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- <text>
- <title>
- (80 Elect) In New Hampshire, They're Off!
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1980 Election
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- February 25, 1980
- NATION
- In New Hampshire, They're Off!
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>Bush speaks for them all when he says, "You can't escape"
- </p>
- <p> Ronald Reagan: "It's nice to be liked, but it's more
- important to be respected."
- </p>
- <p> George Bush: "A President we won't have to train."
- </p>
- <p> Howard Baker: "A leader for the '80s."
- </p>
- <p> President Carter: "For the truth."
- </p>
- <p> Edward Kennedy: "I think we can make a difference and do it
- better."
- </p>
- <p> Up and down the Main Streets and Elm Streets of New
- Hampshire, from Colebrook to Concord, from Dixville Notch to
- Laconia, banners, posters, TV and radio ads proclaim the slogans
- aimed at achieving victory or avoiding defeat in the nation's
- first primary, on Feb. 26. The Granite State was a bit upstaged
- this year when the Iowa and Maine caucuses took on greater
- prominence than ever before. But New Hampshire is still the
- first state where voters cast an actual ballot.
- </p>
- <p> Adding to this year's political fever is the fact that the
- races in both parties are considered too close to call with any
- assurance. Carter and Kennedy, Reagan and Bush are battling
- fiercely for those few extra votes that may be decisive in their
- campaigns. A victory, however slight, in an early primary gives a
- candidate momentum going into subsequent contests. Carter
- clobbered Kennedy 2 to 1 in Iowa, but then won more narrowly last
- week in Maine, 43.6% to 40.2%, with California Governor Jerry
- Brown picking up a surprising 13.8%. Bush upset Reagan 32% to 29%
- in Iowa, though Republican results in Maine will not be known
- until March 15. Some 36,000 people participated in the Maine
- Democratic caucuses, five times the number that turned out in
- 1976, and a similar increase is expected in the New Hampshire
- primary.
- </p>
- <p> There is no escaping the political onslaught--the price New
- Hampshirites pay for wanting to be first. They may be going
- fishing or to church or to lunch or to nowhere in particular, yet
- there is usually some candidate or at least some poster of a
- candidate staring them right in the eye. At a Ramada Inn in
- Manchester, where young workmen were taking down the WELCOME
- GOVERNOR REAGAN sign and putting up GREETINGS AMBASSADOR BUSH,
- one of them groused, "As soon as he's through, we've got to get
- ready for John Anderson."
- </p>
- <p> New Hampshire is sometimes disparaged as being too white,
- rural and conservative to reflect national opinion, but the state
- is fast changing. An influx of residents from Massachusetts into
- the southern part of the state is giving it, for better or worse,
- the look of much of the rest of the nation: the same kind of
- suburban sprawl. Its population has been growing faster than that
- of any other Eastern state except Florida--from 780,000 to
- 938,000 in the last decade. To reach these greater numbers,
- candidates are relying more than ever on TV. One pitch follows
- another in a dizzying succession of 30-second spot commercials.
- "President Carter--a man of resolve, a man of achievement,"
- drones one typical effort. Soon after that comes the voice of Ted
- Kennedy intoning, "New Hampshire can make the difference."
- </p>
- <p> Nobody is campaigning harder, or more exuberantly, than the
- newly established Republican front runner, George Bush. Indeed,
- he once barely avoided shaking hands with a mannequin in a
- department store. "No fair hiding," he chided a diffident
- bystander. "You can't escape. I'm George Bush. I would love to
- have your vote." When an English professor at Plymouth State
- College morosely observed that Bush was offering the same
- shopworn "miracles" as other politicians, the candidate replied:
- "They are not miracles, they are fundamentals. Come on, cheer up
- a little bit." The student audience burst into applause. Bush is
- equally cheery in looking ahead. Says he: "I really think I can
- beat Carter. It's not like I would be up against some heavyweight
- in purple trunks. I really believe Carter is the little
- marshmallow whom Kennedy set out to beat last fall."
- </p>
- <p> But Bush is keenly aware of the perils of his new pre-
- eminence. "If somebody comes out with something that shows me way
- out front, I'll be poor-mouthing it," he said in an outburst of
- candor aboard his chartered jet. "I'll say, 'This is ridiculous.
- God, how could you expect that from a little guy like me?'"
- </p>
- <p> The Bush campaign is under the near total control of former
- Governor Hugh Gregg, who ran Reagan's campaign four years ago.
- The "Ayatullah Gregg," as Bush staffers call him, brooks no
- interference as he keeps the candidate moving with the precision
- of Mussolini's trains. "We work Bush like a dog," admits Gregg,
- who allows the candidate 22 minutes for lunch on some days, six
- minutes for a sandwich on busy ones.
- </p>
- <p> Bush's New Hampshire nemesis is irascible, archconservative
- William Loeb, publisher of the Manchester Union Leader. Though
- the state's largest daily has lost some of its clout, it still
- packs a powerful below-the-belt punch. Scarcely an edition goes
- by without Loeb's patting Reagan on the back while he attacks
- Kennedy and Bush. Contending in a front-page article that ex-CIA
- agents are working in Bush's campaign, Loeb charged that Bush's
- victory had "all the smell of a CIA covert operation." Loeb also
- played up a charge rehashed in the Los Angeles Times that Bush had
- not properly reported a contribution of $106,000 from a Nixon
- slush fund for his unsuccessful Senate campaign in Texas in 1970.
- DIRTY, DIRTY, DIRTY headlined the Union Leader. "I am clean,
- clean, clean," insisted Bush. In a rare display of anger, he
- asked, "What the hell are they raising that for now?" He claims
- he reported the contribution in compliance with the laws then on
- the books. When he was named CIA director, Special Prosecutor
- Leon Jaworski investigated the transaction and cleared him of
- any wrongdoing.
- </p>
- <p> Reagan, who had been coasting along as the leading
- Republican, has abandoned his pose of Olympian statesmanship and
- now repeatedly attacks Carter for a foreign policy "bordering on
- appeasement." But he also tries to counterpunch Bush as too
- liberal on welfare, abortion, ERA and gun control. And on every
- issue he has a ready quip or a slogan. Asked about the public
- school prayer amendment, he says he is for it and adds: "If we
- can get the Federal Government out of the classroom, maybe we can
- get God back in." But often there are fluffs, which nobody in his
- entourage will admit are a sign of his age. Several times, he has
- switched Afghanistan and Pakistan. In one speech, he charged that
- the White House turned its back on Taiwan "when Andy Carter came
- along." Andy Carter? Smiling, Reagan corrected himself: "A member
- of my staff is named Andy Carter."
- </p>
- <p> Reagan is ill at ease pressing the flesh, but he has been
- reaching for as many hands as possible. One day his aides added
- an unscheduled stop in Merrimack, and his motorcade drew up at
- the Rainbow Pharmacy so that he could buy a Valentine's Day card
- for his wife Nancy. With TV crews jostling around him, Reagan got
- two housewives to help him select not one but three cards, but he
- had to be reminded by an aide to hustle a few votes. "I'd be very
- proud and happy if you could support me," said Reagan. "That's
- it," gushed Madeline Morris of Merrimack. "I'll vote for him. I'm
- easy."
- </p>
- <p> Reagan watchers detect a note of anxiety in this frantic
- activity. Last week Reagan canceled a commitment in Illinois to
- schedule more New Hampshire activities. The purpose is not only
- to meet more voters but also to keep his campaign workers on the
- move. "I'm going to stay right through the election," Reagan
- jocularly told them. "I'm going to go out and spy and see if
- you're ringing doorbells." And as a final concession to the new
- demands on him, Reagan agreed to a TV debate with his G.O.P.
- rivals on Feb. 20 and one with Bush alone three days later.
- </p>
- <p> The other Republican candidates range from somewhat visible
- to out of sight. Howard Baker is a tough campaigner, but he has a
- much weaker organization than the two front runners. Anything
- less than finishing a strong third would probably doom his
- campaign, and he is being threatened by, of all people, tell-it-
- like-it-is John Anderson, who has been attracting financial
- support from liberal Democrats. John Connally has practically
- written off New Hampshire and has been concentrating his
- resources in the first Southern primary, South Carolina on March
- 8. Phil Crane is expected to siphon off some Reagan votes in New
- Hampshire, just enough to keep him going until Illinois. For
- Robert Dole, New Hampshire may be the end of the line.
- </p>
- <p> On the Democratic side, the Carter forces briefly had
- hoped--perhaps unrealistically--to knock Kennedy out of the race in
- Maine. When they failed to do that, they became worried about New
- Hampshire. Patrick Caddell, the President's pollster, feels that
- the local polls showing Carter way ahead cannot be trusted. His
- own surveys indicate that the President's lead is narrowing fast.
- Carter's staffers are sure that his failure to campaign is
- hurting him in a state where voters are accustomed to looking a
- candidate in the eye. Every night, White House Chief of Staff
- Hamilton Jordan and other aides anxiously await the latest
- comments from voters phoned by Carter volunteers in New
- Hampshire. Increasingly, people express their displeasure over
- Carter's absence. But Carter refuses to budge from Washington
- until the hostages are released. The President said last week, "I
- want the world to know that I am not going to resume business as
- usual until our hostages are back here."
- </p>
- <p> Meanwhile, his forces are hardly inactive in New Hampshire.
- The White House has been shoveling federal funds into the state:
- $34 million for highway improvements, a $1.5 million loan
- guarantee to American Skate Factory in Berlin, an $850,000
- housing grant to Nashua. White House surrogates--Rosalynn,
- Chip, Miss Lillian, Vice President Walter and Joan Mondale, Muriel
- Humphrey--have made New Hampshire a second home. But the biggest
- campaign boost of all would come from Iran. Jesus a White House
- aide: "Do you think folks would yell 'partisan' if we flew the
- hostages back to Pease Air Force Base (outside Portsmouth,
- N.H.)?"
- </p>
- <p> Like a first-term Congressman, Kennedy lumbered around New
- Hampshire last week in a scruffy chartered bus overflowing with
- reporters. He slogged through streets, grimy factories and high
- school gyms in a determined effort to rescue his shaky
- politically fortunes. But the Maine results had at least revived
- his hopes. Contributions, which had dried up after Iowa, were
- coming back in (to about $750,000 as of last week), and staffers
- were going back on the payroll.
- </p>
- <p> In every speech, Kennedy is strenuously attacking Carter
- from the liberal side on both foreign and domestic issues.
- Explains a top aide: "He's only comfortable with that, not
- tailoring his opinions to this group or that poll." Kennedy
- opposes draft registration. "I would rather do with less gas than
- shed American blood to defend OPEC pipelines," he shouts. And
- nuclear power: "There is no position for nuclear power in a
- Kennedy energy program." And on the economy: "I will stop
- inflation in its tracks." His aides believe that Kennedy draws
- most blood when he assails Carter for "not coming out of the Rose
- Garden." Says Kennedy at every stop: "Jimmy Carter ought not to
- be given a blank check. The last time we did that was to Richard
- Nixon. Once is enough."
- </p>
- <p> Kennedy's performance remains uneven. He delivers a speech
- sometimes firmly, sometimes haltingly. He seems to operate on two
- levels: strident or somnolent. He may bellow on one occasion,
- whisper on another. At breakfast one morning, he bored the
- Southern New Hampshire Association of Commerce and Industry.
- Later in the day, he barely caused a stir among high school
- students in Plaistow. But that night he wowed the crowd at the
- University of New Hampshire.
- </p>
- <p> One result of Kennedy's heightened attacks on Carter has
- been to launch, even if only by long-range salvos, the debate
- that the Senator has long sought. "It looks like we finally got
- his attention," Kennedy laughed after one White House outburst.
- Carter has indeed been stung into answering Kennedy's accusations.
- To one charge, that he risked "spilling American blood to top off
- gas tanks here at home," Carter exploded to an aide: "It's
- disgusting!" Increasing bitterness between Carter and his chief
- rival could lead to a party split of serious proportions.
- </p>
- <p> After all the sometimes exhilarating but often dreary
- campaigning, after all the charges and countercharges, for all
- the flesh pressing and mind reading, the New Hampshire results
- may be largely determined by events beyond the candidates'
- control. Both Democratic camps realize that Carter would be given
- an enormous lift if the hostages in Tehran were freed before the
- primary. If that happens, Kennedy must somehow try to hang on
- until the acclaim for the President subsides and voters remember
- his lack-luster performance in handling inflation and energy.
- Losing in New Hampshire, however, will be more crippling for
- Kennedy than Carter since the next series of primaries takes
- place in the South, where the President has the commanding lead
- of a native son.
- </p>
- <p> New Hampshire will be just as crucial for the Reagan-Bush
- race. If the Californian comes in second and then loses to Bush
- in Massachusetts, as expected, he cannot count on his support in
- the South and West holding up. Already there are signs of erosion
- to Bush in Reagan territory. On the other hand, now that Bush has
- raised expectations, he must continue to show momentum. Admits
- Bush: "I know that what goes up can get shot down." Once again,
- doughty little New Hampshire has accomplished what it set out to
- do by establishing the nation's first primary--the making and
- breaking of presidential candidates.
- </p>
- <p>"Cynical, Self-Serving, False"
- </p>
- <p> It was less a foreign policy debate than an explosion of
- name-calling unusually bitter even for a presidential campaign.
- Unusually misleading, too. Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter fought
- over the credit for a promising idea for release of the U.S
- hostages in Tehran, thought actually the idea seems to have been
- mainly the brainchild of U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.
- </p>
- <p> Kennedy began the row. In a speech at Georgetown University
- on Jan. 28, he had proposed an international commission to
- investigate Iran's grievances against the U.S. as a quid pro quo
- for release of the hostages. His suggestion drew little
- attention, and last week he suddenly sharpened his rhetoric. In a
- speech at Harvard, Kennedy boomed: "For months, the White House
- rejected a commission on Iranian grievances--which could have
- freed the hostages sooner. Now, at last, the President is about
- to agree to it. But the Administration stubbornly resisted this
- solution until I and others made the proposal."
- </p>
- <p> An angry White House immediately launched a counterattack.
- Press Secretary Jody Powell termed Kennedy's attack "cynical,
- self-serving, irresponsible and false." Secretary of State Cyrus
- Vance accused Kennedy of "misstatements...both numerous and
- serious," and State Department Spokesman Hodding Carter III
- asserted that Kennedy had got the commission idea from
- confidential briefings that Vance and Waldheim had given him.
- Finally, Carter himself said at his press conference that
- Kennedy's remarks had been "very damaging to our country."
- </p>
- <p> The germ of the idea actually first appeared in a letter to
- Waldheim from Abolhassan Banisadr, then Iran's Foreign Minister.
- It was published on Nov. 13, only nine days after the hostages
- were seized. Banisadr asserted that "the American Government
- should at least accept the investigation of the guilt of the
- former Shah." He did not say who should investigate, but,
- according to a U.N. spokesman, Waldheim privately broached the
- idea of an international inquiry commission to U.S. and Iranian
- officials on Nov. 17. He pursued it on a year-end trip to Iran
- and on a visit to Carter in Washington Jan. 6; the same day he
- finally made it public in a television interview: It had already
- been widely discussed in the press.
- </p>
- <p> By week's end Kennedy conceded, quite lamely, that he could
- not "claim authorship" of the commission proposal and indeed that
- it had "been around for months" before his Georgetown speech. But
- he continues to insist that the Administration had rejected the
- proposal, until he began prodding. That appears at best an
- overstatement.
- </p>
- <p> It is true that the Administration long seemed dubious.
- Though Carter now stresses that the White House has been
- "discussing" the commission idea with Waldheim "since mid-
- November," he indicated serious reservations at a press
- conference Nov. 28. And after Carter's Jan. 6 talk with Waldheim,
- Powell told reporters that the White House had rejected what was
- even then being called a package deal--though he insisted the
- next day that it had not turned the proposal down flat but was
- still "exploring" it. What the White House objected to then, and
- still does, was any idea that Iran could continue to hold the
- hostages while the commission deliberated.
- </p>
- <p> If any one event had accelerated the talks since that time,
- it was not Kennedy's speech but the landslide election of
- Banisadr as President of Iran on Jan. 25. That put a relatively
- moderate figure into power after a long period of governmental
- chaos.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-