MANCHESTER, N.H. -- The left had its big chance here this summer - a fair, straight-up shot. It ran hard, well, and responsibly. It was unsuccessful. Now it's the right's turn, the very hard, very far right.
At stake is more than who gets to be governor. At stake is a classic clash between the two dominant political philosophies - low-tax, antigovernment conservatism; and governance-oriented centrism. Liberalism as we knew it isn't dead, but it needs major overhauling in the 21st century.
Governor Jeanne Shaheen's battle with conservative icon Gordon Humphrey is far from an upcountry New England version of Al Gore vs. George W. Bush, but the analogy is becoming more apt as Bush junks his silly ''character'' campaign for a more ideological, big government vs. individual choice effort to stave off disaster.
Last week's primary was as consequential as any in the country, even more so than the presidential voting last winter that made Gore the Democratic nominee-apparent, put a warning label on Bush, and proved that John McCain represented something real.
In solid victory, the normally relentlessly reserved Shaheen did a little jump in the air and landed in a decent version of a fighting stance. An even better visual the next night - at an impressive late-evening rally for Gore in Manchester - was the bear hug she put on her opponent, State Senator Mark Fernald. The former Republican legislator had put nearly all his chips on advocacy of a state income tax as the only solution to a three-year conundrum over public school funding, and ran tough as he mobilized the Democrats' liberal core, but he considered her cracking of the 60 percent barrier dispositive. To his followers, he said, ''it's time for the party to come together and talk about things that matter.''
There were no bear hugs on the other side. Humphrey, the onetime commercial pilot, two-term US senator and Jesse Helms soulmate, beat another conservative, but narrowly in second place was another state senator, Jim Squires, who also ran as an income tax advocate and got more than 20 percent of the GOP vote.
In horse-race terms, my sense after a few days around Gore, the guv, and other state pols is that Squires's vote is leaning Shaheen's way and that Fernald's has already leaned. There will be an independent in the final, another state senator, Mary Brown, who runs as a convert to income taxation; but she remains too conservative for many liberals.
That means that Shaheen is a paper favorite to win a third term and that she's probably very important to Gore's chances of carrying the state. How she presents against Humphrey with this advantage will be critical.
Point One: Her record is more important than his. Shaheen has a ''whodda thunk it'' arrow in her quiver. Who would have thought four years ago that New Hampshire was on the verge of implementing free kindergarten successfully, that it would create 50,000 new jobs and become the second most high-tech-concentrated job market in the country, that it would deregulate its electricity market in a way that shortly will bring major rate relief, that it would finally honor Martin Luther King, that it would get 9,000 kids health insurance.
Point Two: Labels, like extremist, are loved by journalists and political scientists, not by voters. With Humphrey the specifics of his record and views make labels superfluous. As she says, one of six senators against the Americans for Disabilities Act, one of three against Martin Luther King day, one of four to oppose hate-crime laws, and so on. And he would end a woman's right to choose in a flash.
Point Three: She can resolve the school funding problem, Humphrey can't with his vow to end state responsibility for public education, gut state services and rely on unfair local property taxes. This time Shaheen is running without the infamous ''pledge'' to oppose broad-based taxes. Her emphasis is on funding the schools fully and fairly, with accountability, by whatever means necessary.
She did not duck responsibility by charging a commission with evaluating all the alternatives, income tax included. In this state, with its fractious habits, it was an act of leadership because it put education ahead of tax ideology.
Shaheen has a golden opportunity to redraw the political map of governance in a way that emphasizes solutions over jihads.
Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com.
