OOKSETT, N.H. - The local snowmobile dealership has seen its share of celebrities. Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, once stopped in to buy a standup jet ski. Jim Walgreen, of drugstore fame, is a regular customer, and at least two players for the New England Patriots have bought costly sports toys here over the years.
But nothing quite compares to what happened here yesterday.
Swept down the highway in a five-vehicle motorcade, flanked by bodyguards wearing earpieces and long coats, Governor George W. Bush of Texas made his entrance at the Hooksett Kawasaki shop grinning and shaking hands.
He took a private tour with the owner. He paused for a television camera in front of a golf cart. Then Bush dashed out for a snowmobile ride in the icy parking lot, surrounded by nearly 100 members of his entourage, including at least 35 photographers who captured the moment for later broadcast around the world.
Then, with hardly a minute to talk to customers, Bush was ushered back to his bus. And onlookers, some of them still reeling from the performance, were left to wonder, Was that man really just a candidate?
''I saw his father once,'' said Mark Tello, 36, an equipment engineer from Tewksbury who happened to stop by the store, ''and it was a lot like this. It was amazing.''
It is a lingering image on the campaign trail, where Bush is working to convince voters he is presidential material. Unlike some other contenders, whose relentless one-on-one exposure to the public resembles a run for City Hall, Bush moves in a security bubble.
He flies in a private Gulfstream jet. He has a team of two dozen guards. Everywhere he goes, men in suits are talking furtively into their sleeves.
And while many of those accoutrements are standard for any governor, they can seem presidential on the campaign trail - especially since Bush is often introduced as ''the next president of the United States.''
He routinely describes his administration in terms of when, not if. On the cover of one of his glossy brochures is a picture of the White House. At every event, he is surrounded by pillars of the political establishment - senators, governors, US representatives.
Even while snowmobiling yesterday, he was in the company of Senator Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican.
When Bush went to church last Sunday, reporters were invited to cover only his exit from the building, prompting an aide to make the obvious comparison. ''Just like when Clinton goes to church,'' he said.
''He is trying to create an aura of inevitability about his campaign,'' said professor Darrell West, who teaches political science at Brown University. ''It creates an aura of leadership. Because if you look presidential, then it sometimes helps people grow more comfortable with the fact you may be president.''
All candidates try to ''look presidential,'' of course, and most carry a bag of age-old tricks - positioning themselves in front of the American flag to be photographed, for example, or confidently describing what they will do as president.
Ronald Reagan famously created a ''presidential package'' around his candidacy in 1980. An American flag was seemingly in every photograph. He hired agents who resembled the Secret Service. He moved with a massive entourage.
In the current race, Steve Forbes, the millionaire publisher who posed a serious challenge to Bush in Iowa, put out a television ad showing him looking pensive in a room meant to seem like the Oval Office. Vice President Al Gore has the obvious advantage of his current job - and, of course, he travels on Air Force Two.
But Bush's aura of pseudo-incumbency is striking, if only because it was so firmly established so long before the Republican nominee has even been chosen - and because it is in such contrast to the freewheeling atmosphere of the campaign of his top opponent in New Hampshire, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
On his campaign bus, McCain rides alongside dozens of reporters each day, hammering them with his every thought. He and his wife, Cindy, sometimes appear at events with little warning. In recent months, McCain, always approachable, has been so accessible that journalists have occasionally asked him to go away.
Bush, on the other hand, chartered a separate plane to transport the media and dared ride on it only once in recent months. Even Bush heard the running joke on the 737 chartered from the Des Moines airline Access Air: that it really should be called ''No Access Air.''
Bush aides defend the arrangements as necessary for the governor of the country's second-largest state, and they point out that his ability to wander freely in public has suffered because of national front-runner status. They chafe at accusations he is inaccessible, noting that he holds a news conference every day and has a hectic schedule, particularly in New Hampshire, where he is working 14-hour days to improve his standing in the polls.
And Bush has tried to keep the environment as natural as possible, refusing Secret Service protection until, he says, he is officially the nominee. And in an interview, he said he does not believe his necessary security trappings are going to turn voters off. ''This is what it is. I don't worry about things that are beyond my control,'' he said.
''I think the people are going to say, `Who can lead? Who do I agree with?' It was the same circumstances in Iowa. It didn't seem to bother the folks in that good state,'' Bush said. ''I was worried about it initially, as to whether I was going to be able to get in front of enough people and shake hands. And I believe I've done so, and I'm going to continue to do so.''
