Comparing Mitt Romney's campaign machine to those of his rivals for the Republican nomination is a bit like comparing the majors to the minors, Las Vegas to Reno.
From the TV ads, lawn signs and "mailers" touting big-name endorsements, to the sticker slapped over the masthead of the New Hampshire Sunday News, a New Hampshire voter would have to be in hibernation not to know Mr. Romney is running for president.
None of the other candidates has been able to match the Romney campaign's coverage or sophistication. Only Mr. Romney seems prepared to take on Barack Obama, who promises to assemble an even more daunting election machine than he did in 2008.
The question facing Mr. Romney in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary is whether his slick operation will yield him a significantly higher percentage of support than he won in 2008, when he finished five points behind John McCain here with 32 per cent of the vote.
"New Hampshire voters have had an inordinate amount of time to get to know Mitt Romney" noted University of New Hampshire political science professor Dante Scala. "But his campaign has not been about momentum. It's been about maintenance."
While Mr. Romney faces near certain odds of placing first among the 30 candidates on the GOP ballot in New Hampshire, his biggest challenge will be cracking the 40-per-cent support barrier. He remained above that level for weeks until slipping below it in final polling.
A result in the mid-thirties would be a blow for the former Massachusetts governor and add fuel to the debate about his ability to rally the GOP base in a general election.
Combined with the Iowa caucuses and South Carolina primary on Jan. 21, New Hampshire will help winnow the field for the GOP nomination in advance of the delegate-rich Super Tuesday primaries in early March.
The same newspaper whose Sunday edition came adorned with a Romney sticker had a front page editorial reiterating its endorsement of ex-House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich. It called Mr. Romney the "worst" candidate to go up against Mr. Obama.
Still, Mr. Romney's main competition in New Hampshire is not Mr. Gingrich, who is polling in the single digits, but Ron Paul, the libertarian Texas congressman. Mr. Paul was at 20 per cent in Sunday's Suffolk University tracking poll.
The nature of the New Hampshire electorate has allowed Mr. Romney to hew more closely to his likely campaign themes in a general election. Social conservatives will make up only one-fifth of the 250,000 voters expected to take part in Tuesday's primary. They made up more than half of the 125,000 who voted in last week's Iowa caucuses.
That was reflected in the tone of the weekend debates here, in which even Rick Santorum sounded less strident in his opposition to gay rights and abortion than during his final push in Iowa.
Asked in Sunday's debate how he would react if one of his sons announced he was gay, Mr. Santorum said: "I would love him as much as I did the second before he said it."
Still, Mr. Santorum's stand on gay marriage is a tougher sell in New Hampshire, where same-sex marriage is legal and even Republican voters seem reluctant to reopen the issue. Mr. Santorum favours a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and would nullify same-sex unions that have already taken place.
Mr. Romney also supports a constitutional ban, but would not seek to undo gay marriages that had already been sanctioned.
"If people are looking for someone who will discriminate against gays or will in any way try and suggest that people who have different sexual orientation don't have full rights in this country, they won't find that in me," Mr. Romney said, touting his appointments of openly gay people to his cabinet and the Massachusetts bench when he was governor.
In New Hampshire, Mr. Romney has competition for the centre. Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman has made an open play for moderate Republicans and independent voters here.
"The American people are tired of the partisan division," Mr. Huntsman said in Sunday's debate, echoing Mr. Obama in 2008. "We have to change our direction in terms of coming together as Americans first and foremost."
Mr. Santorum's events here have drawn overflow crowds. But some who came said they were simply curious about the ex-Pennsylvania senator, a virtual unknown here until he tied Mr. Romney for first place in Iowa.
"Just checking it out," offered John Loikow, a 63-year-old retired Peace Corps worker who attended a Santorum town hall meeting in Manchester, but who seemed cool to the candidate's focus on social issues. "The biggest thing confronting the country is the economy. Frankly, everything else is window dressing."
Mr. Romney has dressed the windows, airwaves, lawns, newspapers and just about every other square inch of the Granite State. He needs a big win on Tuesday.
Konrad Yakabuski