MANCHESTER, N.H.-- If they only knew:
About John E. Sununu.
For starters, he is against abortion rights - all of them. I would be tempted to say he is passionately against all abortion rights, but the incumbent pol from New Hampshire's first congressional district cannot be said to be passionate about anything.
He's a fly-under-the-radar congressman, a go-along-to-get-along two-termer now looking for the win that could make him congressman for life.
But he is against abortion rights, or the right of a woman to choose free of government pregnancy regulation. In fact, the public record is bereft of anything other than his opposition - to Roe v Wade as we know it, to support of the family planning programs that make the trauma of abortion unnecessary, and so on.
Martha Fuller Clark, the state legislative leader from Portsmouth who is opposing him this time, is for the right to choose. In fact, she was the one who pushed the legislation that finally repealed the 1848 law (illegal under Roe) that outlawed abortion services in the state.
Ten bucks says hardly anyone in Sununu's district knows this. That, of course, is one purpose of political campaigns, but that (also of course) is why Sununu is especially desirous of flying under the radar this year. He is a conservative Congressman from a district that trends independent and moderate - and his stand against abortion rights is but the tip of a rather large iceberg.
When Clark, the assistant Democratic leader in the Legislature, was setting up her campaign, her so-called foundation poll disclosed an interesting set of results - common to congressional districts that are not on national radar screens as ''competitive.'' The survey (by Democratic guru Celinda Lake) showed that as a simple, reelect the incumbent proposition, Sununu can win in a cakewalk; but as voters learn of the Sununu and Clark positions on the more important issues of the day the landscape changes dramatically. In fact, the race becomes competitive - in the single-digit category where anything can happen down a month-long stretch.
What is more, the survey was taken while George W. Bush was enjoying his preconvention, solid margin over Al Gore, which has since disappeared, largely via the raising of the same issues Martha Fuller Clark is pressing.
In New Hampshire, nearly all the early national and local attention has gone to the so-called upcountry district race featuring Democrat Barney Brannen against incumbent Charley Bass. Ten bucks also says that will change, as witness Clark's appearance last month in search of an endorsement from the AFL-CIO, then assumed to be concentrating on Brannen-Bass; she emerged with labor's full backing.
Issues drove that decision, along with her politely feisty demeanor. As she put it during a rally for Gore here recently, ''John Sununu may have a well-known name but his record is not so well known.''
On the most-mentioned topic in congressional and Senate elections around the country thus far, prescription drug insurance coverage for the elderly, John Sununu is if anything to Bush's right. That means market solutions of the kind that have left a solid third of New Hampshire's 150,000 Medicare beneficiaries without drug coverage of any kind. Where the issue is offering coverage within Medicare, he has voted ''no'' and Clark says yes.
On education, Sununu's status as a budget and appropriations committee member inching his way up the ladder is meaningless. As a conservative from a state where government is looked on from the right as the enemy, New Hampshire ranks 49th in federal funds from Washington, a key element in its public school problems. With Clark, voters will get support for aid in building and repairing schools, hiring more teachers, securing more general assistance, a lot more. With Sununu, they get ''no'' votes.
But another 10 bucks says voters in his district don't know Sununu has opposed increasing the puny minimum wage of $5.15 by a dollar - at a time when congressional pay has increased for him by $8,000, which Clark's campaign likes to point is one year's minimum-wage income.
Clark came to the Legislature 10 years ago from a life of local activism (she is a preservation movement hero along the Seacoast). She was Governor Jeanne Shaheen's designee to pass the state's patient's bill of rights regulating HMOs (Sununu voted against the more sweeping federal version), and she has battled to require insurance coverage of women's contraceptive prescriptions (Sununu opposed a similar federal requirement).
In the horse race, she battles a shrewd phantom. You can respect conservatives who fight to advance their cause.
But John Sununu (unlike his infamous father) is hiding behind his incumbency and his name. If the voters find out what he's been doing, he deserves the trouble he'll be in.
Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com "> oliphant@globe.com .
