N.H. Is Already Flooded With Attack Ads

Other groups have also joined the battle in New Hampshire, including Americans for Tax Reform. The anti-tax group says it persuaded McCain to take its no-new-tax pledge during his 2000 presidential campaign, but not this time. It suffered adverse publicity in 2005 and 2006 when McCain's investigative hearings into the Jack Abramoff scandal concluded that the group was used as a financial "conduit" by Abramoff's tribal gaming clients, who wanted to thwart rival casinos.

The group's founder, Grover Norquist, said yesterday that the New Hampshire phone calls he organized to 430,000 households have nothing to do with the Abramoff controversy. The calls identify all the Republican candidates who have already taken the tax pledge, and they urge voters to call McCain and former senator Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.) to press them to do the same. "I have told McCain we will praise him to the sky when he takes this pledge," Norquist said.

The Life and Liberty PAC, run by longtime antiabortion activist Mary Lewis, has spent more than $100,000 since early December on mostly live calls to voters in New Hampshire and other early-primary states, all critical of Clinton's pro-choice voting record. The group may expand the calls to attack Obama and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican, if necessary, Lewis said.

Antiabortion forces aligned with Republicans do not intervene much in the Democratic primaries, instead saving their efforts for the general election. But Lewis said she wants to counter Clinton's efforts to portray herself as a centrist and to appeal to evangelical voters, calling it "fundamental dishonesty."

The phone calls' script says: "Hillary Rodham Clinton is a strong supporter of unrestricted abortion on demand. . . . She is successfully downplaying the extremism of her pro-abortion position in order to win swing voter support."

Many of the groups are relying on automated phone calls to disseminate their messages. Scott Reed, a veteran political consultant who ran Robert J. Dole's 1996 presidential campaign, said phone campaigning has risen dramatically over the years because costs are low and messages can be rapidly adapted to shifting campaign requirements.

"You can make a decision at 3:30 p.m. and be on the phone by 7 p.m. touching thousands of households," Reed said. "People get more comfortable when they feel reached out to by the campaign, especially in a phone call. It's more personable."

Reed said automated calls, or "robo calls," tend to be more risky, with lingering uncertainties about how they affect voters. There is also a danger of voters becoming angry if they receive too many such calls. "Clearly the reports from Iowa are that the calling was bordering on the overwhelming, with people being left messages and being contacted at night," he said.

Steve Duprey, McCain's co-chairman in New Hampshire, said he has received lots of anti-McCain literature and phone calls -- especially from Romney's campaign. "I admire their tenacity, if not their judgment. I get all the mail, too. So far, I found it unpersuasive, but I am glad he is sending it to me," Duprey said. His wife, Susan, said the family's phone in Concord gets about half a dozen political calls each night.