The Boston Globe
N.H. voters looking for leadership
By Royal Ford, Globe Staff, 01/01/96
> BERLIN, N.H. - In this old paper-mill city, people look to the
> upcoming presidential primary much the way they did Christmas
> shopping: They are not buying with great enthusiasm.
>
> ``My folks - the papermakers, the truck drivers, the guys cutting
> in the woods - are listening very attentively, but they're not
> commenting, they're not committing,'' said John Barron Jr.,
> president of the local paperworkers union.
>
> Down south in Derry, where commuters abound and many families have
> struggled through cutbacks in the computer and defense industries,
> the mood is the same.
>
> ``I haven't seen anybody out there that has really pushed any
> buttons,'' said Shelley Valvis, 24, who brought her 18-month-old
> daughter back to her hometown only to find the American Dream
> elusive.
>
> As the New Hampshire presidential primary shifts into overdrive,
> there is a pervasive sense here that while voters long for bold
> leadership, they may not get it. The Republican field does not
> inspire. President Clinton is seen as a safe fallback.
>
> What appears to worry voters most is that no candidate has
> satisfactorily addressed their fears for the future: fears for
> their jobs, their quality of life, the education of their
> children, the futures of those children.
>
> Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey, who is leaving Washington in some
> dispirit, said recently that ``the rising economic insecurity of
> people who work every day and worry about their future is the most
> pressing issue our country faces.''
>
> That is what people here are saying - in People's Voice forums
> sponsored by The Boston Globe and its media partners, WBUR-FM and
> WABU-TV; in coffee shops; and barber shops and union halls; in
> interviews on the street.
>
> People say they are angry at leadership in both parties that has
> used fear to make constructive debate on major issues nearly
> impossible. The Republicans in Congress criticized Clinton on
> health care. He attacked them on Medicare reform. Lamar Alexander,
> at a People's Voice forum in Derry in November, said he could not
> answer a question about the future of Social Security because,
> should he win the Republican nomination, Clinton could use his
> answer against him in the general election.
>
> What people indicate they want are candidates who say what they
> believe.
>
> ``They have to believe what they are saying, you have to believe
> they believe,'' Marsha Starkeson, a computer company employee,
> said at one Derry forum.
>
> What they say they want those candidates to talk about is a plan
> for the future - both for themselves and for their children.
>
> ``We're going to end up a leaderless society,'' said Judy Riff, an
> English teacher from Gorham, N.H. ``It's really a disgrace.''
>
> Where voters here seek leadership, they say, is on education,
> health care, welfare reform and the creation of jobs. They wonder
> how, in an age of rising corporate profits and soaring stock
> prices, the middle class sees once-secure jobs disappearing and
> its standard of living slipping dangerously.
>
> ``So many of society's other problems, like crime, child abuse and
> violence ... are related to employment issues,'' Jo Ellen Cumpata,
> a speech and language pathologist, said at one Derry forum.
>
> ``Many Americans believe that their basic sense of fairness is
> being violated, and they reject the notion that there are
> solutions with easy answers,'' the Harwood Group reported in
> ``America's Struggle Within,'' after conducting focus groups
> around the country for the Pew Center for Civic Journalism.
> ``People do not believe that America currently has the will and
> the capacity to tackle the tough questions that confound the
> nation.''
>
> Up north, the current field of presidential candidates does not
> appear to inspire.
>
> ``I see people settling on Clinton,'' said Ed Mears, a papermaker
> from Berlin and a Democratic state legislator. ``This primary
> doesn't look like it's going to be too exciting. You don't hear a
> lot of talk.''
>
> Dole leads the Republican field in recent polls with 35 to 40
> percent of the Republican vote. His rivals barely reach double
> digits. Yet a December poll pitting him against Clinton shows a
> virtual dead heat in this conservative state - and that raises
> questions about Dole's strength nationally.
>
> Republicans make up just under 40 percent of the electorate here,
> but there are just as many independents, and at this stage Dole
> does not appear particularly attractive to them.
>
> Dole's name does not often come up spontaneously in interviews or
> forums. Pat Buchanan's does because he has a hard core of
> supporters, and he has talked long and early about jobs. It is not
> clear that enough voters like all that he is saying, however, for
> him to mount a serious challenge.
>
> Steve Forbes gets mentioned a lot, too. He has spent millions on
> television advertising here - some say diluting the second tier so
> no one can mount a challenge to Dole - and his call for a flat tax
> resonates with some.
>
> Phil Gramm is viewed by many as mean-spirited and, like Dole, is
> faulted for long ties with Washington politics.
>
> Lamar Alexander, with his calls to disassemble great parts of the
> federal government - education, welfare, job training - and give
> responsibility for them back to the states, has a message that
> should strike some chords here. So far, the polls say, it has not.
>
>
> A name you still hear a lot is Colin Powell. People say they were
> ready to vote for him, to work for him. ``We were ready to go for
> Powell,'' said Leah Lemieux, a sophomore at George Washington
> University who was home in Gorham on school break. ``Now, I don't
> know that a lot of people are going to bother to vote.''
>
> Simple hot-button phrases do not appear to be working on voters
> this time. When Alexander repeatedly used ``personal
> responsibility'' at a Derry forum, he was roundly criticized by
> citizen panelists. ``Family values'' was criticized by Priscilla
> Parten, a psychotherapist, as a phrase used by someone ``trying to
> exclude people that don't look and act and talk and think like
> you.''
>
> Instead of code phrases, voters want specifics from presidential
> candidates. They have been saying: Tell us how you will give us an
> economy that provides good and meaningful jobs and lets us take
> care of our families. Tell us how wasteful government will not
> limit our futures and the futures of our children.
>
> This story ran on page 1 of the Boston Globe on 01/01/96.
>
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