Boston Globe
RAN 2/25/96
N.H. Voters Spoke, Gop Didn't Listen
By Royal Ford
DERRY, N.H. - Last fall, as Thanksgiving approached, a group of
Derry citizens gathered for the first of several political forums
and tried to define the issues that would influence their votes in
the New Hampshire presidential primary. They talked about the loss
of jobs, their doubts in a shifting economy, their fears over what
the job market would hold for their children.
Last Monday, on the eve of that primary, Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas,
about to be bushwhacked by Patrick J. Buchanan, said he was
surprised that jobs and the economy had become such an issue in
the campaign.
Dole's comment prompted John Coulter, a laid-off defense industry
worker, to ask, ``What cocoon has he been wrapped in?'' Except for
Buchanan, Coulter could have been talking about any of the other
Republican candidates.
From the high-tech southern tier of New Hampshire to the mill
towns of the north, Buchanan alone was able to build on his base
of support - a base that exit polls showed was firmly cemented by
the religious right - by talking about jobs and the economy.
Why no other candidate recognized this is unclear. The issue was
there from the start. Polls conducted in October for the Globe and
its media partners in the People's Voice project, WBUR-FM and
WABU-TV, showed that nearly 60 percent of potential voters felt
they did not earn enough money, that 30 percent said they never
will, and more than half worried that they might lose their homes
and that their children will never have good jobs at good pay.
The Derry forums that followed ended with the conclusion that
these are times of trepidation for working Americans - from
minimum-wage laborers to middle managers.
That theme held through the campaign, and its impact can be seen
in Buchanan's victories in a cross-section of New Hampshire cities
and towns.
He won in Derry and Londonderry, where conservative churches were
a wellspring of support and where anxious white-collar workers
heard his analysis of their economic distress. He won in
Merrimack, one of the richest towns in the state and a place that
should have been Dole country, but a community in which the
religious right is perhaps strongest in the state. He won in
Berlin, a blue-collar union town where paper-industry workers have
watched jobs disappear for decades.
The effect of religious belief on his win was evident in exit
polls, which showed that more than half of his supporters said
they had a favorable opinion of the religious right. In New
Hampshire, that signals a united force bound more by common belief
than any formal organization. Buchanan's conservative stance on
moral and social issues attracted their support.
``He's right on all the issues, of course,'' said Amy O'Leary of
Londonderry, a Buchanan supporter from the beginning. ``It wasn't
only trade and the economy, he spoke about moral issues.''
Marie Morin came to Buchanan a little less easily.
``It was a process of elimination,'' Morin said. ``I know he goes
out on a limb with some of what he says, but in the end it was his
honesty. You know what he thinks.''
It was clear through the campaign that other candidates were not
connecting in the same way. There was a flirtation with Steve
Forbes and his flat tax. Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana won a small
pocket of support for his directness. But the voters said that,
for the most part, the candidates did not specifically address
issues that mattered to them.
Coulter warned early on that corporate America had ``embittered an
awful lot of quality workers'' and lamented that ``there is no
future for middle management in this country.''
Marjorie Melisi, a customer-service representative, said, ``I was
brought up with a really strong work ethic, but it's like
companies don't have any loyalty to their employees anymore.''
But it was Jo Ellen Cumpata, a speech pathologist, who may have
been the first to spot the connection between economic and social
issues that energized the Buchanan effort.
``So many of society's other problems, like crime, child abuse,
violence are related to employment issues,'' Cumpata said.
Buchanan addressed these issues while others floundered about.
``I am a blue-collar American,'' Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas told a
forum of Derry citizens. ``Neither of my parents graduated from
high school.'' He then suggested that families sit around the
kitchen table to solve their problems.
Lamar Alexander, the former Tennessee governor whose flannel
shirts were seen here more as the affectation of a rural wannabe
than a sign of common roots, could only offer that ``balancing the
budget lowers interest rates and creates jobs.''
Not many families here sit around the kitchen table talking about
the federal deficit.
Alexander's repeated references to a vague notion of ``personal
responsibility'' at one forum left participants grumbling. And
when, late in the campaign, after botching a question on the price
of groceries, he turned to an aide and said, ``I need to know the
price of a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. I need to know right
now,'' the disconnect was laid bare.
The campaign left here with the other candidates talking about
Buchanan's issues, most notably jobs and the economy. And if, as
Republicans said after President Clinton's State of the Union
address, Clinton has lifted some of their language, some of those
same Republicans are now talking Buchanan's.
The effect of this primary, then, may have been to serve as a
melting pot of political discourse. It is a discourse that now
circles around the question posed by plumber Frank Radzwill, who
looked out at a landscape of corporate downsizing and diminishing
wages, even as corporate profits continued, and asked, ``Where did
all the money go?''
This story ran on page 1 of the Boston Globe on 02/25/96.