DUBLIN, N.H. – It may be the oddest matchup this election year.

In one corner is Judd Gregg, a two-term U.S. senator and former New Hampshire governor with a $1.6 million campaign war chest and Republican roots dating to the days when his father ran the state.

In the other is Doris “Granny D” Haddock, 94, a great-grandmother living on Social Security who gained national fame by walking 3,200 miles across the country to support campaign finance reform. Both are running for the U.S. Senate.

Haddock scheduled the formal announcement of her campaign Thursday in Concord.

Shoulders stooped, dressed in black and wearing her signature straw hat adorned with a wild turkey feather, Haddock promises – like the title of her book – to “raise a little hell” in her race against Gregg.

Gregg, she said, has become a neoconservative “and we need a change,” Haddock said Tuesday on the deck of her Dublin home. “I would like to challenge him to debate me in every single county in New Hampshire.”

“After the primary in September I’m sure we’ll be talking with Mrs. Haddock,” said Joel Maiola, a Gregg spokesman.

Haddock filed Friday, the day after state senator Burt Cohen, D-New Castle, abruptly quit the race after discovering a substantial amount of campaign funds were missing.

“They were looking for someone desperately to take Burt’s place and no one wanted to be the sacrificial lamb,” Haddock said. “I don’t want to be a sacrificial lamb. If I do it I will play to win,” Haddock recalled telling Kathy Sullivan, state Democratic Party chairwoman.

Haddock said she decided to enter public life because “you must know where your country stands.” She said health care, welfare and education are her primary concerns.

“We are being owned by the corporations and special interests,” Haddock said. “We pay enough taxes so that all of us should be taken care of and yet we the people are not being taken care of.”

Haddock said she doesn’t believe Gregg will make an issue of her age during the campaign.

“They say he is a gentleman and that he will respect my age,” she said.

Haddock is not the first elder New Englander to make an attempt at the U.S. Senate. In 1996, Fred Tuttle, a retired dairy farmer in Tunbridge, Vt., won his state’s GOP Senate primary as a protest candidate. He was 79 at the time. Tuttle lost the election to Democrat Patrick Leahy, whom he eventually endorsed. Tuttle died last October.

And Haddock is still younger than the oldest serving U.S. senator, Strom Thurmond, who died last year at 100.

So far, Haddock doesn’t have a cent against Gregg’s $1.6 million campaign fund. Her income consists of a $1,100 monthly Social Security check. An assistant, Blue Broxton, works for free and sleeps on the couch of Haddock’s book-filled living room.

“I will accept anything that is legal,” Haddock said.

But anything she gets is not likely to be large. According to her Web site, Haddock walked around the Capitol in Washington for a week during the debate on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill in 2001.

And the walking?

Haddock isn’t sure yet if it will be a part of the campaign.

“It depends on how much time I have. I would like to walk again. I’m not sure I have the time and the energy,” she said.

Haddock is pro-choice, favors gay marriage and wants the troops out of Iraq. Before filing her candidacy papers, she toured the country in a brightly painted camper peppered with slogans such as “Go Granny Go,” and “Vote Dammit.” Her Internet site shows photos of Haddock, 5-feet tall, signature hat on head, on her cross-country voter registration treks. One of them shows her feeding an alligator in Florida.

In 2000, Haddock said she voted for Ralph Nader – something she now regrets – and endorsed Dennis Kucinich during the 2004 primaries. She said she now backs John Kerry.