Hampshire Primary

IN NEW Hampshire, the candidacy of presidential hopeful Bill Bradley in 1999 is looking more like the candidacy of Paul Tsongas in 1991 -- with a few key exceptions.Vice President Al Gore, the acknowledged front-runner for the Democratic nomination, would be wise to familiarize himself with the surprise victory Tsongas pulled off in the New Hampshire primary in 1992. If Mr. Gore did, he might take Mr. Bradley a little more seriously.The little-known advantage that Tsongas, the former U.S. senator from Massachusetts who died in 1997, had eight years ago is basically the same advantage Mr. Bradley will have in the 2000 primary: He's considered a long-shot (a special appeal to voters seeking a fiscally conservative liberal)

WASHINGTON -- Whatever the outcome, the presidential election campaign of 2000 taught several lessons that should be taken seriously by the politicians, press and public but probably won't be: There are, it turns out, limits on the value of political money. Spending $60 million of his personal fortune can lift an obscure executive from New Jersey, Jon S. Corzine, into the Senate, although by an unimpressive margin considering the amount. But money is far less influential in presidential campaigns because the candidates get so much attention from televised debates and from the news programs that they become familiar figures.

"President Truman looks upon presidential preference and delegate primaries in the states as a lot of eyewash," The Sun reported Feb. 1, 1952. "He thinks they make very little impression on the delegates who meet in national party conventions and actually do the nominating; he suspects they don't mean a thing. "For these reasons, he sees no sense in having his name entered in the various spring primary contests. Moreover, and more importantly, he figures that if he wants renomination this year he can get it without bothering with the `skirmishes' in the states.

THE TWO heavyweights won the Republican and Democratic presidential caucuses in Iowa on Monday night. That's not a surprise. But their margins of victory present them with sharply contrasting predicaments. Iowa was supposed to be a cakewalk for Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the genial candidate touting a centrist message as a "compassionate conservative." He gained 41 percent of the Republican caucus votes but was overshadowed by the showing of right-wing conservatives Steve Forbes and Alan Keyes.

A commission of Democrats has worked up the nerve to propose that voters in one or two other states make known their presidential preferences before New Hampshire holds its zealously guarded first-in-the-nation primary. The horrified reaction in the Granite State might suggest real reform is afoot in the dysfunctional primary process. But no. The likely result -- doubtless after a knock-down, drag-out battle next spring in the Democratic Central Committee -- would be a subtle change at best.

WASHINGTON -- The egg on President Bush's face after yesterday's New Hampshire vote also has smeared the chins of several other incumbents since the advent of popular primaries in the early part of this century.In every case, the president was later defeated in the general election or chose to retire to avoid further humiliation. Ironically, the challengers in every case failed later to win their party nominations.In 1912, challenger Theodore Roosevelt mopped up incumbent Republican William Howard Taft in 10 of the nation's 13 contested primary races, garnering almost 52 percent of the popular vote to Mr. Taft's 34 percent.

OH, THE humiliation. Muzzled like a misbehaving dog. Scripted with self-deprecating remarks and stone-faced attempts at humor. Forced to draft a reluctant wife into the fray. All as a kind of penance to exorcise the demons that stole his months-long front-runner status almost overnight. Is this goofy state-by-tiny-state primary system, which puts serious political leaders such as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean through a circus-like ordeal, any way to choose a candidate for president? Certainly not one party leaders would have invented from scratch.

Manchester, N.H. IN LAUNCHING his long-shot presidential challenge against George Bush here, right-wing news commentator Patrick Buchanan insists he is not simply trying to keep the president honest on conservative issues but is out to win the Republican nomination.But at the same time he says it is "almost impossible" for a challenger to wrest the nomination from an incumbent president in a drawn-out competition for national convention delegates. "Teddy Roosevelt couldn't do it," he says, "Ronald Reagan couldn't do it," even against "an accidental president (Gerald Ford)

RON BROWN HAS the single most important qualification needed to be national chairman of the stumbling, bumbling, modern-day Democratic Party. He's dumb.I'm not sure what the procedure is in choosing a party chairman. But I wouldn't be surprised if a screening committee asks applicants:"Do you believe that you are dumb enough for this job?"If so, Brown must have said: "Absolutely. You can search this wide world over, and you won't find a dumber guy than me."Just give it some thought. The majority of Democrats in this country have known for a long time that Mario Cuomo would be their strongest presidential candidate.

Des Moines THE MORNING after Sen. Tom Harkin's one-sided -- and uncontested -- success in the Iowa precinct caucuses, the Des Moines Register bannered the news: "Harkin scores huge victory." Considering that none of the other candidates bothered to campair got 78 percent of the total, with former Sen. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts a distant second with 4 percent. Actually, caucus-goers who voted to remain uncommitted ran second, with 12 percent, hardly a ringing endorsement for their fellow Iowan.