Acting Ornery in New Hampshire

By Evan Thomas

How Hart soared, Mondale sank and everyone was stunned

In perfect hindsight, perhaps it should not have come as such a shock. New Hampshire is so small (pop. 920,610) that an underfinanced but energetic candidate can still reach most voters. Only 15% of the state's work force belong to unions; fewer than 1% of the residents are black. Independents can vote in the primary. Voters almost pride themselves on knocking off front runners. In short, New Hampshire could hardly be better suited for an anti-Establishment underdog, or worse for an overwhelming favorite with the backing of party bosses, Big Labor and minorities.

Yet Walter Mondale's aura of invincibility was such that almost everybody forgot about New Hampshire's quirky politics and unusual demographics. The polls contained no hint of an upset in the making: only a week before the primary, an ABC-Washington Post poll showed Mondale first with 37% and Gary Hart third (behind John Glenn) with 13%. The Mondale campaign serenely cruised about the state in long motorcades, with scores of reporters and television crews in tow. Hart bounced around in vans, with few reporters and fewer TV cameras in sight. As he wandered into coffee shops, Hart seemed shy and diffident. "Hello, I'm running for President," he awkwardly ventured to one middle-aged woman. "Of the United States?" she asked incredulously.

Then came Iowa. Suddenly the voters of New Hampshire saw a way to keep the campaign from ending before it had barely begun. "Hart's showing in Iowa helped me make up my mind," said Lawyer Joseph Dubiansky of Deerfield. "A person wants to think his vote counts for something."

The press, which until Iowa had largely ignored Hart while focusing on Mondale and Glenn, immediately endowed the Coloradan's campaign with that most precious of campaign commodities, free media. Herds of reporters began trailing after Hart. The exposure was almost entirely uncritical, with Hart emerging as a beacon of new ideas. Glenn, meanwhile, had been banging away at Mondale, depicting him as the tool of special interests. Said a Glenn aide: "We almost played blocking back for Hart on this." While Glenn tried to bowl Mondale aside, Hart slipped cleanly through the hole.

Though Hart's campaign was more than $300,000 in debt, the Iowa results enabled him to borrow $50,000 to keep his effective high-tech ads on the air (see box). Already in place was a corps of eager volunteers, 2,000 of whom had canvassed 60,000 households in New Hampshire between October and February. The Hart organization was regarded by political pros as second only to Mondale's. Said Hart Campaign Manager Oliver Henkel:

"Iowa gave us the thrust we needed to take advantage of the marvelous organization we had in the state."

The cool Hart grew warmer in the spotlight. He dropped his diffidence and reached into crowds. On the stump he was clear and forceful. "Your sons shouldn't be sent to Central America to serve as bodyguards for some dictator," he declared at a Women for Hart rally in Concord. His oft repeated pitch that he represents a "new generation" of leadership found a receptive audience. New Hampshire's growing population of Yuppies (Young Urban Professionals) made a natural constituency: exit polls later showed that Hart won the under-40 vote by almost 3 to 1. Some 40% said they voted for Hart because he offered new ideas Those earning more than $30,000 favored Hart by better than 2 to 1.

In the final week, the Mondale camp began to pick up warning signals. Four days before the voting, students at Memorial High School in Manchester aggressively questioned Mondale about his ties to unions and why he seemed to promise everyone something. Mondale gamely insisted that "my hands aren't tied by any body." Fully half the Democratic voters, it turned out, believed that Mondale was too close to labor. Al most 60% agreed that Mondale "promised too many things to special interest groups," according to an NBC exit poll. Of that group, 54% voted for Hart and only 9% for Mondale.

Mondale's vast organization (1,000 volunteers by primary day, 31 paid staff members, labor support and hundreds of phones) did its job, reaching two-thirds of the voters in the state by phone or canvass. But after the third or fourth phone call bad gering them to vote for Mondale, some voters rebelled. As it turned out, only one-third of those contacted by the Mondale camp voted for him.

The shift in voter attitudes intensified the weekend before the balloting. The so-called second tier of candidates collectively collapsed as early "supporters began to feel that they would be wasting their votes on Alan Cranston, Reubin Askew, Fritz Hollings and Jesse Jackson. Many of these voters switched their allegiance to Hart. At the same time, thousands of the undecided joined the Hart stampede. Half the voters decided in the last week, and more than half of this group decided for Hart. Those who made up their minds on the final weekend chose Hart over Mondale by 67% to 10%. Even Hart's aides were stunned by the enormous voter swing.

"Sunday was the first day I really thought we would come in first," said State Coordinator Jeanne Shaheen.

"And I never thought it would be by so much."

The upheaval caught the Mondale camp off guard. For months their man had been fending off Glenn's challenge, not realizing that Hart was quietly stealing a march on the flank. Indeed, Mondale only rarely mentioned Hart by name. Mondale's last private poll, taken the Saturday before the primary, showed him still leading Hart by 12 points, 36% to 24%. No one in the Mondale campaign expected serious trouble on Tuesday.

Mondale had such faith in his organization that he left it to operate on its own, abandoning New Hampshire two days before the vote to stump in neighboring primary states. As Mondale aides later acknowledged, the early exit was a blunder. It gave the impression that the front runner was so sure of success that he could let his minions mop up while he moved on to the next event. Hart, meanwhile, was shaking every New Hampshire hand in sight. On Monday he drew such a huge entourage of television crews on Elm Street, the main drag of Manchester, that pedestrians were forced to cross the street to avoid the crush. Earlier, in Concord, he drew hundreds of enthusiastic supporters to an outdoor rally in Eagle Square Mall.

Mondale said later that "the last four or five days, I could feel something happen." But not until Sunday night, when the ABC-Washington Post poll put Mondale and Hart in a dead heat, did the Mondale dreadnought realize it was sinking. "We were 'pretty surprised," said one top aide. "It happened in 48 hours. It was a trend we couldn't get hold of." As worried aides analyzed the plummeting polls, they began praying for clear weather. A snowstorm would keep home elderly voters and complacent party regulars, Mondale's core constituency.

At 1:44 a.m. on primary day, soon after the first ballots had been cast in Dixville Notch, flakes began to fall. By dawn a swirling nor'easter was repainting the state white after an unseasonable two-week thaw.. The turnout (101,129, or 75.8%) was surprisingly large, but it was a Hart crowd: half were under 40, and 40% were independents who went for Hart by 2 to 1. Mondale did carry the over-60 age group, but its turnout was about 10% lower than in the last primary. The ever efficient Mondale organization dispatched 30 cars in Manchester alone and even two snowmobiles in Claremont to transport voters to the polls. Said Hart's Shaheen:

"We think the Mondale people turned out some of our vote."

As the returns came in Tuesday night, the Hart crowd laughed and wept while a rockabilly band played in a Manchester restaurant. Months earlier, when victory seemed unlikely, the campaign had rented a banquet room that could be partitioned in case the crowd was small. But 500 people, a fifth of them journalists, jammed it beyond capacity. Hart staffers chatted over the din on newly acquired walkie-talkies, the first sign that the campaign had moved upscale. "I guess we're for real now, huh?" said a staffer, clutching his walkie-talkie.

The happy Hart aides recalled that in the darkest days of 1983, when the campaign was broke, the press absent and Hart all too aloof, the candidate had assured them, "I'll peak at the right time. I'll be good in '84." Said slightly awed Press Aide Steve Morrison: "Everything he said would happen has happened." So far, at least. --By Evan Thomas. Reported by Sam Allis with Mondale and Richard Hornik/Manchester

With reporting by Sam Allis, Richard Hornik