As Democrats gathered in Washington yesterday to debate the future of the party's presidential nominating schedule, New Hampshire's two representatives in the discussion said: Don't panic, not everybody wants to kick New Hampshire out of first place.

Former governor Jeanne Shaheen and former U.S. ambassador Terry Shumaker are on a commission of 40 Democrats charged with studying how the party picks its presidential candidates - and finding out if there's a better schedule. While New Hampshire's traditional first-in-the-nation role inevitably figures in that discussion, both Shumaker and Shaheen said the majority of the committee's members were not determined to strip New Hampshire of that status. The tone at yesterday's meeting, they said, was generally open-minded and encouraging.

"Most people aren't coming in with an agenda to throw out New Hampshire and Iowa," Shaheen said in a phone interview last night. Iowa has traditionally hosted the first caucus in the presidential nominating season.

Both states have outmaneuvered critics to hold their leadoff positions during the last quarter-century. Other states have demonstrated increasing frustration by crowding closer to the start of the calendar. Both Shumaker and Shaheen said that "front loading" of the schedule could end up getting as much attention as the New Hampshire-Iowa question.

Shumaker, for one, thinks spreading out the nominating schedule, with a longer waiting period after New Hampshire and Iowa, could resolve many critics' concerns.

"It's my view that whatever state goes first, it still doesn't address the question of front-loading," Shumaker said by phone yesterday.

To primary veterans like Shaheen and Shumaker, the anti-New Hampshire arguments are familiar. The state is too small, too rural, and too white to accurately reflect the national electorate. Both New Hampshire and Iowa have defended their role by emphasizing the importance of retail politics door-to-door, face-to-face campaigning in small states.

Perhaps the most outspoken critic of New Hampshire and Iowa is Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, who also sits on the Democrat's commission. But Shaheen said he was just one of two commission members to voice unambiguous opposition to the Granite State yesterday.

A final schedule for the 2008 presidential election is still months away. The commission is due to issue a recommendation in December. Then the Democratic National Committee's rules panel must decide how to draw up the 2008 calendar. Republicans have already decided to keep New Hampshire and Iowa at the front of the pack in the next presidential election.

Both Shumaker and Shaheen are veterans of several past New Hampshire primary campaigns. Shaheen was national chairwoman of Sen. John Kerry's campaign last year, and Shumaker helped run Bill Clinton's New Hampshire campaigns. The commission's 38 other members include plenty of veterans of past primary campaigns, including Donna Brazile, Harold Ickes, and John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO.

Yesterday was mostly a day of introductions and beginnings. Commission members sat through presentations by political scientists and historians, who gave an overview of the presidential primary. There was also talk of how campaign finance laws shape the nominating process. There was also, in Shumaker's words, "a strong recognition of the importance of tradition."

In private conversations, commission members swapped ideas of how to strengthen the system and stories of campaigns past.

"It was a political junkie's heaven," Shumaker said.

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By DANIEL BARRICK

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