he Republican state chairman, Steve Duprey, has developed a plan to help win friends and influence them to support New Hampshire's status as having the first primary in the nation.
He has begun inviting prominent Republicans, some of whom might want to run for president someday, to speak to GOP activists. Yesterday, Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma was the first to visit with party members in Concord. Other invitees include Governors John Engler of Michigan, George S. Pataki of New York, and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, as well as the Senate majority leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi, and the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois.
We hardly knew ye: Bush aides defect
When John McCain announced Friday that 12 supporters of George W. Bush had switched over to the McCain camp, Bush officials dismissed the defections. The state director, Joel Maiola, told The Concord Monitor that ''those are names that are new to us,'' and said it was ''amateur hour on certain campaigns.''
It turns out that at least three of those names should have been very familiar to Maiola. Leona Dykstra, a former state representative from Manchester, was touted in an Oct. 22 Bush press release as a member of the governor's New Hampshire steering committee. Robert Raybuck was described as the Merrimack County coordinator for Bush, and Claude Laroche of Goffstown was listed as a town chair in a press release titled ''N.H. Bush team ready to roll, from Coos to the Sea.''
''The Bush campaign needs to spend a little time introducing themselves to their supposed supporters,'' said Todd Harris, deputy communications director of the McCain campaign. ''It makes one wonder if there is much more to their organization than names on paper. I guess it is amateur hour after all.''
