PENACOOK, N.H. - Hillary Clinton was in Nashua Saturday. John McCain will be touring the state this weekend. There's a rumor that Barack Obama will sneak in on Friday. The Huckabee campaign - yes, if you're keeping score, there's a Huckabee campaign - was making noises about a Thursday drop-in.

And don't close that datebook yet.

In Omaha, Chuck Hagel stepped before the cameras to announce he was making no announcement - but would soon, eventually, maybe. And from wherever actor/politicians hang out, Fred Thompson is hinting at an announcement or possibly nonannouncement of his own.

It's approximately 10 months before anyone votes, and already it's gotten this strange. And we haven't even mentioned Tom Tancredo yet.

I went to see Tancredo open his New Hampshire office Monday. I'm almost as surprised as he is. There are at least two ways to look at the first-in-the-nation primary through the lens of a Tancredo campaign:

• Without the small-scale New Hampshire primary, a long-shot candidate like Tancredo would have no chance.

• Without the small-scale New Hampshire primary, a long-shot candidate like Tancredo would have no chance.

You see what I mean. But actually, Tancredo has no chance either way. As he was telling me, leaving a speech to social studies students at Merrimack Valley High School: "Put it this way: I know stranger things have happened, but, as I always say, I can't think of one. But you never know."

You do never know. As an example, this was the year the Democrats were determined to take on the outsize influence of Iowa and New Hampshire. They moved up the Nevada caucus. South Carolina was still in the early mix. Michigan was making noise about moving up. This was an attempt to bring diversity - i.e., voters who are not exclusively white - to the process.

But there's diversity, and then there's diversity. Suddenly, it looks like every state wants to move up, threatening to create a Feb. 5 Stupendous Tuesday - a New York to California semi-national primary that would force candidates to win here if they want to compete (for votes and money) anywhere else.

Which brings us back to Tancredo, the third-tier candidate, who will soon make his official announcement - but it won't be on Leno or Letterman - and who says he expects to have raised a million bucks by the end of the month, which is a lot, unless you're Obama and you do that in a single night.

You come to watch Tancredo do retail politics - kiss (nonanchor) babies and try to make headlines. In Sunday's Manchester Union-Leader, there's a photo of Tancredo in front of a Bank of America branch. The caption says he's leading a "small" protest against issuing credit cards to - surprise - illegal immigrants.

The momentum was such that when he cut the ribbon to open his New Hampshire office in Manchester, there were tens of staff and supporters on hand.

Interestingly, his office is in a building that was once a mill. It was built, I'm told, more than 100 years ago - and staffed, you'd guess, by the immigrants of that era. But that's another story. Down the hall is John McCain - the pro-mill candidate. Tancredo insisted there was no truth to the rumor that he was building a fence between their offices.

If it sounds like Tancredo was ebullient, he was. He called the office "nifty" and said he also has one in Iowa that's "neat."

He's optimistic because he has to be and because the front-runners have their own problems. Immigration is one of McCain's problems. The war is another. The pros, meanwhile, will tell you Rudy Giuliani has no chance. As one said to me: "There's no party as presently constituted that would nominate Giuliani."

You may have seen the video of Giuliani, in his gown, at the ball with Donald Trump. You may have heard he missed his son's high school graduation. You may know of the messy divorces. And then there's this video now making the rounds of Giuliani, back in 1989, saying the government should pay for abortions for poor women. How do you think that plays in a Republican primary?

Romney seems stalled. Gingrich is confessing to James Dobson. If someone emerges from the pack, why not Tancredo? OK, let's pretend that's not a rhetorical question.

Tancredo can cite precedent. One is Pat Buchanan's win in a crowded field in 1996. The other is Tancredo's win of his House seat in a 1998 primary field of five.

"This does remind me of my own primary when I won with 26 percent," he says. "All you have to do is well enough here and in Iowa and the momentum starts to build. And then you really don't know what might happen."

I watched him at the high school, talking to kids in an auditorium, a big Tancredo banner on the wall behind him. He took questions on Iraq, on gay marriage, on embryonic stem cells, on immigration.

Although none had heard of him before the speech, the questions were animated, and they were tough.

"We don't get many top-tier candidates here," said David Carle, a social studies teacher. "We're too small."

I talked to three students - all juniors - afterward.

One said she "disagreed with everything he said."

A second said he "agreed with everything he said."

I looked to the third - Trevor Goodwin - for the tie-breaker. He voted against.

Tancredo would have been thrilled. If my math is right, that is 33 percent.

And by the time the primary actually gets here, maybe some of them would even be old enough to vote.

littwinm@RockyMountainNews.com

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