ANCHESTER, N.H. - She arrived like a phenom last February, before a capacity crowd of more than a thousand people at the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce.
Elizabeth Dole's reception on that blustery day in the first primary state turned out to be the high point of her campaigning here.
Almost everything after that seemed a struggle - to fill chairs, to convey a message, to emerge as a first-tier candidate.
''She burst on the scene kind of like a supernova,'' said Thomas D. Rath, an activist who is backing Texas Governor George W. Bush. ''That ... attraction is hard to maintain.''
By summer, Dole's visits to New Hampshire had lost a lot of that early energy. Dole swung by the Manchester Rotary Club in August, days after a strong finish in the Iowa straw poll. At the Chateau Restaurant, Dole arrived late, spoke briefly, took three questions and then rushed out without spending the 15 minutes it would have taken to shake hands with the 60 people there.
''You've got to look them in the eye, you've got to shake their hand and answer some of their tough questions,'' said Beverly Rodeschin, the Republican chairwoman of Sullivan County. ''People, if they take the time to come out and see the candidate, they expect that handshake.''
If Dole seemed nervous about mixing it up with the voters, she also seemed to avoid attention-getting positions on the issues. One exception centered on a sensitive topic: guns. At a kickoff dinner in May, she waded into the subject before a conservative, right-to-bear-arms crowd. Silence greeted her call for stricter gun controls.
''When she came out and said what she did on firearms, it didn't set well with a lot of the sportsmen around here,'' Rodeschin said.
The decision to take on the gun lobby was also a surprise to some of her core supporters in New Hampshire. At a private meeting in Concord on the morning after her talk, Dole apologized for springing the subject without running it by her key backers first.
That was not good enough for State Representative Fran Wendleboe of New Hampton. She quit the Dole team and headed to Dan Quayle.
One thing Dole did do well was to attract people who had not been involved in politics before. Her crowds were predominantly women; oftentimes they were mothers who had brought their young daughters to take a look at the first woman to mount a credible major party campaign for president.
Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire survey center, asked voters who supported Dole where they would go if she had not been in the race. Sixty-eight percent said they would support Bush, and 9 percent said they would go to John McCain of Arizona.
Still, not everyone believes these newcomers will stick around to vote on primary day.
''I think a lot of these folks turned out because of Elizabeth Dole, and I don't think they will necessarily translate to another race,'' said Sherry Young, a Concord lawyer and a member of Dole's New Hampshire leadership team.
Gus Fromuth, a Manchester businessman, recalled the hoopla surrounding Dole's first foray into the state last winter. He and his wife attended the Chamber of Commerce dinner, eager to hear the former Red Cross director speak.
''I felt it was the most exciting potential entrance into the race,'' he said. ''She had high, high, high - way up in the charts - she had mountains of opportunity to work with. It was all at her feet how to exploit it.''
Hal Eckman, the chief executive officer of Eckman Construction in Bedford, was also at the dinner with his wife. ''We were excited about her and anxious to hear her speak,'' he said. ''I think a lot of people were.''
And nothing happened.
''There was a drought,'' said Fromuth, who serves as finance chairman for the state Republican Party.
Dole had a limited campaign organization and no adequate way to capitalize on the enthusiasm of the people who wanted to help her.
''If she had played her cards right, she could have given everyone in the party a real pasting,'' Fromuth said. ''When you bring her name up now, more people shake their heads.''
Eventually, Dole brought in Jesse Devitte, an entrepreneur and chairman of the New Hampshire Software Association, to run her New Hampshire campaign. The organization never took off, and Devitte was stymied in his ability to force her Washington office to make decisions.
''I don't think it was any different than any state campaign has with a national organization,'' said Devitte, who is being courted by the other campaigns. ''The issue we had was, I wanted her here more, I couldn't get her.''
