NEWMARKET, N.H.(AP) – Sen. John Kerry, who won the 2004 New Hampshire primary, said Saturday he would have little choice but to go along if Democrats adopt a proposal that could reduce the state’s influence on presidential politics.

Kerry spoke as his party’s rules and bylaws committee endorsed allowing at least one more state to hold a caucus after the Iowa caucus and before the New Hampshire primary eight days later. Supporters argue that doing so would give minorities a bigger voice in the early voting since Iowa and New Hampshire are overwhelmingly white.

Kerry, who has not decided yet whether he will run for president again, said he supports Iowa and New Hampshire having the first caucus and primary respectively, but “if they want to put something in between, it’s fine with me.”

He said he would accept whatever the Democratic National Committee decides, but fears that adding too many early contests would make the schedule too jammed.

A Kerry aide said the senator has been working with New Hampshire Democrats “behind the scenes” to maintain the current calendar. And he had nothing but praise for the state’s tradition of testing candidates as he fondly recalled spending more than 100 days in the state before the 2004 primary.

“You were like family,” he said earlier at a fundraiser for state Sen. Martha Fuller Clark in Hampton. “You held up and held out your hopes and aspirations and we felt it. You gave money you didn’t have … you gave time away from your families.”

The debate among Democrats about a new primary calendar has not stopped potential 2008 candidates from either party from flocking to New Hampshire and Iowa. Fuller Clark said such visits bode well for New Hampshire’s future.

“They are making a statement by coming here that they understand the importance of the New Hampshire primary,” she said.

New Hampshire law requires the primary to be held at least a week before any “similar election,” and Secretary of State William Gardner has said he will do whatever necessary to preserve the tradition.

Though he admitted that the “juices started to flow” when he hit the New Hampshire campaign trail again, Kerry insisted his focus is on helping Democrats win state and federal elections in 2006. He told the crowd that improving health care, education and the job market won’t start in Washington but in their towns and cities.

“Don’t view this as somehow separate from the whole or separate from the goal of winning down the road,” he said.

Later in Nashua, Kerry won a standing ovation when he proclaimed, “I’ve always said this should be the first primary in the country,” without elaborating on whether caucuses other than Iowa should come first.

In a speech blasting the Bush administration, Kerry revived key points from his 2004 stump speech, complete with the same references to New Hampshire families: a disabled veteran struggling to make ends meet, a couple whose water was contaminated by MTBE and a woman who kept working during treatment for cancer in order to keep her health insurance.

He singled out the planned deal to allow a Dubai company to run six U.S. port terminals as the latest example of the administration’s reliance on secrecy, avoiding the law and “cluelessness at the top.”

“Neither the president nor the secretary of homeland security knew about the deal until after it went public,” he said. “If that sounds familiar, it should from an administration whose most important disaster management officials had to watch television to learn what was happening down in the Gulf Coast.”

Referring to former federal disaster chief Michael Brown, Kerry said:

“You know you have a problem when all of a sudden Brownie looks like the competent member of this administration.”

AP-ES-03-11-06 2105EST