THE CAMPAIGN AS A SPECTATOR SPORT PRESSING THE FLESH IN NEW HAMPSHIRE KEVIN MODESTI.

MERRIMACK, N.H. - ON the desperate day before the New Hampshire presidential primary, Dennis Kucinich rolled his empty campaign bandwagon up to a vegan-friendly sandwich shop called the Ecos Cafe, where the restaurant staff and working journalists outnumbered the congressman's audience. At one table sat six vacationers from out of state. Nearby sat a man whose rant about methadone suggested he's the neighborhood heroin addict. In a corner sat a guy who just might have been a fully functional voter.

Kucinich delivered his anti-war message for 30 earnest minutes, predicting that public disgust with the Bush administration's Iraq policy will inspire hundreds of thousands of Americans to protest outside the Democratic and Republican party convention halls this summer.

From the table of six, I asked Kucinich what exactly was going to cause foreign-policy unease to boil over into civil unrest.

``My candidacy!'' said the man who would go on to receive 1 percent of Tuesday's votes, less than all-but-absent Al Sharpton among legitimate contestants.

Richard Nixon won the presidency in 1968 by promising to bring law and order to the streets. Dennis Kucinich will try to win it this year by promising to send rioters into the streets.

You can learn a lot about a presidential candidate's merits - or lack of same - from a look at his campaign stagecraft, from a brush with his supporters, from a one-speech listen, from a Q&A exchange, from a handshake. That's the premise behind the traditional first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire, where the citizens serve as the nation's electoral food tasters. And that's the reason for my quadrennial vacation trips with a group of political-junkie friends, many of us sportswriters who find the race for the White House the greatest spectator sport of all.

Beginning in 1988, the year of George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, we've been going to the snowy Granite State in the days before the balloting to judge the politicians face to face. As a Californian, used to experiencing campaigns only through television, I went into 1988 thinking it would be cool if we got to shake a couple of candidates' hands. By the end of that weekend, we had shaken hands with all 12 Republican and Democratic contenders.

Armed not with media credentials or campaign affiliations but with a knack for finding the right standing spots along a rope line, we've shaken hands with all 33 major candidates in the past five New Hampshire primaries. We missed Al Gore in 2000, when even a school-gym appearance at an ``open meeting with undecided voters'' was restricted to invited Gore supporters. No matter, a couple of us had pumped Gore's paw during his first run for the Democratic nomination 12 years earlier.

We sat at Dukakis' feet as he delivered a speech from a family's fireplace hearth. We met Pat Robertson touring the factory of (strangely enough) the Al-Gor shoe company. We shivered outside a hotel's back door, waiting for Pat Buchanan while dodging security guards' worried glances. We endured the anti-Clinton ravings of Bob Dornan after being waved backstage at a debate. My friend Bruce Schoenfeld climbed a snowbank to reach Jesse Jackson on a whistle-stop. We got overhand ``soul'' shakes from Gary Hart at a roadside cantina. We exchanged left-handed shakes with Bob Dole. We were in danger of missing George W. Bush as he walked to a rally stage until I shouted, ``Governor - handshake!'' and he doubled back to greet us.

Oh, yeah, we do listen to the speeches. What I hear and see never fails to influence my California primary vote. (I'm most relieved to report that security did not put barriers between New Hampshire candidates and voters last weekend at the first primary since 9-11.)

What sorts of first impressions did this year's candidates make?

John Kerry looked jauntier than expected for a 60-year-old as he skated in a hockey game against old Boston Bruins and U.S. Olympic women's team members. He laughed easily as I wondered over a handshake if his two goals were gifts from the opponents. ``They were trying to give them to me, but I earned them,'' he said with a smile. He refuted the notion he can't be an exciting candidate with his primary-night victory speech. In a Manchester hotel ballroom, supporters erupted in a chant when Kerry challenged Bush to ``bring - it - on.''

Howard Dean displayed the Democratic hopefuls' best command of the details as he discussed so-called women's issues at a Manchester college. I told him it's too bad more voters couldn't hear him in such a setting. A Friday news.google.com search for ``howard dean'' and ``women's issues'' yielded 51 hits; a search for ``howard dean'' and ``iowa scream'' found 976.

We heard John Edwards deliver three speeches. Actually, it was one speech three times, even though he was addressing very different crowds at a bowling alley, a high-school assembly and a theater. The candidate with the most evocative message (decrying the ``two Americas'') and biggest talent, he's a rookie pitcher who needs a curveball. In ever-quicker recitations of that speech, word for word and aside for aside, Edwards seemed bent on confirming he's a fast-talking lawyer.

And for Joe Lieberman and Wesley Clark, the issue seemed to be what would collapse first, their event planning or their candidacies' rationale. We saw Lieberman at a forum booked into a way-too-small room with a scratchy microphone at Nashua City Hall; the crowd didn't fit any better than his pro-war views fit Democratic voters' ideology. We saw Clark at a mercifully brief rally outside the same building on a freezing day; the idea of the general as the Democratic savior went out the window when the party's candidates turned out to be a pretty strong group.

The hope here is that Edwards and Dean press Kerry - and press the flesh - through the upcoming states, showing off the best of their party.

If, on the other hand, winter in New Hampshire turns into the long hot summer of Dennis Kucinich, well, you heard it here first.

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Sen. John Edwards waves from the bus at a New Hampshire campaign stop, above.

(2 -- 3 -- color) Howard Dean, above, speaks with a supporter. At left, Wesley Clark bowls during a campaign stop.

(4 -- 5 -- color) Sen. John Kerry, right, warms up for a game of hockey. Joe Lieberman, far right, rings a bell he bought at an antique store.

Photos by The Associated Press