It is Labor Day, the unofficial kickoff of the New Hampshire presidential primary, and candidates are flooding the Granite State. Batten down the hatches. The Romneys and the Clintons, the Richardsons and the McCains and a half dozen other candidates are on their way. Concord, Salem, Somersworth, Nashua, Manchester, Portsmouth, Milford, Derry, Dover. Before the week is over, not a corner of the state will be spared.

But wait a minute. It may be Labor Day, yet except for Fred Thompson (who hasn't announced but really, really, really intends to get in really, really, soon), none of the candidates have paid any attention to history. They apparently didn't get the memo about how campaigns are supposed to be conducted. They veered off the usual course of waiting until after Labor Day to get their campaigns into first gear. They were tramping through the snow last winter with full-blown campaigns usually not seen until the final weeks before the primary.

What exactly did the candidates accomplish for their troubles?

Truth is, the Democrats could have saved their money and their time. Despite months of intensive campaigning, hiring truckloads of staff and spending oodles of money, the Democratic race stands pretty much where it did last winter.

As 2006 turned into 2007, polling in New Hampshire showed Hillary Clinton in the lead, Barack Obama second and John Edwards third. Sound familiar?

Clinton's lead has varied along the way, from small to large. Edwards's third-place showing has had its own pendulum swings, from a high of 21 percent to, most recently, a low of 10 percent. Obama's numbers have held steady, almost invariably within a few points of 25 percent. The only interesting story on the Democratic side has been the rise of Bill Richardson, from being an asterisk in the polls to as high as 11 percent, occasionally even challenging Edwards for the third-place spot.

The Republican race is a whole other kettle of fish. John McCain must wish that the race today looked like it did last New Year's Eve. Back then, he led almost every poll of New Hampshire voters, sometimes with as much as 30 percent of the vote. Rudy Giuliani was close behind, usually in the mid- to high-20s, and Mitt Romney was often a distant third with 10 percent to 12 percent of the vote. By spring, the dynamics of race had begun to change. McCain crashed and burned more than once, and Romney slowly and steadily used television ads and his own fundraising prowess to creep up the leader board, topping 30 percent today, according to recent polls.

What unites the candidates is that the status of their campaigns today is not accidental or due to luck or the whims of political fate, but almost entirely the result of the strategic decisions, actions and performance of the campaigns themselves.

Clinton's campaign has been steady and solid, with nary a misstep. Obama has exceeded expectations with his strong organization and fundraising. Richardson earned his way up through clever advertising and a consistent theme about his experience. Romney's relentless fundraising and early spending on television made him a force to be reckoned with.

McCain's spiral down was also of his own making. He allowed his campaign to make just about every mistake in the book and chose to associate himself strongly with issues and positions sure to cost him support. Edwards lost his footing when a simple mistake of including the cost of an expensive haircut in a campaign report turned into metaphor that he couldn't easily shake.

The lesser-known candidates on both sides, many of whom are quality candidates, were not able to figure out how to use the past eight months to break through, either with more impressive fundraising totals, consistently superior debate performances, more persuasive televisions ads or more effective political organizations.

Suggesting there are lessons to be learned from the last eight months might be foolhardy. But as the campaign season enters this final stretch, rather than waiting for some magical dynamic to come along and propel their candidacies to victory, candidates would be wise to assume their fates are in their own hands.

(Sue Casey, a New Hampshire native and veteran of five presidential campaigns, lives and teaches in Denver. In 1987 she authored Hart and Soul: Gary Hart's New Hampshire Odyssey and Beyond.)

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By SUE CASEY

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