amherst, N.H., said she was also undecided. Besides considering Clark, she said, "I'm actually, surprisingly, thinking of Kerry, too."

"What's most important to me is that someone replaces Bush."

Morgan said she is looking for a candidate who has "the experience, the background, the intelligence, and the team behind him that can put together a very strong challenge" to Bush. She is concerned that Kerry is "viewed as very New England. . . . I think Clark appeals to the middle of the road, the moderate Republicans."

Matt Bennett, Clark's communications director, said the candidate intentionally made appeals to independent and undecided voters. "Rallies are kind of, by their nature, preaching to the choir," Bennett said. "But he knew there were a lot of people there who weren't fully committed, and he wanted to seal the deal."

Patrick Healy of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Anne Kornblut can be reached at akornblut@globe.com.