CAMPAIGN '96: INSIDE THE RACE: THE SECRET TEST OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

ONE OF THE STRANGE, SCARRING THINGS about the New Hampshire primary is its curious way of looking less like the beginning of the presidential race than the end of it. The contest suddenly contracts into an eight-day challenge to the candidates' cleverness and conscience, a fight not only with one another but with themselves. They have to outflank the enemy; but they must also decide how far they are willing to go to win, and that is less an intellectual challenge than a moral one. If they gain the whole world at the cost of their own souls, the battle for New Hampshire will haunt them whether they win or lose.

Those who stoop in New Hampshire often conquer, but the contortions have left the winners aching long after. In 1988 George Bush promised no new taxes, and Bob Dole fatally refused; two years later Bush ripped his party apart when he abandoned his pledge. In 1992 Bill Clinton promised a juicy middle-class tax cut and upon election didn't bother with a decent interval: he jettisoned the idea before taking office. Lately New Hampshire hasn't just picked Presidents; it has presaged presidencies.

It was in this crucible that the four top contenders arrived on Tuesday, appearing in rough order of their showing in the Iowa caucuses the night before: Dole, Buchanan, Alexander and, a day later (though not a dollar shorter), Forbes. As they settled into their base camps at hotels around Manchester, each candidate sat down with his brain trust, looked at the polls and began to figure out the four-way chess match they would have to play for the next seven days.

The problem for Bob Dole, the wounded front runner, was that he was unable to be Pat Buchanan and unwilling to be himself. Lamar Alexander, trying to convince voters he was more than the "least worse" choice, had to roll out a refreshened agenda even if its contents, such as the abolition of food stamps, might come back to haunt him. Steve Forbes had to decide whether to admit he had been running an ugly race, cage his pit bulls and run on his strengths instead of his enemies' weaknesses. And Pat Buchanan, who reinvents Republicanism when he offers dispirited workers a vision of paradise, had to decide how much damage he was willing to do to his party in the effort to become its leader.

By the time Dole arrived, his enemy had a new name. It was no longer Forbes, who had scared the bejeezus out of Dole before Iowa; in fact, Dole campaign manager Scott Reed and Forbes' manager Bill Dal Col suddenly found common cause again, since according to tracking polls many of those who supported Forbes were turning to Alexander. The Dole team quarreled about whom to target. Some said it should be Buchanan, who draws much of his support from places the others cannot go. Others pointed to Alexander, whose surprising third-place finish in Iowa gave him an instant platform and a claim to having the best chance of bringing Clinton down in the fall. Though Buchanan was dangerous, the Dole operatives still believed he could never win the nomination. So they quickly announced that it had become a Dole-Buchanan race, as though by ignoring Alexander they could make him go away.