New Hampshire snow job: white is the primary color.

• Author: Nichols, John
• Position: Presidential primary, white conservative voters - Includes related article on AFL-CIO's political activities

As executive director for Pat Buchanan's campaign to win the New Hampshire Republican Presidential primary, Peter Robbio has a long list of vital responsibilities. He must ensure that the rightwing commentator's "culture wars" message fills the airwaves this winter; he must coordinate the legions of "Buchanan Brigade" volunteers; and he must sort through the dinner invitations.

Dinner invitations?

"Oh, sure, we get piles of them," explains Robbio, who has also fielded invitations for the candidate to attend Quickie Mart openings and recycling days. "That's the way it works up here. People actually expect candidates for President will come to dinner if they're invited."

In New Hampshire, where the demands of retail politics reach heights unheard of in other states, Buchanan and his fellow contenders for the world's most powerful position have to think twice before dismissing an invite to come around for turkey and trimmings with the locals.

"Nobody wants to offend a voter in New Hampshire," says Robbio. "The line here is, one wrong move and you lose the Presidency."

Every four years, the four-tenths of 1 percent of American voters who live in New Hampshire get a chance to reshape the nation's political landscape. In an era when most voters complain about feeling disconnected from politicians, New Hampshirites demand and receive tender loving care from the men who would be President.

New Hampshire is the spoiled child of American politics - a whiny, demanding brat that constantly threatens to throw an electoral tantrum if it isn't satisfied. The primary campaign pours an estimated $30 million into the state - as hordes of candidates, campaign aides, journalists, and other hangers - on flood over the border, commanding the rapt attention of the nation's political elite.

"There are not many small states that have that ability to get Washington to dance to their tune," says Curtis Gans, staff director for the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.

But what tune are the presidential hopefuls dancing to when they indulge the whims of New Hampshire? It's not the song of the American mainstream. In fact, political scientists, activists, and even the candidates themselves acknowledge that it is hard to imagine a less representative state.

"Of course, it's not representative," University of New Hampshire political-science professor Bob Craig says of the state he has studied for more than three decades. "First and foremost, it is not representative in the minority area. You don't have a large black population; you don't have a large Hispanic population. What you have is a large white population - proportionally one of the biggest in the country."

More precisely, a large white conservative population. Remember the angry white males of the 1994 Congressional elections? Well, imagine a whole state where they define the political discourse.

"We've got a lot of rightwing crazies up here, and you'd be surprised how many of them are in charge of things," says Mark MacKenzie, president of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO. "So much of the power structure of this state - not just in the government but in places like the media - is controlled by rightwingers."

As the political epicenter of the Western world moves to a spot between Nashua and Dixville Notch this winter, ponder these facts regarding the state that sets the course of our Presidential politics:

* New Hampshire is more than 98 percent white, a higher porportion even than states like Idaho that have long been portrayed as lily-white bastions. The state has no...