Ron Paul vs. Rudy Giuliani: The battle for 4th place in New Hampshire

Your right I don't like it, and your not going to like mine. We should not try and see if we can get 4th or 5th just so some of the; well lets just say more sensitive types might not get their feelings hurt if we don't do better.

We should expect an absolute win and nothing less! If you talk to most successful people in life, business, or whatever they will tell you losing was not an option. What you don't hear though is about all the set backs they had until they did win.

We must cultivate a mindset of absolute victory in every race and accept nothing less. It's the old cliche; if you believe you can't your right and if you believe you can your right also.

Any set back is viewed as a another step closer to winning the nomination using what we learn and redoubling our efforts.

Enough of this defeatist crap and trying to disguise it as realism. Realism is setting a goal and accomplishing it despite the setbacks and the opposition and sucking it up and moving on, it's not lowering the goal anytime something doesn't go as planned that's defeatism!

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If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin. Samuel Adams

You're being realistic, but if we're being realistic then here's the whole deal:

The media will pay almost no attention to the 4th and 5th place finishers. They have room for 2 narratives coming out of the NH Republican primary: 1) McCain becomes the man to beat, and 2) Huckabee has a strong showing. That storyline sets up a McCain-Huck showdown in MI and SC. Believe me, they're already writing the stories.

The only way the post-primary narrative changes is if Paul unexpectedly take third over Huck or Romney. It is make or break time in NH.

Anyone know anybody in Dixville Notch? Maybe we could have a few volunteers drive out there and do some canvassing for Dr. Paul. They declare their results just after midnight and if he can garner some support their undecideds may take notice and decide at the last second to vote for him. Plus these results are the first read nationally out of New Hampshire so that would be good exposure that night and the day of the primary if he could get the most votes.

He did very well also with Independents.

Any thoughts?

"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always"
Gandhi

Huckabee goes nowhere in NH. 60% of iowa republicans are evangelical christians. No worry about that here. He gets no "bump" Huckster is lucky to finish 4th there.

NH is an independent state, Paul won the Independent vote in Iowa.

McCain may win, and that just hurts Romney. However this plays out, Paul will be in the top three. That would mean he topped Guiliani, and Huckabee. Good stuff

I agree about going in with realistic (I won't say 'low') expectations. The most positive scenario we need to expect will be a continual growth of Ron's numbers over the duration of the primary. This is completely doable and will result in the majority of the supporters being very pleasantly surprised. I'm very happy with the Iowa results, and as a relative of mine told me... as a lifelong Libertarian, he's used to having his candidates lose, but at least he can't be blamed for voting his conscience.

like this. McCain and Romney will take nearly 60% of the NH vote. That leaves 40 for the Doc, guiliani, thompson, Huckabee, and Hunter. Polling shows that Thompson and Hunter will likely take no more than 5% of that...Iowa did nothing to change that. That leaves 35 for Paul, Guiliani, and Huckabee. The latter will get a boost coming out of Iowa, but likely not a big one. This just is not his state. Guiliani will likely hang around the 10% threshhold. That leaves Huckabee and Paul fighting over 25% of the vote. I think that will be an almost epic struggle for third place.

I don't want to sound like a downer (sp?), but anything less than third place is going to be tough to overcome. This is probably the most libertarian state in union, we have to beat Guiliani, Thompson AND Huckabee. If we don't, we begin to run out of places to have a breakout performance. I will catch flack for this, I'm sure, but I think we need to go negative on McCain in New Hampshire. He's propelled himself into the lead in a couple of polls on the strength of the indy vote. We need that vote! If Independents go overwhelmingly for he and Obama we are going to be in a tough position, I'm afraid.

That being said, third place is more than doable!!! We are in statistical tie for it in the polls, just have to keep working for it...and a good debate performance tomorrow would be helpful!

I think Huckabe will have no momentum in NH because they are mostly libertarians or independents. The republicans there, for the most part, are not evangelicals. Even though 60% of republican Iowans are evangelical, Huckabee only managed half that, which is pretty sad. I think Huckabee will bomb in NH.

That being said, it will probably be a race between Giuliani and Paul for 3rd place. If Giuliani bombs again, then you might even see Paul compete for second against Romney, who many in the dinosaur media are already starting to write off because of his poor showing in Iowa for the amount of money he spent. I'd say 4th is probably the lowest for RP, second is the highest, and by God I think its possible we may even see a miracle, but I'm not gonna go there now.

By the way, NH loves mavericks, especially of the RP type, so I think anything is possible in this one.

You say John McCain will win NH. Know why he won NH in 2000? Because their only other choices were Bush and Keyes. Now that McCain has attached himself to unpopular stances on the two major issues (the war and illegal immigration) and his maverick-ism is really puffed up in my opinion.
Romney might do well because of the geographical proximity of Mass to NH, but that's it.
And Huckabee placing well in NH is a stretch, as the winner of Iowa rarely goes on to do well in NH as well.
Giuliani, Thompson, and Hunter are zero-factors.

My predictions for NH (perfectly realistic):

1. Ron Paul
2. John McCain
3. Mitt Romney

"Never forget that there was only one freedom on which this country was founded, and that was freedom from government."

but I don't remember you. You have your opinion, and you are entitled to it. However, I would have to disagree with you on NH. I actually believe RP will place 1st or 2nd, no less than 3rd. I guess we'll see on Tuesday...take care and lets shoot for the stars in NH..:-)

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. James Madison