EBANON, N.H.- Barbara Bush warned up front that her son was nervous about having his mother on the presidential campaign trail.
No wonder.
This is the woman who, in 1984, said Geraldine Ferraro, who was running for vice president opposite her husband, was something that rhymed with ''rich.''
Yesterday, her sharp tongue was directed at another female politician, her successor as First Lady, though she never mentioned Hillary Rodham Clinton by name.
''The truth is I'm a little bit irritated about both Georges. I really thought if we could elect two governors that maybe I should run and I honestly was thinking of,'' she said with a pause. ''New Jersey.''
The crowd of mostly older supporters, gathered at the Lebanon Airport where the matriarch arrived from Texas, erupted in laughter.
''Actually, it would probably make more sense for me to run for New York,'' she said. ''I'm the only native New Yorker ...''
She was born in Rye, according to Julia Fifield, the 94-year-old ''Grand Dame of the Upper Valley,'' who introduced Bush to the crowd by saying she was the wife of ''George Herbert Walter.''
''That's Walker,'' Barbara Bush shouted from aside the dais.
But this was a campaign and she jumped at the chance to help.
''I think George W. is very nervous,'' Bush told the audience of several dozen supporters. ''I think he thinks I'm some kind of loose cannon. I'm not sure he's remembering that I was the poet laureate of the '84 campaign when I rhymed things. I don't do that anymore.''
She said her son should be elected president because he is a ''compassionate conservative'' who would ''turn Washington into a place of mutual respect, not personal destruction.''
So, is her son perfect? What about his admission he had a drinking problem and why he does not answer questions about whether he used cocaine?
''His father and I never knew that he had a problem and still don't think he did,'' she said.
Asked whether it is fair to question a candidate on that point, she snapped: ''Sure, but he doesn't have to answer.''
She then moved on to the New London town hall and gave a brief speech to about 200 people.
