Exploring Places Peripheral To Presidential Campaigns

They've been oh, so near. Just next door in New York and to the north in Boston. One actually almost stopped by the state. But if residents are looking to shake hands this fall with the major presidential candidates, they will have to go out of state to do it. John Kerry and George Bush have no plans to come here.

What a change from four years ago. In 2000, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut was Al Gore's running mate, and Vice President Gore, Senator Lieberman and Mr. Bush all campaigned in the state. The delegates from Connecticut got up-front seats at the 2000 Democratic convention and were invited to an exclusive picnic with the candidates along with only the delegates from Mr. Gore's home state, Tennessee.

This year, the Democratic delegates sat at the back of the hall near Guam at the convention at the Fleet Center in Boston.

''To a large extent the state is being written off by the campaigns,'' said Gary L. Rose, chairman of the department of history and political science at Sacred Heart University. ''With the polarization of the American electorate, Connecticut has moved into the states identified as liberal. It's not really critical for Kerry to come because it looks like it's his state. And Bush realizes putting resources and money into a Democratic state, as Connecticut is, is not a very good investment.''

Indeed, neither Mr. Kerry nor Mr. Bush have headquarters in the state that are exclusively for their campaigns, making it a bit tougher for supporters to get lawn placards or signs to post. Their campaign coordinators work out of party headquarters in Hartford; the Republicans also have a Stamford location. There have been no local commercials. No rallies. No speeches on the green.

There have been some visits from candidates. John Edwards, the Democrats' vice presidential candidate, came to Hartford in July, Vice President Dick Cheney was there last September and President Bush, who was born in New Haven, stopped in Greenwich in January, but those were for fund-raisers. The candidates want to tap into the state's wealth, with President Bush raising about $3.8 million here and Mr. Kerry $3.1 million, as of earlier this month. But as far as stopping by to influence voters, the state is just about considered a lost cause to Republicans and a done deal by Democrats. It also doesn't help that the state is down to seven electoral votes from the last election, losing one after the 2000 census.

''Currently the president is indeed focusing his campaign efforts where it will have the most impact, as well as preparing for debates and, most important, attending to his duties as president,'' said Peter Barhydt, communications director for the Bush campaign in Connecticut.

Mr. Kerry is six percentage points ahead of Mr. Bush, according to a September Quinnipiac poll, pushing the state to the sidelines as swing states like Ohio and Michigan take center stage.

If the race tightens in the state, Republican campaign aides said someone ''high up'' from the Bush campaign might come. Aides for Mr. Kerry said that he was not taking any vote for granted, but that he has no plans to come to Connecticut.

Mr. Kerry almost came to West Hartford in July to kick off his campaign tour after accepting his nomination, but then canceled. Campaign officials for Mr. Kerry said it was logistically too difficult to stop his caravan in West Hartford that day in July.

''There is a limited amount of time until the elections,'' said Jenni Engebretsen, a Kerry-Edwards spokeswoman. ''If we could travel to every state, that's something we would do.''

The state archivist, Mark Jones, curator of an exhibit on presidential campaign stops in Connecticut on display at the State Library, said it is an anomaly that the state hasn't seen a candidate this election season. In 1996, for example, Hartford was even a site for one of the presidential debates between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole.

This was also the state that has been host to Wendell Willkie, who ran against Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson. Many people in the state still talk about John F. Kennedy's packed late-night campaign rally in Waterbury on the eve of his 1960 election.al, political experts said.