"I thought he was niiiiiice," purrs a girl, one of the few filling out a card.

"Oh yeah, he was nice," says a guy with her.

"He was pretty," the girl says.

"Oh yeah," the guy agrees, "I had no idea he was that pretty."

VI.

It's cold outside. Soon it will start snowing and candidates will slosh through the New Hampshire winter scrounging for votes. If McCarthy is there, will they think him crazy again? For the same reasons?

A beat-up Fiat parked in fron the Signet Society is covered with McCarthy "daisy" stickers. The stickers were designed by a Los Angeles campaign staffer in 1968 and appeared a few weeks before the California primary. They are flower shaped, five or six inches in diameter, with a blue and white "McCarthy" in the center.

Of all the bumper stickers in the 1968 elections the McCarthy daisies have had the most staying power, Even now they can be seen--dirty and peeling at the edges--on car bumpers, worn as some sort of badge or tribute.

But the daisies on the Fiat are new, Clean. With fresh air bubbles, Although the candidate has lost his child crusaders and his legion of reporters and some of his financers and a lot of his liberals, he still has a few believers covering their cars with his daisies. But while it may be nostalgic, it's not enough. The ranks of his faithful have been depleted. Most would rather live in the present.