EW BOSTON, N.H. - The temperature hovered at 2 degrees the other day as Natalie Sanderson drove along the winding road from Francestown to the red-shingled general store in this classic New England village. She didn't need milk or eggs, or even conversation. She needed a paper filled with facts about the presidential candidates.
Just days earlier, Sanderson had discussed the importance of the first-in-the-nation primary with some out-of-state friends. ''New Hampshire?'' her friends asked. ''Why New Hampshire?'' It is a question that people across the country are likely to be asking if today's primary once again plays an outsized role in selecting the next White House occupant.
Sanderson, for her part, answered the question by doing her civic duty, boning up on tax plans and uttering a classically New Hampshire lament that she hasn't personally met the candidates. And she is hardly alone: The voter turnout in many towns is expected to exceed 80 percent, thanks to highly competitive races in both parties.
But more than ever, New Hampshire's power seems to rankle some who live in states that may have little or no impact on the primaries. ''It's a lousy, undemocratic process, one that the political parties should stop,'' an Orlando Sentinel columnist wrote recently in a typical attack. ''It's democracy at its worst.''
The reason for the frustration is clear. In the eight days from the Iowa caucuses, held last Monday, to today's voting, it is quite possible that the Republican race, and perhaps the Democratic one, as well, will be decided before the voters in the 48 other states have begun to think about it.
Just a year ago, many states demonstrated their dislike of New Hampshire's extraordinary influence by moving up their primaries in hopes of sapping the Granite State's power. But New Hampshire responded by moving up its primary date, thus raising the state's profile even more, and once again raising questions about whether it is fair for such a small state to have such an influence on the presidential election.
And yet, from the suburban towns that sweep the southern tier, to the ski country in the land known as ''north of the notches,'' New Hampshirites insist they deserve the power they will exercise today. They will tell you about tradition, about Yankee devotion to duty. And they will talk about the comparative intimacy of the political process in a state where one in five citizens will meet at least one candidate, and the rest are exposed to a focused intensity of news coverage and campaign advertising not duplicated in any other state, except perhaps Iowa.
''It is probably unfair to other states that the politicians spend so much time here because of the preconceived notion of the importance of the New Hampshire primary,'' said David Whitfield of Goffstown. ''I'm certain if you live in Texas you are not going to be able to go to a town meeting and get the exposure to the candidates. But that doesn't mean other states should follow us like sheep.''
One of the biggest complaints about New Hampshire's influence is that this state of 1.1 million people is unlike the rest of the country. In some ways, this is certainly true. New Hampshire is 99 percent white, with fewer than 8,000 blacks and 16,000 Hispanics. The largest city, Manchester, has a population of 110,000. By comparison, California, often described as the nation's trend-setter, has a population of 32 million, including 2.4 million blacks and 9.4 million Hispanics, and it has 50 cities larger than Manchester.
But cite those figures to a Granite Stater and he or she will inevitably say that proves why New Hampshire should be first. No presidential candidate would dare try to meet many Californians; it is a television campaign.
Up here, the question is not ''why New Hampshire,'' but ''Why not?'' A first primary in Alabama or New York or California would have its own set of criticisms, too Southern or too urban or too something else. At least this much is true about New Hampshire: It has the compact size, the easy East Coast access, the tradition and, perhaps most importantly, the unending interest to sustain the first primary. This is a state well-marbled with political junkies.
In any case, over the past two decades, New Hampshire has become more like the rest of the country, changing from a fading land of olds mills and farms into a high-tech powerhouse with a 2.1 percent unemployment rate, the nation's lowest. Remarkably, one of the biggest complaints against this once-struggling state is that it has become too wealthy.
This influx of well-paid financial and high-tech workers has given the state a very different political and economic look than George W. Bush's father saw when he first campaigned here for president in 1980. The typical voter here now expresses concerns that could be heard in any swath of suburbia in any state, about roads and schools and congestion.
Representative Charles Bass, a New Hampshire Republican who majored in electoral behavior at Dartmouth College and continues to study the subject as a congressman, said that he often hardly recognizes the state. New Hampshire natives are now a minority (about 40 percent) and the newcomers bring a different set of concerns. ''New Hampshire is not as unique as it was two decades ago,'' Bass said.
Perhaps nothing exemplifies the change more than the current interpretation of the state's motto, ''Live Free or Die,'' emblazoned on every license plate. Not long ago, the motto was typically interpreted to mean an aversion to taxes. Now, many voters here say it means that they want an escape from urban ills, a clean environment and no traffic jams.
Michelle Balestracci, a shift supervisor at Sully's Suprette in Goffstown, who moved here from Massachusetts, said the motto means that the state ''is very concerned about pollution and try to preserve the wooded areas ... keeping the state in a natural state.''
Balestracci's political views are instructive. An independent, she has wavered between two candidates who, on the surface, are wildly different. She likes Republican John McCain, who has a conservative voting record, because he wants to cut pork-barrel spending. But she likes Democrat Bill Bradley, who is running a liberal campaign, because he wants universal health care.
In the end, independent voters such as Balestracci are likely to determine the outcome of both the Republican and Democratic contests. Not long ago, this state was overwhelmingly Republican. But in this election, for the first time in the state's history, the plurality of voters are independents. Of the state's 738,422 registered voters, 37 percent are Independents, 36 are Republicans and 27 percent are Democrats.
With Independents allowed to vote in either the Democrat or Republican contests, the New Hampshire contest has become much more complicated than usual. When voters were interviewed across the state, it was a rare independent who was firmly committed to a candidate. Many said that they were considering both McCain and Bradley or other candidates, and it is likely that many will make up their minds only today.
New Hampshireites believe the power of independents is another reason why this state deserves so much political influence. In the Iowa caucuses, the contest is weighted heavily toward the most active Democrats and Republicans willing to attend a time-consuming evening caucus.
Perhaps only in a state such as New Hampshire could the entire presidential campaign pass through one little diner in one little town, Peterborough, made famous in the Thornton Wilder play ''Our Town.'' There is no interstate to Peterborough, no television station based there, no huge bloc of voters. But there is this: tradition and a can't-miss photo op. So Vice President Al Gore and McCain and most of the others have hopped up on the stool, sipped some coffee and chatted with the townsfolk who wander into the Peterborough Diner.
Waitress Maureen Lachance, who holds court in what she calls ''the social mecca'' of Peterborough, has seen nearly every one of the White House aspirants pass her way. She plays down her importance, but in fact she is as good a representative of the American voter as anyone. ''I live hand to mouth,'' she said, noting that she has no health insurance. She hears promises and is skeptical: How will this candidate make a difference in her life?
''It is hard,'' she said. ''I don't know what to believe any more. I am the working class, a waitress, I vote, and I want to be treated just like you are.''
But she said she watches the debates, studies the candidates and, like most people in town, will cast her vote today.
One of Lachance's customers, Susan Rotenberg of New York, heard this and was impressed. ''I think you deserve your influence,'' Rotenberg said. ''The people in New England have to face the essentials, they know what's important.'' Maybe it is the frigid weather, or the Yankee skepticism, Rotenberg said, but there is something about New Hampshire that compels the people here to take their role seriously.
Across the way at the Toadstool Bookshop, a sales clerk, Robert L'Episcopo, sees his share of candidates browse the aisles, and he has his own informal survey. So far, he has sold 38 copies of McCain's autobiography and just one copy of Bush's book.
L'Episcopo said, ''We're not very representative. But on the other hand, who is? If not New Hampshire, would you rather have the first primaries be all the Southern states?''
''Or California?'' he asked mockingly, letting the question hang in the air.
This year, once again, little New Hampshire and its hundreds of ''Our Towns'' will go first. To paraphrase Robert Frost, that will make all the difference - or none at all.
