HILADELPHIA - In a potentially serious blow to New Hampshire's status as the first-primary state, a bitterly divided Republican National Committee yesterday gave preliminary approval to a plan that does not guarantee any state the right of being No. 1.
New Hampshire officials held out hope that the Republican nominee-in-waiting, George W. Bush, would come to the rescue, either by arranging for the Rules Committee to kill the plan today or by persuading enough delegates to oppose it during a final vote on the convention floor.
Bush is in an awkward position. He made the usual pledge before this year's New Hampshire primary that he supported the state's first-in-the-nation status. But Bush then lost the primary to Senator John McCain of Arizona, who took advantage of New Hampshire's independent-minded electorate to win the state and nearly upset Bush's run for the nomination.
As a result, some Bush supporters are not anxious to support New Hampshire's cause. A Bush spokesman, asked whether the governor would try to help New Hampshire by urging defeat of the plan, said Bush so far is taking a wait-and-see role.
''We have some concern about the plan, but we have not weighed in yet, and we want to listen to the different sides as the delegates debate it,'' Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said.
While the fight sounds like pre-convention ''inside baseball,'' it filled nearly the entire agenda of the RNC yesterday because the issue appears to be the only one that might erupt into a fight on the convention floor - the sort of discord the Bush forces have worked hard to avoid. The Bush team has gone to lengths to prevent a fight on abortion or any other policy issue.
But the question of radically altering the primary schedule affects so many delegates so directly that many are anxious to take the historic step of rewriting the rules. Many party leaders are fed up with the current system, in which some states rush to be first, creating a front-loaded calendar in which the nomination is settled within weeks and many states have little or no say in the process.
Under the plan approved yesterday, states would be divided into several ''pods,'' with the 12 smallest states going first and the largest states going last. Most of the larger states, including Massachusetts, yesterday opposed the plan out of concern that the nomination would be decided before the last one or two rounds of primaries.
The plan was approved yesterday by the RNC by a vote of 92-55. Today, a different group, the convention's Rules Committee, takes up the matter. It is possible the plan will be killed by that body because it may want to avoid a floor fight. But if it goes to the floor, the states would vote on a proportional basis, meaning that the more populous states would have far more voting power than the smaller ones and could join together to kill the plan.
The plan adopted yesterday does not strip away New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation status, but instead is silent on the question and puts the state in the same ''primary pod'' as 11 other small states. Some New Hampshire officials said that in the worst-case scenario, they could ignore the party and hold the first primary while forfeiting the state's delegates.
But even if the plan put forward yesterday is defeated, another version will probably be proposed. RNC chairman Jim Nicholson said the current system is so front-loaded with early primaries that it is headed for a ''train wreck.''
New Hampshire's influence is in danger partly because it has a recent history of upsetting the candidates preferred by the Republican establishment, which holds much influence over the primary structure.
