exas Governor George W. Bush will arrive today back in New Hampshire, where six months ago voters gave him one of his few drubbings in this presidential campaign. Yet many Granite State Republicans will, understandably, give him a hero's welcome.
The reasons, essentially, are two. One is his potential to carry the state in November and thereby help other Republicans on the state ballot. Some polls show Bush leading Vice President Al Gore by more than 10 points in New Hampshire.
The other reason is that, thanks to Bush supporters, the Republican Convention in Philadelphia rejected major changes in the presidential primary calendar that had threatened New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation status. Bush ''was Horatio at the bridge for us,'' says Tom Rath, a former member of the Republican National Committee.
However, the great escape in Philadelphia was a narrow one. New Hampshire and the nation will be well served if the argument for the primacy of the state's primary is driven home to Bush and agreed to by him during his visit this evening and tomorrow morning.
Because Republicans didn't change their primary calendar - and under their rules cannot mandate a change until the next convention in 2004 - the likelihood is that even more large states will move their primaries to a date or dates early in the process. As this year's campaign showed, to go later under the current rules is to be irrelevant. ''I think it's inexorable that we're going to have a national primary,'' says the GOP national chairman, Jim Nicholson, who failed in his efforts to create a longer campaign season.
One of the many who agree with Nicholson is Massachusetts's secretary of state, Bill Galvin, cochair of the committee on presidential primaries of the National Association of Secretaries Of State. Galvin's group has been pushing for a series of regional primaries, also unsuccessfully.
This being the case, it will be more important than ever for small-state events like the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary to go first to allow some retail campaigning in living rooms and on the street so that real people making judgments about real candidates can have some influence on the race. Otherwise we might as well surrender the nominations at the outset to the candidates with the greatest name recognition and the biggest bankrolls.
An incumbent might like that. Galvin argues that the primary calendar ''ought to be set by civic interest, not political strategy.'' But even with Bush, these goals may not be at odds. It is true that Bush was bruised in New Hampshire in February and that his father was jolted there in 1980 and 1992. But New Hampshire gave then-Vice President Bush a crucial boost toward the White House in 1988.
In presidential primaries, New Hampshire voters perform an invaluable service that both party nominees should embrace.
