In New Hampshire, the GOP Race Gets Tighter

Advisers say Romney will continue to stress that he is "not a Washington creature" and to talk about his experience in the private sector -- qualities they say appeal to Republicans here as well as to the 40 percent of New Hampshire voters who do not declare a party preference but are allowed to vote in either primary.

In other words, the very voters that Giuliani is aiming to win over.

"The people of New Hampshire tend to be very independent, and they make their own decisions," Giuliani told reporters in Manchester last week. "All we can do is continue to campaign here and try to get our message out here and hope we do really well."

Roger Bissonnette, 54, a retired contractor from Manchester, is an undecided Republican.

"I like John McCain," he said at breakfast at the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester on Wednesday. Citing McCain's determination to finish the job in Iraq, Bissonnette said, "I think he deserves a shot at it."

But he quickly added: "I like Rudy, too. Rudy would be a good choice, too. It's a tossup. What he did in New York after 9/11 . . . showed real leadership."

Bissonnette is the type of voter McCain is hoping to woo away from the front-runners as he prays for a shocking victory that will resuscitate his struggling campaign.

McCain's advisers acknowledge that it is here -- the scene of his upset victory over George W. Bush seven years ago -- that he must make a dramatic statement. In 2000, aides note, he raised more than $2 million the day after winning the New Hampshire primary.

Said an aide for one current rival: "McCain is absolutely formidable. This guy won this primary. He has the blueprint for success."

McCain's challenge is to again attract the independents who flocked to him in 2000. Surveys show that those voters overwhelmingly oppose the war in Iraq, a position at odds with McCain's insistence that the war continue.

The only Republican candidate in agreement with those independents is Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.), whose long-shot campaign now has $5 million in the bank. His libertarian philosophy is a good fit for some in New Hampshire who take the state's motto to heart. The Free State Project, a group whose aim is to attract 20,000 "liberty-loving" people to move to the state, features Paul prominently on its Web site.

In the latest poll by the University of New Hampshire, Paul earned 4 percent of support, behind former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), who has since said he will not be a presidential candidate in 2008.

Still, advisers to all the presidential campaigns say they do not quite know what to expect when primary day arrives.

"There's no manual written for what we are doing," said Brent Seaborn, strategy director for the Giuliani campaign, which has assembled a team of a dozen operatives in New Hampshire and has been aggressively targeting likely voters with fliers. "You can't rip a page out of a strategy book."

Staff writer Perry Bacon Jr. and washingtonpost.com staff writer Ed O'Keefe contributed to this report.