POLLS AND MORE POLLS. As we head into the final six weeks of the national and state campaigns, what's expected to be a flurry of New Hampshire polling gets started today with numbers from the American Research Group. Expect new polls from the University of New Hampshire and WMUR early next week.

ARG's new poll, to be officially released today, shows the presidential race in New Hampshire in a dead heat; Jeanne Shaheen with a substantial, but not insurmountable, lead over John Sununu; and John Lynch is, not surprisingly, far out in front of Joe Kenney.

OBAMA-McCAIN. The battle for swing state New Hampshire's four electoral votes has been a statistical tie since mid-summer, and that continues.

ARG has John McCain leading Barack Obama, 48 to 45 percent with 6 percent undecided. The poll of 600 likely voters was taken Sept. 13 to 15 and has a margin of error of 4 percent.

ARG's mid-August poll had Obama up, 46 to 45 percent, and its mid-July poll had Obama ahead, 47 to 45 percent.

The two candidates are dead even among independents at 45 percent each, with 2 percent preferring another candidate and 8 percent undecided. McCain leads among Republicans, 85 to 11 percent, while Obama leads among Democrats, 82 to 12 percent.

Men prefer McCain 58 to 36 percent while women prefer Obama, 54 to 38 percent. Obama leads among younger votes while McCain leads among older votes.

SHAHEEN'S LEAD. Democrat Shaheen has consistently led Republican Sununu in ARG's polls this year. She also has led in Rasmussen Reports polls, although a UNH poll in July had the race in a statistical dead heat. It will be interesting to see what UNH reports next week.

But in the first independent poll of this important race in nearly a month, ARG has Shaheen leading Sununu 52 to 40 percent with 8 percent undecided.

In August, ARG had Shaheen ahead, 52 to 41 percent and Rasmussen Reports had her ahead, 50 to 41 percent.

ARG's Dick Bennett's polling sample of 600 comprises 42 percent self-described independents, 30 percent Republicans and 28 percent Democrats. The state registration breakdown, according to the latest figures from the Secretary of State's Office, is 38.5 percent independent, 31 percent Republican and 30.5 percent Democratic.

Bennett said those surveyed are screened twice to be sure they are likely voters. He said that before being interviewed, they're asked, on a scale of one to 10, how likely they are to vote. Only those who respond in the seven to 10 range are interviewed, he said.

After the interview, Bennett said, participants are asked again if they are definitely going to vote, and only those who respond in the affirmative are used.

ARG's poll finds that Shaheen maintains a big lead over Sununu among independents, 59 to 35 percent, with 6 percent undecided. Democrats prefer Shaheen, 82 to 6 percent with 12 percent undecided, while Republicans prefer Sununu, 80 to 13 percent with 7 percent undecided.

Bennett said many of the independents supporting McCain then appear to move Shaheen, instead of Sununu. Bennett says the movement shows that they believe McCain is a maverick but don't yet buy Sununu's argument that he has been independent of the White House.

It also shows, he said, that the "George Bush clone" drumbeat used by the Democrats against all Republicans is sticking to Sununu but not McCain.

"If Sununu captured the same number of independents that McCain has, the race would be almost tied," Bennett said. "Sununu may have stood against the Republican Party a few times, but he still isn't known as someone who pokes George Bush and the Republican Party in the eye."

But Bennett said the Senate race is far from over. He said that given the volatility of the political climate, "21 percentage points could shift around very easily."

NO SURPRISE HERE. ARG's poll has Democratic Gov. Lynch leading his Republican challenger, Kenney, 62 to 31 percent.

Lynch received the support of 94 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of independents, while Kenney led among Republicans, 64 to 27 percent.

THE WALL STREET PLAY. Will New Hampshire have political winners and losers as the Wall Street crisis continues?

After Sununu said his piece on Tuesday, Shaheen held a conference call yesterday with Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and said "John Sununu and his allies" have brought on the crisis by backing lax -- if not a lack of -- regulation of the financial industry.

"He has sat back while the administration has gutted oversight of lending practices on Wall Street," Shaheen said. "One of the root causes of the crisis has been what's happened with regulation of our financial institutions and also the deterioration of regulation in our mortgage market. John Sununu has sat on the Senate Banking Committee for five years while the crisis was developing and took no action."

Shaheen called for disclosure requirements for all financial institutions, an end to "our patchwork system of overlapping and competing oversight, and regulation of financial institutions based on the products and services they offer.

"If investment banks are in the mortgage loan business, they should be subject to the same regulation as anyone else in that business," Shaheen said.

Shaheen said voters should ask themselves, "Are the people who got us into this mess really going to be able to get us out?"

Sununu countered in an interview that Shaheen "has no idea what she's talking about" because he has supported stricter oversight of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the insurance industry since his first year in the Senate.

He said he wrote legislation five years ago to strengthen regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but the bill never made it to the Senate floor because Democrats, led by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, opposed it and would have filibustered it.

He said he also backed reform of credit rating regulations.

"My record goes back at least five years of leading efforts to try to address the risks to the financial system," Sununu said.

WHO WILL TAKE THE HEAT? UNH pollster and political science professor Andrew Smith said the party in control of the White House historically is blamed for economic downturns, but with both sides pointing fingers, "We'll see who's more skillful at it. The fact is there is enough blame to go around for anything that goes on in Washington."

Bennett said the crisis is actually "a tremendous opportunity for any of the candidates to articulate what exactly is going on and say, 'This is what we should be doing.'"

"Who will make the voters feel better about what's going on?" he asked. "That's the question."

THE RON PAUL LETTER. Libertarian-leaning Republican Congressman Ron Paul isn't endorsing Sununu but "had some nice things to say about him," says Sununu spokesman Julie Teer.

The Sununu campaign in the past few days sent a campaign recruitment letter to thousands of New Hampshire Ron Paul supporters as it tries to "work for every vote we can get," Teer said. Presumably, the campaign worked from the former presidential candidate's first-in-the-nation primary voter list.

Topping the letter is a quote from Paul that was requested by the Sununu campaign, said Teer. Paul says Sununu "shares my commitment to freedom; to let Americans keep more of their own money, to protect our privacy and stop a national ID card and to secure our borders and end illegal immigration."

"John has led the fight to protect the Internet from taxes and regulation, and has been a steadfast supporter of Second Amendment rights," Paul writes.

Sununu then writes that he knows, "as you do, that freedom and liberty have a great friend in Congressman Paul." He discusses his record of supporting low taxes, civil liberties and privacy and opposing "amnesty for illegal aliens."

"Won't you please get involved in our campaign?" Sununu asks, noting the enclosure of a postage-paid volunteer reply card.

NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. The local chambers of commerce of greater Manchester and greater Nashua have told their members the organizations have had nothing to do with a television advertisement critical of Shaheen paid for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The ad, which has been airing for several weeks, calls the former governor a "taxing machine" and says she signed the statewide property tax into law, proposed a sales tax and raised taxes on "skiing, movies, fishing and phone bills."

"I want you to know that we have not been involved with the U.S. Chamber ad in any way; nor will we engage with similar campaigns in the future," GMCC President and CEO Robin Comstock wrote in a recent e-mail to members.

She wrote that she was responding to "numerous inquiries" about the Manchester chamber's relationship to the U.S. chamber as a result of the ad.

Comstock wrote that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a "national business advocacy organization that regularly lobbies on issues they determine to affect the national business community" and often endorses candidates.

The Manchester chamber, she wrote, is a "non-partisan business advocacy organization" that "serves a very different role and has objectives and strategic goals centered on the needs and interest of the local business community."

"We do not, nor have we ever, endorsed a particular candidate in any political campaign," and, "I do not see that practice changing in the future," Comstock wrote.

Comstock wrote that the Manchester chamber is "not a division, department, or associate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on any level. We are totally independent from them and their program of work; and we are totally removed from their lobbyist and other PAC related efforts."

She said that neither she nor anyone from the chamber office was briefed on the ad "or contributed to its development in any way."

Comstock said she had about "80 or 100 contacts" about the ad and felt a need to issue the clarification.

An e-mail with similar language was sent by Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce chief Chris Williams to that group's members on Tuesday.

A PRIVATE PHONE-JAM MEETING. When we last left the nearly 6-year-old New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal, a Democrat-led U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee had subpoenaed the Bush administration's Justice Department for information "relating to the approval, scope and timing" of the federal probe of the GOP operation that jammed the get-out-the-vote phones at Democratic and firefighters union offices on election day, 2002.

The subcommittee is probing whether the Justice Department, for political reasons, stalled a criminal prosecution of former national GOP official James Tobin until after the 2004 election.

The subpoena was issued in June, and last week, the department responded.

In a letter to committee chair Rep. John Conyers, the agency offered to "accommodate your interests in discrete questions relating to the New Hampshire Phone Jamming matter" during a private briefing with committee staff "in the next several weeks."

"The briefing will respond to your information needs about the timing of the Tobin indictment, the decision not to indict the New Hampshire Republican party, and the decision to intervene in the (related) state civil case; it will likely include access to certain germane documents."

Former state Democratic Chair Kathy Sullivan called department's offer "not satisfactory" from where she sits.

She called on Sununu to "step up to the plate and demand that the Justice Department provide this information publicly, not in secret, and that it be done before the election."

The phones were jammed during the first Sununu-Shaheen election in 2002.

MARCHAND ON THE MOVE. Democratic activist former Portsmouth mayor Steve Marchand and Concord City Councilor Rob Werner have started a new PAC.

"Granite PAC" is dedicated to "building a sustainable, governable, Democratic majority," but some in the party wonder if it's really a forerunner to a Marchand campaign for statewide office (U.S. Senate again, maybe?) in 2010.

Some Democrats also note the irony that PAC treasurer Werner is national field director for John Rauh's "Just $6" nationwide campaign finance reform group.

Marchand introduced Granite PAC in an e-mail yesterday to Democrats throughout the state. He also asks for contributions toward a fundraising goal of $25,000 in the next few months.

THEIR FIRST DEBATE. Second District U.S. House hopefuls Paul Hodes, the incumbent, and Jennifer Horn, the challenger, will debate for the first time on Monday at New England College's Simon Center in an event sponsored by AARP New Hampshire.

AARP says the debate will focus on health care and "improving lifetime financial security."

QUICK TAKES:

-- The New Hampshire Advantage Coalition is planning a big fundraising event. As the attorney general continues to investigate a Democratic complaint that NHAC broke state election law by engaging in partisan political activity after filing with the IRS as a nonprofit issues advocacy group, NHAC will hold a "Defending the New Hampshire Advantage" event at the Derryfield Country Club in Manchester on Oct. 24.

"Best" and "worst" awards will be given to politicians who worked to preserve or erode the state's low-tax structure. Tickets are $25.

-- Mike Huckabee continues to be involved in New Hampshire politics. Yesterday he endorsed District 3 GOP Executive Council candidate Russell Prescott. Today, he'll endorse congressional candidate Jeb Bradley and feature both on his "HuckPAC" Web site. During the primary, he endorsed unsuccessful congressional hopeful Bob Clegg.

The campaigns of all three are (and were) being handled by Huckabee's state campaign manager during the presidential primary, consultant Deb Vander Beek.

-- Shaheen today will campaign with International Association of Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger at fire stations in Manchester and Hampton.

-- GOP strategist Brett Bosse has been hired as campaign manager for District 7 state Senate candidate Andy Sanborn, who is challenging Democratic incumbent Harold Janeway.

John DiStaso is senior political reporter of the New Hampshire Union Leader.