Michael Kitch

BELMONT -- One afternoon each election year New Hampshire congressional and gubernatorial candidates, like Dorothy and Toto, are swept by the political winds to a what for most is a far off place and forgotten time when the New Hampshire Farm Bureau Federation and New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association host their summer picnic and stump speeches.

This year lush green pastures of Oak Ledge Farm on Ladd Hill Road, where Elaine and Kenneth Bonnette raise purebred Polled Herefords, provided the setting, complete with a genuine stump and what one connoisseur called "the best corn of the season." Although most candidates shunned the stump, nearly all took the opportunity yesterday to remind their audience of rural voters of what they have done or would do to serve the interests of agriculture and forestry.

Only Ken Blevens, the Libertarian candidate for United States Senate, struck a discordant note by describing the state's "current use" property tax shelter program as an unjust subsidy born by most taxpayers to benefit a few.

Topping the bill were United States Senator John Sununu and his Democratic challenger, former governor Jeanne Shaheen, who are locked in rematch of their race in 2002, which Sununu won by a five-point margin. This time around Sununu trailed Shaheen in the polls even before she announced her candidacy and has yet to catch up, though the margin between the two has closed to single digits, prompting some pundits to call the race a dead-heat.

Speaking first after another downpour, Shaheen acknowledged the many challenges facing farmers and foresters, "not least of them the weather." She stressed her long-standing support for "current use" taxation, which she explained spared crippling costs to farmers and foresters, who served as stewards of the pastoral and wooded landscape essential to the beauty and character of the state. Likewise, she reminded her listeners that as a state senator and later governor she supported efforts to sustain the commercial timber industry and defied her party by favoring the application of biosolids -- sludge -- on farmers' fields.

Shaheen addressed what she said was "some effort to misrepresent my position on the national forest plan," explaining that she opposed proposals by the Clinton Administration to designate roadless areas in the White Mountain National Forest because she favored assigning greater weight to the local planning process in developing the plan. Distancing herself from the Sierra Club, which has endorsed her candidacy, she said that "we agree to disagree."

Turning to energy, Shaheen said that high fuel costs, along with increased demand for corn and soybeans for ethanol production, placed burdens on farmers. She called for more emphasis on cellulosic ethanol, manufactured from among other things woodchips, which would provide fuel "without interrupting the food supply. Above all, Shaheen insisted that "our answer to the energy issue is not going to be found in oil," noting that the country held only 4-percent of the world's supply. She called for increased investment in renewable sources of energy, particularly solar and wind power.

Without mentioning her opponent by name, Shaheen touted change. "If you keep doing what you did," she remarked, "you'll keep getting what you've got."

Sununu opened with a tested Republican refrain by insisting that the first step toward reviving the economy was to keep taxes low. He called for repealing the inheritance tax -- what he called the "death tax" -- altogether and reducing the tax on capital gains, both of which he said unnecessarily burdened farmers and foresters as well as small businesses.

Sununu touted his role in legislation to provide tax incentives for the development of alternative energy sources, particularly his insistence on including wood-fired power in the program. But, he immediately declared his support for lifting the ban on off-shore oil exploration and drilling. "we must pursue every avenue available to get prices down in the short-run and keep prices down for the long-run."

Asked what how he would address the plight of government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have billions at risk in the tumbling real estate market, Sununu said that first as representative and then as a senator he introduced legislation to increase regulatory oversight of the companies, as well as limit the size of their portfolios and the range of their activities. "We should have done it five years ago," he said. "Not in a crisis."

Sununu did not disguise his misgivings about the $300-billion farm bill adopted by Congress. "I voted against the farm bill," he said. "It was not a good financial deal for New Hampshire." Noting that the bill provided subsidies to farmers earning more than $700,000 a year, he dismissed it as "an excessive pork-filled bill."

The contest between Sununu and Shaheen, one of a handful on which command of the United States Senate hinges, may not be decided by the votes of farmers and loggers. As Dorothy exclaimed "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more." Still, on a summer afternoon those who depend on the land for their livelihood while tending it in the interest of all had the ear of both candidates.