Missing in Action?

Semprini says that despite having sunk nearly a million dollars and 41 days in the state, the Giuliani campaign never had high expectations for New Hampshire. "We knew there would be serious challenges here before the mayor even got into the race," he says. He's referring to the fact that Romney governed Massusetts, right next door, and maintains a vacation home in the Granite State—not to mention McCain, who won the New Hampshire primary in 2000 and has managed to maintain warm contacts across the state. "We recognized from the beginning that we would be swimming upstream with those two candidates," said Semprini.

Giuliani himself has said that he is banking on big states like Florida and California. New Hampshire and Iowa are not, he would argue, kingmakers after all. More like small potatoes.
After placing sixth in the Iowa caucuses, Giuliani told reporters in Bedford, N.H., that "this is the strategy that we selected pretty close to day one. No insult to Iowa at all, but we see this as a different kind of election, a different primary election."

Maybe, but that strategy is costing him with people like Kapetanakis. At the Derry town hall Monday night, Kapetanakis said he "[doesn't] like the fact that Giuliani is just going for the big-ticket states." It's a move, he believes, that proves "Giulani is trying to buy the election" by eschewing retail politics.

Paul Thorington, who also attended Monday night's town hall, echoes Kapetanakis's sentiments. "I think a lot of people here perceive that [Giuliani] is saving his energy for later down the line," says Thorington. "I can see how that would be a turn-off [for some voters]." Thorington, who had never seen Giuliani in person before Monday night and says he attended the town hall for the "celebrity factor," talked about the importance of retail politics in New Hampshire. He selected his own candidate of choice—John McCain—only after seeing him speak in person.

Even Kapetanakis, a Romney supporter, thinks Giuliani should have used McCain as his New Hampshire model. "I think Giuliani needed to act more like McCain and do a lot of town halls. He needed to meet more voters to win us over, and he didn't."

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