For G.O.P., One Ticket Stands Out

The host is Ovide Lamontagne, an affable conservative lawyer and activist whom potential candidates are hustling to befriend this spring as their visits to New Hampshire multiply. Mr. Lamontagne and his wife, Bettie, are obliging by throwing house parties for any serious candidate who asks.

While house parties are hardly a new concept in New Hampshire — dozens will be held between now and next year’s primary, tentatively scheduled for Feb. 14 — it is rare for one host to stand out as a potential kingmaker. But every Republican weighing a run seems eager to meet and greet in Mr. Lamontagne’s childhood home here, both to schmooze with him and to build the grass-roots support that primary candidates cannot survive without.

“This whole program of house parties that he’s doing is unique,” said Harold Turner, a local businessman who has attended all three of Mr. Lamontagne’s parties so far. “Ovide has said publicly that he fully intends at the end of the process to endorse a candidate, and that will be a pretty significant thing to get.”

So far, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Herman Cain, the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, have trekked to the Lamontagne home here, with a wide porch, an American flag and a lone birch tree out front. Rudolph W. Giuliani and Newt Gingrich are next in line, with parties scheduled for May (Mr. Giuliani requested one when he met the Lamontagnes on a visit here last month, Mr. Lamontagne said).

On Friday, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts were scheduled to join Mr. Pawlenty, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Cain at a dinner here honoring Mr. Lamontagne as “conservative of the year.”

Unlike house parties in fancier homes, people do not venture to Mr. Lamontagne’s, on Manchester’s modest east side, out of nosiness, said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party. The house sits amid triple-deckers and other sturdy New England stock. During the party for Mr. Cain, one neighbor hosed down a fish tank in her driveway; others lounged on their porch in shorts.

“This isn’t the big house up on Lake Winnipesaukee that everyone’s always wanted to get inside,” Mr. Cullen said.

Mr. Lamontagne (his full name is pronounced OH-vid Luh-MAHN-tane) emerged as a power player after narrowly losing last year’s Republican Senate primary to Kelly Ayotte, the establishment candidate who went on to win in November. His surprisingly close finish energized conservatives, and his immediate offering of support for Ms. Ayotte after his defeat burnished his image as a principled party leader.

Now Mr. Lamontagne enlists relatives and volunteers from his Senate campaign to help move furniture to the basement before each party; at the one for Mr. Cain, all that remained were two sofas, a piano and a grandfather clock. A velvet rope deterred potential snoopers from climbing the stairs to the second floor.

Bettie Lamontagne, her strappy sandals and black shirt a chic contrast to the sensible shoes and patriotic ties of some guests, had set out cheese and crackers, cocktail franks and garlic hummus that she cheerfully admitted were not homemade.

“A membership at B. J.’s is the key,” she said, referring to the wholesale club.

Mike Castaldo, a Republican activist from Dover, said snacking was “something of a liability” at Mr. Lamontagne’s parties because with a mouthful of cheddar, guests might miss the chance to chat with a presidential aspirant.

Mr. Pawlenty, who needed a microphone to address the 200 guests crammed into Mr. Lamontagne’s living, dining and family rooms one night last month, said Mr. Lamontagne was “offering grass-roots engagement at its best.”

Mr. Lamontagne, 53, may run for governor next year, but for now he has formed a political action committee, partly to finance the house parties, which are free.

“I just think it’s important to get involved in this process,” he said recently. “We’ve got to get a new president elected, and I’ve got to do what I can as a citizen to get the most conservative candidate elected.”

Mr. Cain, who drew about 70 people to the house on Wednesday, spoke for about 20 minutes and lingered until the last guests departed.

“You saw this crowd,” he said afterward, resting on Mr. Lamontagne’s leather couch. “I mean, I was thrilled! Maybe they leave remembering a few of my catchphrases.”

Mr. Santorum joked in an interview that it was both an honor and a curse to have been the speaker at Mr. Lamontagne’s first house party, on a snowy night in January. More than 150 people braved bad weather to attend, he said, but the crowd was so unexpectedly large that many could not hear his speech.

“I was a little bit of the guinea pig,” he recalled.

By the time Mr. Pawlenty’s turn came around, Mr. Lamontagne had acquired a small sound system for the guests packed in “near-sardine conditions,” to use Mr. Pawlenty’s phrase, throughout the house.

Mr. Pawlenty said his only regret was eating too many meatballs that night, which he blamed for his poor performance playing ice hockey the next day in Concord.

The candidates leave Mr. Lamontagne’s house with e-mail addresses for all of the guests — a critical tool for the network-building they will do over the summer and fall. The guests, meanwhile, get nuggets about the candidates that they might not learn at larger events. Mr. Cain, for example, revealed that he despised the nickname Herm.

Mr. Lamontagne said he expected the parties to continue into the fall, with a break in July and August because his house gets too warm. Mr. Romney wants to come, he said, as does Representative Ron Paul of Texas. He endorsed Mr. Romney in 2008, but in staying neutral for now, he is guaranteeing that his parties stay red-hot and that his own name does the same.

“It’s a smart strategy on his part,” said Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, pointing to Mr. Lamontagne’s possible run for governor in 2012. “I’m sure he’ll drag it out as long as he can.”

Donald J. Trump has yet to reach out, but Jorge Mesa-Tejada, a friend of Mr. Lamontagne’s, joked that Mr. Trump’s main goal in visiting New Hampshire this week was to get on Mr. Lamontagne’s radar screen.

“Trump probably came up here just to try to get an invitation,” he said.