NEW HAMPSHIRE WEEKLY / POLITICAL DIARY / LAURA A. KIERNAN

Can't keep the pols away from parades

By Laura A. Kiernan, Globe Correspondent, July 4, 1999

It's the Fourth of July, and that means a parade. In the towns of Amherst and Merrimack, that means presidential candidates on parade too, right along with the floats, bands, clowns, antique cars and kids with tiny American flags and crepe-paper streamers on their bikes.

In Amherst, which is solid Republican territory, Texas Governor George W. Bush, the anointed one among the GOP establishment, will walk the parade route today with US Senator Judd Gregg and US Representative Charles Bass of Peterborough and their wives. Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, the winner of the 1996 GOP primary, will also be there along with conservative activist Gary Bauer. Former Cabinet secretary Elizabeth Dole, who also served as president of the American Red Cross, will be there, after pancakes in Brookline.

After hearing a rumor that Vice President Al Gore's campaign was sending a small army of supporters (Gore can't make it), parade chairman Maren Petropulos said that 10 was the limit -- for everybody.

When the parade ends at the village green in Amherst, each candidate will get a chance to speak from a grandstand drapped with patriotic bunting. They'll draw straws to see who goes first, Petropulos said.

Parade chairman Tom Mahon said the same crew then heads over to Merrimack -- more GOP land -- where the Bush campaign plans to have a horse-drawn wagon and an antique calliope on a flatbed trailer. Mahon says he has done everything he can to keep the politicians from stealing the show from Old Glory.

Said Mahon, "We're trying to make this a family event and a lot of times people just go, 'Oh no. What are these guys doing here?' "

Also said to be thinking about running is another political newcomer, Glen Secor, CEO of Yankee Book Publishers in Contoocook. Secor, 38, has been a key player in Citizens for Fair Education Taxation, which has played an active role in scrutinizing education financing proposals as they have made their way through this legislative session.

And there's a Republican who turned Democrat in the mix too. Attorney Leonard Foy, 31, of Hudson, who lost a GOP primary for a House seat last year, says he is definitely in the 2d District race. The winner of the primary would face three-term Republican Charles Bass, if he seeks another term.

Bass got the job in 1994 when he upset the only Democrat to hold that seat since 1912, Dick Swett. Bass then went on to defeat two other strong Democratic candidates, Arnie Arnesen in 1996 (she won 43 percent of the vote) and Mary Rauh last year (she got 45 percent). Rauh says she hasn't ruled out another run, but she points out that in the year 2000 it will be tough to run for Congress (not exactly a high-visibility job in New Hampshire) at the same time there's an attention-grabbing presidential race going on.

Meanwhile it seemed that if anybody could make the cumbersome campaign finance reform issue "resonate" with voters, as the political jargonists like to say, it could be McCain, who spoke with a determined edge in his voice and loaded up his speech with memorable sound bites. The vision of the Lincoln bedroom as a Motel 6 with the president as the bellhop is sure to stick when people talk about favors dished out to political contributors, a la the Clinton administration. He called the current campaign finance system an "elaborate influence-peddling scheme" in which both parties win office by "selling the country to the highest bidder."

"It's your country. Let's go take it back," McCain said. There were cheers from the crowd, which stood surrounded by posters of a much younger McCain, the handsome Navy fighter pilot and POW who became a hero during the Vietnam War.

Outside Town Hall, Nancy LaFave of Stratham and her daughter, Lea Ayers of Andover, both independent swing voters who went with Clinton in 1992 and 1996, said they were uncommitted but were interested in McCain, whom they described as honest and inspiring. They aren't keen on Bush (uninspiring) or Elizabeth Dole (out of date and too stiff), but they are interested in Steve Forbes. What about Vice President Al Gore? "Something about his leadership is in question," said Ayers. Both women are "very interested" in Bill Bradley, but they don't think he can get the nomination away from Gore.

"Anybody with new ideas and a different approach is what you want," said LaFave. "That's why we voted for Bill Clinton. And he was different." And they don't regret it.

Bradley sat at a conference table with seven representatives from the loan fund, including its president, Juliana Eades. About eight other people were seated to one side. That was the total audience, except for four photographers, 11 reporters and a small fleet of Bradley aides. It was a notably relaxed campaign setting compared with the trappings of being vice president that dog Al Gore everywhere he goes and limit any real connection he can make with voters.

During the Concord session, Bradley heard about one effort to help a developmentally disabled woman buy a home, another to get financing to expand a child-care business in Lancaster, and about a program to train people to work as much-needed certified nurse-assistants.

"How do people hear about you?" Bradley asked Eades.

"Today is one way they are going to hear about us," Eades quipped.

"That's good. That's why I'm here," Bradley said. During these meetings, which Bradley has conducted nationwide, he says one of his campaign objectives is to "call attention to millions of Americans who shine every day." P.S. Later in Concord, Bradley won the endorsement of state Senator Mark Fernald, a first-term member from Sharon who has played a high-visibility role drafting and lobbying for a combination income tax/property tax. Nineteen state reps also signed on with Bradley.

Advance work is the stuff that must be done right before an event begins because if it isn't, it really turns off voters. That means details like a sound system that works, water to drink if it's a steamy day, and moving the candidate in and out of a place smoothly.

"Every little thing can mean a vote and we need all the votes we can get," said Elizabeth Dole's New Hampshire campaign director, Jesse Devitte, who ran a similar advance school here for Bob Dole in 1996. The session also dealt with maintaining friendly relations between grass-roots volunteers and paid advance teams who parachute in from out of state and start bossing the locals around.

When the orders started coming in from Washington, said one observer of the 1996 Bob Dole campaign, volunteers on the ground here got the sense that "you were just one of many, strung along and used and told where to be and what to do."

One more note: Elizabeth Dole has picked up the endorsement of state Representative Keith R. Herman, a Republican from Milford who is vice chairman of the House Commerce Committee.