An Odd Couple With Big Influence

"I think they're a little more direct here," John McCain said as he prepared to shake hands in a Concord tavern.

New Hampshirites, told from birth that they have a special role in politics, don't think twice about asking a pointed question. One day recently in the mountain town of Lebanon, a woman stood up at an Edwards speech and said, "John Edwards: Look me in the eye and tell me what you're going to do to get us out of Iraq."

He obeyed.

A moment later, another woman rose.

"Why should I vote for you?" she asked.

Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, started to answer, but she interrupted him with an explanation of her thought process.

"Why, from the Democratic candidates, should I vote for you?"

He began to answer but again was interrupted.

"What makes you different?"

The folks in New Hampshire are a tough sell. They're notoriously undecided until the last minute. Nearly half the state is registered as independent; many voters at this very second don't know whether they'll vote in the Democratic or the Republican primary. You get the sense that they're not going to vote for a candidate whom they've met only four or five times.

"It takes a while to get accepted around here," says Doug Moran, a McCain supporter who hosted a house party for the Republican senator from Arizona recently. "It's not the Midwest, open hand, open face, 'Welcome to our community.' "

Most of all, New Hampshire is heterogeneous, which is to say, it's a mistake to make any sweeping generalization about it. The hill people are descendants of the original Yankee stock. To the far north are people of the woods. On the seacoast are liberals who floated up from Boston; in the southwest corner are crunchy-granola towns that are spiritually in tune with Vermont.