ew Hampshire's secretary of state, Bill Gardner, was at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the mall in Washington recently, the guest speaker in the New Hampshire ''Political Traditions'' tent, when someone in the audience told him that a front-page story in The Washington Post that morning said New Hampshire had set its presidential primary date for Feb. 8, 2000. This was news to Gardner, who is the official keeper of the all-important primary date and makes the final call, which he hasn't made yet.
''I was a little surprised,'' Gardner said last week. He'd been on the road and hadn't talked to a reporter in two weeks. The Feb. 8 date is ''pretty likely,'' said Gardner, but it won't be set in stone until he's absolutely sure that any disputes with troublesome Delaware, which is always trying to butt in on New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary status (as have others), are completely resolved. And so far, they're not.
The next day Gardner and Democratic activist and former ambassador George Bruno of Manchester were in the tent waxing on in the sweltering heat about the up-close and personal style of the New Hampshire primary when Bruno recognized a curious onlooker in the crowd. The man in the black sport shirt turned out to be the very-low visibility speaker of the US House, Dennis Hastert of Illinois.
So, what would be the one question he'd like to ask a presidential candidate? Hastert, a former wrestling coach and social studies teacher who doesn't have quite the attack mentality of his predecessor, Newt Gingrich, said he'd want to know about the candidate's ''vision'' for the country.
''There you have it, ladies and gentlemen,'' Bruno told the crowd, ''the ultimate generic question for all presidential candidates.''
P.S. Bruno, who served for three years as ambassador to Belize, is now working as a senior adviser at the Pentagon, planning for the transfer of the Panama Canal to local authority at the end of this year.
Republican group seeks to purge party
More on the rift, here in New Hampshire and some say around the country, between so-called establishment Republicans and disgruntled conservatives who say the party regulars have abandoned their GOP principles.
The Republican Fund, a staunchly conservative political action committee set up here about 18 months ago, has made it clear it has had it with people it calls ''fraudulent'' Republicans and it plans to do something about it.
The fund has hired a part-time executive director, Melissa Ogle of Orford, and has a newly completed analysis of House members' voting records, conducted by state Representative Robert Boyce of Alton Bay, which it says proves the point about ''Republicans in Name Only'' - Rinos, as they are not-so-fondly known.
The group says its numbers show that 50 GOP members of the New Hampshire House vote with the Democrats 80 percent of the time. Ogle says the fund plans to target certain House seats during the 2000 election cycle. State Representative David Corbin of Stratham, who has positioned himself as an outspoken voice within the conservative group, plans to conduct a series of workshops for potential candidates this fall.
Others affiliated with the fund include House members Paul Mirski of Enfield and Hap Hinman of Plymouth, former Fish and Game Department chairman John Munson and attorney Ed Mosca.
''What the hell is the point of being a Republican if you elect people who vote the opposite of what you expect?'' Mirski said during an interview. All he wants, he says, is ''truth in advertising.''
The GOP is a majority in name only at the State House, Mirski said, with Republicans siding with Democrats on critical votes, including the budget and taxes. ''I think the Republican Party has been wrecked,'' he said. ''You've got to give [House minority leader] Peter Burling and the Democrats all the respect in the world.''
Iowa straw poll draws attention
If things appear to slow down on the presidential circuit here in New Hampshire over the next several weeks, it's because all eyes will be focused on Iowa, where the Republican Party holds its straw poll on Aug. 14. Eleven of the 12 Republican candidates for president are participating. Arizona Senator John McCain opted out.
Anybody who is an Iowa resident can vote in the poll at the basketball arena at Iowa State University in Ames. Tickets are $25 each, and the party expects at least 12,000 people to attend. Limiting the poll to Iowa voters is a big change from the past, when it was wide open and candidates would bus in supporters from other states. Now the poll is being billed as a real test of organizational strength in Iowa, which could be especially important to the fortunes of former Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander.
Alexander, making his second run for the nomination but lagging far behind in the polls, plans to barnstorm through 60 Iowa counties over the next 24 days.
Each of the 11 candidates will get to speak for 10 minutes. The order of appearance was set last week by a drawing. The winner of the first-place spot was Alan Keyes, the fire and brimstone radio talk show host. Texas Governor George W. Bush will speak eighth, followed by Elizabeth Dole and Patrick Buchanan. And the man who gets the last word? Lamar Alexander.
Backer asks McCain a tough question
Senator John McCain's hometown newspaper, The Arizona Republic, says the candidate is willing to ''go to the ends of the Earth to be president.'' And where might that be? The little town of Stark, N.H. (population 524), where McCain stopped by at a fiddlers' contest during a campaign swing through the North Country.
Former state lawmaker and GOP activist Doug Teschner of Haverhill says a Sunday morning breakfast for McCain at the Red Coach Inn in Franconia was ''packed.'' Teschner, who supported Lamar Alexander in 1996, says he's now leaning toward McCain.
''Number one, he's a hero, and we've got a bum in there now,'' said Teschner, and McCain ''is not afraid to say what he thinks ... he's a free spirit.''
At the breakfast, Teschner said McCain ''squirmed a little bit'' but gave him a straight answer when he asked McCain about his role in ''The Keating Five.'' McCain and four Democrats met with federal regulators on behalf of a big political contributor, savings and loan executive Charles Keating.
McCain's role has been described as minimal. McCain told the crowd in Franconia that he ''used poor judgment''
''I'm testing the guy out,'' said Teschner, who said he liked McCain's blunt admission that he made a mistake in going to the meeting. ''I want to see what he's about.''
Center will hold `Constitution Day'
Georgia Representative Bob Barr, an outspoken Republican member of the House impeachment committee and a very high-visibility fixture on Washington's television talking head circuit, is coming to New Hampshire in September. We don't think he's running for president. Barr will one of the guest speakers at the third annual ''Constitution Day,'' sponsored by the New Hampshire Center for Constitutional Studies. A handbill passed out at last weekend's conservative cookout in Hopkington touted the event, Sept. 11 in Nashua, as a celebration of the Second Amendment and ''the right to bear arms.''
Other than that, can we rely on you?
Whether they're hawking TV Guide or a White House wannabe, those telephone solicitors just can't be deterred.
''This is the George Bush for President Campaign and we're trying to build our New Hampshire team and we'd like to know if you're supporting George Bush,'' asked the young woman on the telephone. Oops. Wrong number. ''No, the Buchanan for president headquarters is not supporting George Bush,'' said Buchanan's New Hampshire campaign chairman, Shelly Uscinski, who was on the other end of the line.
No matter. The young woman said she had to ask another question. Could Uscinski rank these issues in order of importance: cutting taxes, morals or (as Uscinski remembers it) strengthening the military. None of the above, retorted Uscinski. She'd rank ''the sovereignty of America'' as number one, one of Buchanan's favorite themes.
''OK, thank you,'' said the young woman.
''It was, like, clueless,'' Uscinski said later.
For the record
In the mea culpa department, in last week's column we misidentified Yankee Book Peddler, the Contoocook-based book distributor whose CEO, Glen Secor, is thinking about running for Congress.
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Kiernan@globe.com. Please include home and work telephone numbers.
