LOOK, MA, I'M RUNNING!

By RICHARD STENGEL, IN CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Like a solicitous maitre d', Bill Gardner, the amiable New Hampshire secretary of state, welcomes each presidential candidate who walks into his high-ceilinged State House office. And between the fourth and the 15th of December, a gallimaufry of folks do just that. For during those two weeks, anyone with $1,000 and the nerve can get on the ballot in the nation's first primary.

During the past week, more than a dozen people perched themselves behind the same tatty 1819 writing table to fill out the Declaration of Candidacy form, which is kept on the shelf right next to the application forms for Notary Public. The registrants include not only Phil Gramm and Bob Dole but also the Rev. Billy Joe Clegg from Biloxi, Mississippi, whose slogan is "Clegg Won't Pull Your Leg" and who swears that Jesus is his campaign manager. There's also the poet and former seaman Michael Levinson from Buffalo, New York, who proposes a jobs program to build 10,000 clipper ships, and Caroline Killeen of Flagstaff, Arizona, the self-described "Hemp Lady" and ex-nun who advocates legalizing marijuana as a way of enabling Americans to get back in touch with nature. For $2 she'll sell you a bumper sticker that reads LET CLINTON INHALE.

"This is the one place in the world where you can do this," says the still boyish Gardner, who was first elected secretary of state in 1976 at the age of 28. He keeps a scrapbook of all the candidates, containing pictures of himself posing with everyone from Gary Hart (who in 1984 came with a plastic bag filled with a thousand $1 bills) to Georgiana Doerschuck, an elegant widow in a pink Chanel suit who wants to require mothers to stay home with their children. "The little guy who doesn't have a lot of money can still come here and start up a campaign," he says. "We give the same courtesy to the Hemp Lady as to Bob Dole." Four years ago, 62 people were on the ballot, a New Hampshire record, but this year they are already well ahead of 1992's pace.

At 11:10 last Thursday morning, Michael Eric Dass, from Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, shuffled tentatively through the door to the secretary of state's office and asked where he could register to run for President. Dressed in stiff new blue jeans, work boots and a windbreaker, Dass sat down at the desk to fill out N.H. form 655:47. Out of an empty Mueller's spaghetti box, he plucked a $1,000 check. A reporter from the Manchester Union Leader pulled out a pad and asked Dass why he was running. "No one appreciates the press more than I do," said Dass, who is intense and deadly serious, "but I'm not going to take any questions until the day after the primary. I want to talk to the people of New Hampshire unfiltered by the media." Peppered with a few more questions, an exasperated Dass replied, "Look, I'm a regular guy, a working stiff. The money comes out of my savings. I'm going to try something no one else has ever tried, and I'll talk to you when it's all over." And with that, the newest Republican candidate for President walked quietly into the bracing New Hampshire air.