PEAKS & VALLEYS; A TESTING GROUND FOR ADVOCATES

Paul Stillwell of Concord, N.H., asked presidential candidate John Edwards
a question about marijuana while he was in the state last week. Stillwell
didn't care whether Edwards had smoked it; he wondered whether Edwards
favored re-legalizing industrial hemp. "We're asking everybody we can get
to," said Stillwell, who's a member of the N.H. Hemp Council. The Carbon
Coalition, a group of environmental organizations, sends volunteers to
candidate appearances to get specifics about their energy policies;
volunteers then post the responses on their website, carboncoalition.org.
Besides being a testing ground for candidates, New Hampshire is also a
demonstration ground for advocacy groups hoping to pin down candidate
positions on everything from reproductive rights to gun control.

Dartmouth College political science professor Linda Fowler counted 45 such
groups in the 2000 primary; University of New Hampshire political science
professor Mark Wrighton said that with 10 candidates in the race, the
environmentalists are providing a service: "If you're a voter, it's a good
thing because you get a very good reading on the candidate," he says.