The consummate politician: Jeanne Shaheen is doing to the Republican majority in New Hampshire what Bill Clinton is doing in Washington

THE 1996 election was a wake-up call for Northeastern Republicans, with GOP congressmen being defeated in Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. New Hampshire mostly avoided this trend: its voters returned conservative Sen. Bob Smith to office (much to the chagrin of Dan Rather and CBS News), Republicans won both House seats, and the state legislature remains solidly Republican. Nonetheless, New Hampshire Republicans suffered one of the region's more shocking defeats when their candidate for governor, the conservative Ovide LaMontagne, was painted as an extremist and soundly thrashed by the Democratic candidate, the disturbingly Clintonesque Jeanne Shaheen.

Still, with Republicans in control of the state legislature one would assume that Mrs. Shaheen could be easily contained. Guess again. By patronizing the Right, legislating to the left, and proclaiming herself a centrist, Jeanne Shaheen is doing to the Republican majority in New Hampshire what Bill Clinton is doing to the Republican leadership in Washington: steamrolling them with a smile and handshake.

New Hampshire is by far the most conservative of the New England states. There is no state income or sales tax. The state legislature is made up of true citizen legislators, who are paid $100 per year for their services. Unfortunately, the legislation they are debating this year is more what one would expect from the Massachusetts legislature: increased budgets, tax hikes, abortion rights. Combine a new House Speaker, Donna Sytek, with a widening chasm between moderate and conservative Republicans, and you have the perfect stage for the Clinton-style Omnicrat.

The Omnicrat is a new breed of politician. If the issue is one that cannot lose, Omnicrats get behind it. If it is one whose popularity is difficult to gauge, they express the merits of both sides and wait until the dust settles. In the face of conservative opposition, they label Republicans ideologues, unwilling to do the people's business. Then, after speaking endlessly about working together and bi-partisanship, they wait for the moderates to succumb to the pressure. This strategy won Bill Clinton two terms in the White House, and is now serving Jeanne Shaheen well.

Mrs. Shaheen campaigned on promises of no new taxes (she even took New Hampshire's famous anti-tax pledge, the first Democrat to do so), but the centerpiece of her campaign was publicly financed kindergarten. Any Omnicrat knows that child-related issues are the surest means of expanding government. During the campaign, opposition to her kindergarten plan was muted at best. Richard Lessner, editorial-page director at the Manchester Union Leader, states that Republicans were unable or unwilling to counter Mrs. Shaheen's arguments on behalf of her plan with actual facts. For instance, 87 per cent of New Hampshire's 5-year-old children were already enrolled in some form of kindergarten -- just half a percentage point below the national average, according to the Department of Education. Mrs. Shaheen's proposal was targeted at the remaining 13 per cent, approximately 2,400 children. The Granite State Taxpayers Association released a study comparing New Hampshire children who attended kindergarten with those who did not; the study showed no substantial differences between the two groups of children, as measured by test scores in grades three, six, and nine.

Once Mrs. Shaheen was elected, she began her crusade for kindergarten in earnest. She boldly stated that New Hampshire was the only state in the nation without public kindergarten; in fact, 13 other states do not have it. According to Republican State Representative John Root (also a member of the State Board of Education), of the 36 states that do have publicly financed kindergarten, only 11 mandate the attendance of 5-year-old children.

Then, having promised during the campaign not to raise broad-based taxes, Gov. Shaheen proposed a 25-cent-per-pack hike on cigarette taxes to pay localities 75 per cent of the cost of public kindergartens, with the balance going to the state's General Fund. This should have come as no surprise since, as a state senator, Mrs. Shaheen had voted for every tax increase over the last decade.

So, just as Bill Clinton does in Washington, Jeanne Shaheen divided the Republican majority. Legislators had their choice portrayed as supporting children, or supporting big tobacco. State Rep. Ann Torr, a characteristic moderate Republican, defends the program on the grounds that localities are not required to avail themselves of the funds. The catch is that towns that do accept the funds must raise the remaining funds themselves -- which of course translates into property-tax increases. As a result, many towns that have not had public kindergartens will choose not to start them, rather than raise taxes, while towns with kindergartens will receive a windfall. Nevertheless, with moderates defecting, the bill was a sure thing.

Gov. Shaheen has used her gift for dividing and conquering New Hampshire Republicans in other ways as well. For example, on the question of abortion restrictions, she managed to split off libertarians from cultural conservatives, creating a majority in favor of ending restrictions. Speaker Sytek, herself pro-life, remembers particularly the "glee" with which Gov. Shaheen signed the resultant legislation. New Hampshire now has absolutely no laws restricting abortion.