By Laura A. Kiernan, Globe Correspondent, 10/24/99

When Republican activist Claira Monier of Goffstown, a member of Elizabeth Dole 's steering committee, arrived at the Manchester Airport last Monday after three weeks in Hawaii, her best friend, Arlene Burns, who volunteers for Texas Governor George W. Bush, told her Dole was leaving the race for president. The Bush camp wanted Burns to ask if Monier would now come aboard with them.

Two days later when Dole's official announcement came, Monier, a veteran of presidential campaigns and whose late husband, Bob Monier, was the state Senate president, says she wasn't surprised. Without the money to come even close to what Bush has raised, Dole couldn't carry on, Monier said. And there was concern about how the campaign - which never lived up to its early billing - was run.

Instead of the traditional campaign chores, such as holding house parties or arranging for ''surrogate'' speakers to represent Dole in New Hampshire, volunteers were asked to put on Dole T-shirts and go work for charity events for the March of Dimes or the Rotary Club, Monier said. The Dole team may have seen it as good use of volunteer energy and as a strategy for drawing in newcomers to politics, but it wasn't the kind of campaign work veteran volunteers were used to, Monier said. Two trainers were brought in from Washington to teach rookies the campaign skills they needed - like how to form a crowd - but there was no follow-up that Monier could see. Early on, campaign workers weren't in place to take advantage of the initial enthusiasm generated by the Dole candidacy. There was talk that Dole's Washington office was slow to respond to questions from New Hampshire; requests came in at the last minute leaving little time to plan, she said. Dole hadn't spent that much time here; she was compelled to go out and raise money elsewhere. And spontaneity, which can boost a flagging campaign, was in very short supply.

Dole ''is a very structured person and everything has to be just right,'' Monier said, which is an asset. But sometimes in politics, Monier said, ''you just have to go with it.''

A poll released by the American Research Group of Manchester the day after Dole quit the race showed that her support among primary voters had collapsed from 25 percent in February to 3 percent in mid-October.

So, by Wednesday afternoon, US Senator Judd Gregg, a key Bush supporter, was on the telephone with Monier, promising that Bush himself would put in a call to an upcoming meeting of what's known as ''The Committee to Do the Right Thing.'' It's a small group of people who worked on Bob Monier's 1982 campaign for governor and still meet regularly for breakfast at Chez Vachon in Manchester. Claira Monier has signed on with the Bush team, and she expects others in the club will follow.

Taxpayers Union wades into the fight

As the income tax debate seemed to gain momentum in Concord, it came as no surprise that the National Taxpayers Union showed up in Concord last week armed with a report saying an income tax would ''bloat the state budget and sink the state's economy.'' The host for its press conference was former state senator Jim Rubens of Think NH, who said an income tax would ''drive a stake through the heart of the New Hampshire advantage.''

Rubens, of Lebanon, is thinking about running for the GOP nomination for governor again, and he invited some of his potential competitors to speak at the event. Former US senator Gordon Humphrey blamed the ''muddling, middling, piddling leadership from the corner office,'' meaning Democratic Governor Jeanne Shaheen, for the state's current financial crisis. Then, referring to the state Supreme Court across town from the State House, Humphrey decried ''black-robed zealots rampaging on Concord Heights'' whose decisions are creating a ''monster'' on the banks of the Merrimack River (read: state government), just like the one on the Potomac River in Washington.

A markedly more mellow Jeffrey Howard, the former attorney general who also is a potential candidate, said he and Rubens had traveled ''the length and breadth'' of the state the past few months, talking about the economic impact of an income tax. ''I'm happy to lend my voice to those who think we should stand for the New Hampshire way,'' said Howard, who worked for governor Stephen Merrill. John Babiarz, a Libertarian from Grafton who is running for governor, said lawmakers ''just can't keep their hands off'' the taxpayers' ''hard-working dollars.''

Report cites impact in 9 other states

In its study, the Taxpayers Union says the ''negative economic effects'' of an income tax mean New Hampshire residents would lose $45.4 billion in personal income in the next 10 years. The study, which predicts a $7.2 billion increase in government spending during that same time period, was based on data from nine states, including Connecticut and Maine, that adopted an income tax between 1967 and 1991.

The report itself noted, however, that passing an income tax does not always accelerate government spending (Connecticut's went down). The group's study also concluded that ''there were no apparent adverse effects of income tax adoption in Maine and Connecticut.'' And income tax doesn't automatically mean an ''economic slowdown,'' the report said, because other factors, like the overall health of the economy, play in.

The author, Dr. Thomas Dye, a specialist in state public finances, sounds his own note of caution that ''forecasting is an admittedly risky business.'' But, Dye says, in the past 30 years, spending did speed up in seven of nine states that adopted the tax, and in six of the nine states growth in personal income slowed ''significantly.''

What's a voter to make of it all? ''It's a legitimate, cautionary statement,'' said Doug Hall, executive director of the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies, adding, however, that the estimates ''should be taken relatively lightly'' because of the unique circumstances in each state.

''I don't know,'' said Hall, who backed an income tax when he was a Republican legislator. ''I just find it hard to make generalizations.''

Tired of waiting, he switches camps

You could tell the McCain for President campaign loved writing this press release. Leo Pepino, a longterm member of the New Hampshire House, a former city alderman and a US Navy veteran or World War II, has switched his allegiance from Texas Governor George W. Bush to -- yup -- US Senator John McCain of Arizona.

In a statement released by the McCain campaign, Pepino said he made the change ''because I have no idea where Governor Bush stands on important issues.'' Pepino continued, ''For months I have waited for the Texas governor to present his views to me, and the voters of New Hampshire. But he hasn't.'' Pepino said Bush has decided to ''duck substantive debate'' by avoiding some presidential forums this month.

''You can't wait forever,'' Pepino said in a telephone interview.

Lobbyist says Bush weak on gun control

The only lobbyist for gun control in Texas, Nina Butts, brought her case to Concord, where she labeled Bush ''a dream come true'' for the National Rifle Association, the arch-opponent of gun control legislation whenever it surfaces in Congress. Butts, a founder of Texans Against Gun Violence, says Bush ''has done more to promote than prevent gun violence'' in his own state.

She appeared in Concord with Jon Bresler from the New Hampshire Democratic Business Network (founded in 1997 by then Democratic state party chairman Jeff Woodburn) and John Rosenthal, chairman of the Boston-based group Stop Handgun Violence. She says she will also be traveling to California, where Bush has a concentrated campaign effort, and to Iowa, which holds the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.

Butts cited Bush's signature on a bill, opposed by the Texas Police Chiefs Association, that overturned a 125-year-old Texas law that prohibited carrying concealed weapons in public. Her group also says Bush made no effort in the Texas Legislature to back up his claim that he supports background checks when guns are bought from unlicensed dealers (such as collectors) at gun shows. (Right now only licensed dealers have to make the checks.) There are 472 gun shows a year in Texas, according to federal statistics, far more than in any other state. Pennsylvania was second with 250. The gun control lobby says that ''loophole'' should be closed; Bush says Congress should do it.

Bush campaign cites laws enacted

''When it comes to preventing gun violence, as we say in Texas, Bush is all hat and no cattle,'' Butts said. ''He talks a good line when it comes to guns ... he will say things that sound comforting, but he has done absolutely nothing in Texas through three sessions of the Legislature.''

The Bush campaign's Austin office cited Bush's role in enactment of laws aimed at guns and juveniles, including automatic jail time for weapons possession; increased penalties for selling guns to children; and penalties for parents who leave a gun around that a child then uses to hurt somebody or commit a crime. On his support for the concealed weapons bill, a spokesman said Bush believes that many Texans, especially working women, felt ''safer with their own guns.'' Bush says tough law enforcement is the answer to gun violence: Texans Against Gun Violence says victims would prefer that criminals never got a gun in the first place.

P.S. Nina Butts is a former anti-nuke activist in Texas. Why take up the gun-control cause? She was an 11-year-old schoolgirl in Dallas in November 1963, waiting along President John F. Kennedy's motorcade route, when she heard Kennedy had been shot. Butts, the daughter of a Democratic precinct chairman who had seen Kennedy and his wife arrive at Love Field that day, said the assassination ''showed me what guns can do.''

Buchanan ready to take new path

If all goes as planned, Pat Buchanan will be in New Hampshire tomorrow night as an ex-Republican turned Reform party member and candidate for its nomination for president. The Buchanan 2000 campaign in New Hampshire sent out 3,000 postcard invitations to see Buchanan make a ''major announcement'' at the Executive Court in Manchester.

Finance reformer is heading this way

Short takes: '' Granny D,'' also known as Doris Haddock, 89, of Dublin, who is walking across the country to get attention for campaign finance reform, will be in Claremont Tuesday with Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Bradley... Former US representative Norm D'Amours was on the coffee klatch/ lunch circuit in Manchester last week campaigning for Vice President Al Gore. D'Amours served with Gore in the House, and he is now chairman of the National Credit Union Association.

The Gore and Bradley campaigns are ramping up their presence in the campaign field. Bradley supporters were at street corners and along roadsides Wednesday in 27 towns, hoping to catch the attention of morning commuters. Meanwhile, the Gore camp said it would dispatch 1,000 volunteers, joined by Tipper Gore, to knock on doors in 42 towns this weekend.

Got a tip or a comment from the campaign trail, state government or town hall? the Political Diary wants to hear from you at: Boston Globe/New Hampshire Weekly, 1650 Elm St., Manchester, NH 03101, or by e-mail at kiernan@globe.com. Please include home and work telephone numbers.