NEW HAMPSHIRE WEEKLY / POLITICAL DIARY / LAURA A. KIERNAN

Gore and locals talk about issues

By Laura A. Kiernan, Globe Correspondent, February 7, 1999

Vice President Al Gore and his traveling road show were in high gear last week during an appearance at the restored Derry Opera House. And it was easy to see why it will be tough to challenge him for the Democratic nomination for president.

After he was introduced by Governor Jeanne Shaheen, Gore, always fighting the label of dull policy wonk, was completely at ease doing the Oprah-type routine with an invitation-only audience of local citizens and town officials. Afterward, even Republicans in the audience thought he was likeable, approachable and not as controlled as expected.

Gore talked with the audience about traffic, development sprawl, commuter stress, pollution -- issues that are a daily headache in a jam-packed bedroom community like Derry. It's a "liveability" theme he's pushing for the Clinton administration; it was not a campaign visit. Not yet. But this is the kind of stuff that is dear to the hearts of voters in Derry, where a dream come true would be a second exit off I-93 (plans have been kicking around for more than eight years).

"Find another candidate who has a message, who could come to Derry today and talk about the issues," said Democratic activist and Gore supporter Joe Keefe, who watched from the back of the room. And since he is vice president, Gore had the goodies to hand out along with the message, including more money for bike paths and trails in Derry and a promise of $18 million in transit aid for New Hampshire.

Now, if they could just get that exit.

Dagostino, 82, was a fixture on the tarmac at Pease Airport every time the former president flew in and out of New Hampshire and he had been a driver for then US senator Prescott Bush, the former president's father, when he visited the Granite State back in the '50s. Now, Dagostino had been highlighted in a big spread in the only newspaper in the Texas capital, the Austin American-Statesman, saying Bush the younger "will make a hell of a president."

The former president, in Austin to see his son's inauguration, said he saw the article and was pleased Dagostino was "being a loyal friend to the family."

Meanwhile, the Austin American reported that Dagostino had received a written message from George W. in December. It said, "I'll be making up my mind on the year 2000 in the next couple of months. Please tell your friends to keep their powder dry."

In what may be a sign of what to expect on the campaign trail, here's how Bush took the questions put to him last week by WMUR reporter Steve Cooper:

Q. "Any lapse in judgment" we should know about?

A. "No."

Q. "Alcohol?"

A. "No more than others you know . . . I quit drinking . . ."

Q. Drugs? Marijuana? Cocaine?

A. "I'm not going to talk about what I did as a child . . . it is irrelevant what I did 20 years ago . . . I don't want to send signals to anybody that what Governor Bush did 30 years ago is cool to try."

Veteran State House watchers think it will be a Sytek-like plan -- with some kind of a statewide property tax -- that will win in the Republican-controlled House and be sent over to the Democratic-controlled Senate. Income tax talk is hot there, but observers think its only chance would be to emerge from the debate as one of two proposals for voters to consider in a referendum -- the other being the Sytek combination.

Meanwhile, a newly formed group of business heavyweights called the Committee for Sensible School Funding will promote a plan "conceptually and philosophically" similar to Sytek's, according to committee member Bill Cahill.

The group wants to cut off any momentum for an income or sales tax and find a way "to get there from here without turning the state upside down," says Cahill, the president of Spaulding & Frost in Fremont. Other committee members include chairman Kennett (Skip) Kendall, chairman of Willis Coroon in Rochester; Cabletron chairman Craig Benson; Fidelty Investments' Jane Truelove; Paul Montrone of Fisher Scientific International; and Mark Swartz of Tyco International. Former governors John H. Sununu and Stephen E. Merrill attended the first meeting.

"The sky is not falling. The state of New Hampshire is not going to end as we know it on April 1," Cahill says about the court-imposed deadline for a new school financing plan. At least not if this business committee has something to say about it -- and they surely will.

Now Gore is back, but Helms, a former state Democratic party chairman and former candidate for governor, says he hasn't decided what -- if anything -- to do in Campaign 2000. Meanwhile, Hart's 1988 state campaign director, Susan Calegari, is supporting former US senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey.

Meanwhile, on the GOP side, former state senator Ed DuPont, now a lobbyist in Concord, supported Steve Forbes in 1996 but is now looking around. Another Forbes person, former state senator David Currier of Henniker, is perturbed about the influence of conservative activists on the GOP -- and he didn't like Forbes' use of the term "mushy moderates." Forbes, who ran in 1996, is widely seen this time as courting committed social conservatives.

Says Currier, "We the mushy moderates and compassionate conservatives need to stand up and be recognized." Who might unite the party? According to Currier, it could be George W. Bush, who has promoted the concept of "compassionate conservative."

There's been a nonstop buzz about Dole, a former Cabinet member, as a possible GOP presidential candidate ever since she anounced in early January that she was quitting her job as head of the Red Cross. The theme of the chamber dinner is "volunteerism," and Hamilton said he hopes she keeps to that because the chamber has to be neutral. If Dole starts talking politics, the chamber will feel obliged to host ever other White House wannabe.

We'll see. The media have signed up in force for the event, and a record 1,200 tickets have been sold.