ONCORD - In New Hampshire, politics is a lot like baseball.
People keep statistics. They retell legends. They handicap their favorite teams. Political players sign autographs and get their faces put on trading cards. Dixville Notch throws out the first pitch.
In politics here, as in baseball, anything that can happen probably will.
And it pays to remember that, no matter how the season looks at the outset, an underdog can always win the pennant.
Today, the New Hampshire Historical Society and the Library and Archive of New Hampshire's Political Tradition open an exhibition that is something like a little Hall of Fame of presidential primary politics in New Hampshire.
The exhibit, called ''The Road to the White House,'' is a retrospective of New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
From Dick Upton, who proposed the law that made the primary what it is today, on through Estes Kefauver's astonishing rise, John F. Kennedy's lambasting of the Union Leader, Ronald Reagan's ''I paid for this microphone, Mr. Green'' and Bill Clinton's feeling of our pain, the exhibit maps the road to Pennsylvania Avenue - which primary boosters say leads directly down the Everett Turnpike.
It is an exhibit particularly suited for the New Hampshire voter - who, like the crowd at Fenway Park, appreciates the subtleties of the game.
''We have never lived in a place where people are so conversant in politics as they are in New Hampshire,'' said Historical Society director John Frisbee.
People here don't just watch the presidential primary go by on television. They own it.
''Frankly, that's part of what I hope we can do with this exhibit,'' Frisbee said. To ''sustain that sense of civic responsibility and citizen participation'' in the political process.
The exhibit is photograph-driven (UPI donated a big batch of primary photos to the Historical Society in the 1980s) and includes political mementoes and memorabilia, hand-lettered signs, bumper stickers, buttons.
Plus some excellent kitsch.
Richard Nixon, perhaps the most rhythm-impaired president in history, gave out castanets bearing the logo ''Click with Dick.''
And - though it seems improbable in these scandal-ridden times - Ronald Reagan's campaign handed out garter belts. Red satin and white lace affairs, featuring a plastic heart with the inscription ''Women (heart) Reagan.''
It's all here.
The exhibit is not just about insider baseball; it is geared more to the average voter than to the longtime political operative.
''The primary in New Hampshire is a very significant matter and it's a long, rich tradition - something we should preserve,'' said former governor and primary defender Hugh Gregg.
''The children who see [the exhibit] I hope will get a feel and a sense of the democratic process and how it works and the necessity for people to participate in it.''
Accompanying the exhibit, and lasting through the primary season, will be a series of lectures, films and discussions about New Hampshire primary politics. It's the sort of series that would simply not play south of Salem.
''People really are more engaged,'' in New Hampshire, said curator Hilary Anderson. ''They have a personal connection to it, even if they're not involved in a campaign.''
And while it may be in fashion these days to sneer at the so-called ''myth'' of retail politics, Gregg does not.
''Of course we know that's not so and we can prove that both statistically and by a simple question,'' Gregg said. ''Why do the candidates come here? Here they have the opportunity to actually test out their issues, talk to people one-on-one and shake their hands.''
And, he said, ''we have found that one in five people in New Hampshire shakes the hands of a candidate. To call it a myth is just plain foolishness. The facts just completely discredit that statement.''
Frisbee said he started out cynical about the primary, but has since changed his tune.
''You can't get away with sound-bite politics'' in New Hampshire, Frisbee said. ''You can't fool too many of the people too much of the time.'' And, he said, the political shift away from the ideological right in New Hampshire has made the state a more accurate reflection of the nation.
''I think retail politics in New Hampshire is quite alive and well,'' he says.
How else, he wonders, to explain the rapid rise of Bill Bradley? He likens Bradley to Jimmy Carter in 1976. When Carter showed up in New Hampshire, the would-be president was ''Jimmy Who?''
''If it weren't for New Hampshire, Bill Bradley couldn't have done this,'' said Frisbee, referring to Bradley's swift rise in the polls.
''The Road to the White House,'' said Frisbee, is about more than celebrating the primary.
It's about inspiring people who may have fallen from the fold of democracy to come back home to their civic responsibilities.
Frisbee said the Historical Society is planning a series of traveling exhibitions based on ''The Road to the White House'' that will target communities where voter turnout has dropped in recent decades. Frisbee envisions the shows set up in supermarkets and post offices, where they will reach the widest cross-section of people; and in schools and colleges, because young voters are the least likely to participate.
He wants to run them not just once, but repeatedly over a period of years, to see if they might inspire a bump in voter turnout.
The goal, Frisbee said, is to ''really try to get people to think about their civic responsibility and the extraordinary opportunity we have here in New Hampshire to change the course of events.''
Lois R. Shea's e-mail address is LShea@globe.com
