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"All of us here in New Hampshire are hoping beyond hope for some kind of surprise finish, some sort of Hillary Clinton comeback, a McCain-style redemption. But smart money says there&amp;#39;s no Cinderella story in the works. Mitt&amp;#39;s going to win this, by a significant margin. So the biggest questions left are whether Huntsman can catch Paul for second, and whether Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich will win the right to be the anti-Romney in next-up South Carolina. So why was New Hampshire (probably) such a bust this time around? I put the question to local guru Scott Spradling, who for 12 years was political director at local powerhouse WMUR-TV, the state&amp;#39;s only widely-viewed station. His answer? Romney figured out that by sealing himself off, he could simply wait out his opponents.\n\nGQ: So, the primary feels different this time around. Do you agree? \n\nScott Spradling: The reality is that this dynamic has been completely different. And the polls have told the story of Mitt being out in front all along, with very few moments where he&amp;#39;s been challenged in New Hampshire. Nationally is one thing, but the New Hampshire race has been very consistent.\n\nIt doesn&amp;#39;t mean that New Hampshire is in love with Romney the way they have been with John McCain. The relationship is very different. Obviously, he&amp;#39;s from Massachusetts, and he&amp;#39;s very familiar. But John McCain captured the hearts and minds. He did it in 2000 with the town hall meetings and the interpersonal communcations. It was a very personal experience. He was funny. It was the Straight Talk Express.\n\nGQ: What do you see as the key difference between the Romney and McCain approaches?\n\nScott Spradling: The Romney interactions from day one have been very different. They [the Romney campaign] were very successful in taking New Hampshire strategically out of the mix. Part of that strategy has been less access to the candidate. The events have not been the kind of grilling, one-on-one, tell-me-what-you-think kind of events. It&amp;#39;s not as intimiate as previous cycles have been. It&amp;#39;s just a change. And what it&amp;#39;s done is, it&amp;#39;s forced the other candidates to try to fill the void. To step up and make the meaningful connection with voters. And from all evidence, that just hasn&amp;#39;t happened.\n\nGQ: What about the rest of the field?\n\nScott Spradling: People have had momentary bursts, but nothing sustained. Newt had a bounce, but he never really came here after getting the Union Leader endorsement. Jon Huntsman never caught fire. Santorum has only been intresting to voters here over the last week. Rick Perry never made the connection. Ron Paul has absolutely made a connection\u2014but with a very defined group of people. His events don&amp;#39;t attract the tire-kickers, they attract the adoring supporters\u2014so it&amp;#39;s always a pep rally.\n\nGQ: Does that have implications for the role of the primary here in the future?\n\nScott Spradling: It just shows that each cycle is unique. Our role this time is to determine whether there will be an alternative to Mitt Romney. And it&amp;#39;s shaping up that the answer is no. He gets the credit for wearing everyone down. And I give him supreme credit for taking the most advantage of the time between 2008 and now. He never stopped running.\n\nThe other thing, too, is the campaign has been very disciplined. It&amp;#39;s not top-heavy. You can question the access, and you can get bored with the same speech you hear every stop, but that approach cuts the numbers of openings that let your opponents can use to expose your weaknesses.\n\nAnd if you think through it, you realize that this primary has been one dominated by debate performances, not stump speeches and retail politics. The challengers to Romney need to look in the mirror and ask themselves why they couldn&amp;#39;t break through. Because he&amp;#39;s been in front of them the whole time, and they didn&amp;#39;t take advantage of the opportunities to attack him. It seemed like they were just attacking each other instead."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/the-challengers-to-romney-need-to-look-in-the-mirror-a-gqa-with-scott-spradling-new-hampshire-politi>