Portsmouth Herald
9/18/95 Pg. A3

HAMPTON FESTIVAL DRAWS GOP FRONT-RUNNER     
Byline: Cheryl German

   HAMPTON - ``Yes! Yes!'' crowed a diminutive senior citizen in a pale blue
raincoat, jabbing the air with her thumb.
   The tall, tan, flat-faced Kansan in a black suit gave the thumbs up, too.
   U.S. Sen. Bob Dole continued his quest for the presidency yesterday during
a campaign stop at the Galley Hatch Family Festival in Hampton, but Sylvia
Moulton had already won her race.
   ``Congratulations!'' Dole told the first-place winner in the apple pie
contest after sampling her entry.
   During a brief press conference amid the hubbub, Dole reiterated his call
to shift the responsibility for helping poor Americans from federal to state
bureaucracy. He said state governors can be trusted to do what is right.
   He called for a five-year lifetime limit on welfare benefits and said
welfare recipients need to get back to work.
   The great majority of non-working poor in New Hampshire are women with
children, according to state figures. Cost and unavailability of child care
and lack of public transportation make it hard for these mothers to go to
work, local advocates say.
   Asked about these hurdles, Dole noted that the Senate has recently added
$8 billion for child care to a welfare reform bill.
   The festival went on despite a drenching daylong downpour, and so did the
Republican front-runner, whose agenda also included meeting and greeting
voters at an apple farm in Londonderry and a Greek festival in Manchester.
   Accessible, personable, constantly smiling, Dole mingled easily with the
Hampton crowd. One of the orange rain-slickered police officers who managed
security was patrolman Dick Bateman, who is organizing a Democrats for Dole
committee.
   ``A lot of people want to jump on already. It's really building,'' Bateman
told Dole.
   Unpretentious 14-year-old Cassie Stelmack, Miss New Hampshire Teen, dashed
up in a baggy sweater with a rhinestone crown perched on her sopping wet hair
to have her picture taken with him.
   ``I'm trying to become more politically aware,'' bubbled Stelmack.
   Talking with reporters, Dole declined to specify differences between
himself and popular Gulf War hero and possible presidential candidate Colin
Powell. ``I don't know where Colin Powell is on the issues,'' he said.
   Dole doesn't mean only a few hot-button issues featured in the media.
``There are hundreds of other issues to deal with,'' he said, hinting that
depth of experience in government could become an issue if Powell chooses to
challenge Dole.
   But with a credo of downsizing and downplaying the federal government, the
value of political experience may be a tricky card to play.
   ``Back to Disneyland East,'' he said as he headed out into the rain.
   ``How can you possibly want to do this?'' marvelled Doris Lyons, who is in
her 70s herself.
   ``I'm in good health,'' said Dole, 72, and chuckled. ``We've got a lot of
juice left, me and you.''