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By Soren Dayton Posted in 2008 | New Hampshire | Rudy Giuliani — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

From 2008-01, NH

Last night I went to a Rudy Giuliani townhall in Hooksett, NH. AP coverage here. One undecided voter who I talked to was trying to decide between Rudy and Mike Huckabee. That voter is a self-identified evangelical Christian, and explained that that was why he was leaning Huckabee. But he also had worries about whether or not Huckabee was a serious candidate and thought that Rudy is electable and a real leader. There were also a lot of cops who talked about how hard it is to clean up a city in the context of the kind of corruption and organized crime that Rudy faced.

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Like the McCain event I attended the night before, the room was packed, although Rudy's advance team seemed to set it up so that the room was smaller, and the packed room had, maybe, half the people McCain did. (but McCain is the buzz in NH) The composition of the crowd was different too. Rudy's was younger. There were more Democrats, while McCain had more Independents.

Frankly, I didn't detect much of a focused message, just a series of principles. Rudy repeatedly referred to his 12 commitments and his leadership.

In the Q&A period, the first question was by a front-row participant who was extremely well-informed and on-message with a question about Rudy's Afghanistan speech from earlier in the day. Something to the effect of whether we were dealing with law enforcement or not and whether the goal was to stop al Qaeda or destroy it. The answers were predictable.

Another voter, an older woman, said that she was trying to decide between him and McCain. Rudy said that he had succeeded at the 2nd or 3rd hardest job in the country and had executive experience. He did, however, make sure to stay very positive.

Not to focus too much on strategy here, but I think that Rudy is here because he wants to come in 3rd. He needs that to continue the argument that he is a top-tier candidate, assuming a fourth or lower result in Iowa tonight. Like in Iowa, coming behind Ron Paul or other candidates could hurt. And, like Iowa, New Hampshire is really a two-person race between Mitt Romney and McCain.