Team Perry buscará el knockout en NH

RealClearPolitics:

He has surged into the lead in Iowa and is way out in front of the pack in South Carolina, but Rick Perry's standing in New Hampshire, the second of the three earliest voting states, is far more tenuous.

Still, the Texas governor's aides say they are determined to play hard here, in an effort to project national strength and effectively end the Republican nominating fight just as it is beginning. And there are some early signs that Mitt Romney should check his rearview mirror carefully the next time the current New Hampshire front-runner rolls into the state.

“I’ve worked on campaigns before where there has been a strategy to focus on Iowa and South Carolina, which has never been a successful strategy,” said Perry’s New Hampshire strategist, Paul Young. “There’s no sense of that here on this campaign. I expect him to be back in New Hampshire as frequently as possible.”

Perry has already spent five days in the Granite State since declaring his candidacy last month, and his staff is expanding quickly as they play catch-up on such basic administrative tasks as ordering furniture and phones for a Manchester campaign headquarters that will soon open for business.

(...) “They are putting together a very strong operation, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a dead heat when the next poll comes out,” state GOP operative Mike Dennehy said.

With longtime New Hampshire resident Dave Carney calling the shots as Perry’s chief national strategist, the Texan has an especially prominent window into the Granite State. And the urge to compete vigorously in the terrain he knows best might be difficult for Carney to resist.

(...) “It’s great having the top national strategist be from New Hampshire because in many ways we’re simpatico in our thinking, so you don’t have that traditional angst between national and local that you usually have in campaigns,” strategist Young said. “Obviously he has an interest level in New Hampshire that he may not have in other states, and I think it’s been great so far.”

Patrick Griffin (New Hampshire Institute of Politics senior fellow) said that even a close second-place New Hampshire finish by Perry -- on the heels of a victory in the Iowa caucuses -- might be enough to catapult the three-term governor on an inevitable arc to the nomination via likely wins in South Carolina and a subsequent glut of Southern-state primaries.