For Romney, size of any NH victory may shape race (AP)

MANCHESTER, N.H. – While Mitt Romney is the overwhelming favorite to win the New Hampshire presidential primary, the size of his expected victory could help shape upcoming contests in South Carolina and Florida.

Romney's five opponents will try to shrug off a convincing victory as the expected outcome for a former Massachusetts governor who owns a vacation home here. But a narrow win in the nation's first presidential primary — or a surprisingly strong finish from one of his rivals — will be played up as more evidence that Republicans still have their doubts about Romney.

Those doubts were on display in Dixville Notch, the tiny New Hampshire village that traditionally votes at midnight. Romney and Jon Huntsman each received two of the six votes cast; Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul received a vote apiece.

The rest of New Hampshire voters go to the polls Tuesday after receiving months of attention from the Republican candidates and witnessing an increasingly sharp tone in the intraparty struggle for the nomination.

"If I am president of the United States, I will not forget New Hampshire," Romney said during a Monday night rally in Bedford, hinting at the impact of Tuesday's contest while surrounded on by his wife, children and grandchildren.

None of Romney's rivals has proved to be a consistent and credible threat to the former Massachusetts governor. The latest to emerge from the pack is Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who used a passion for social conservatism and a populist economic message to come within eight votes of Romney in Iowa's caucuses.

In New Hampshire, "second place would be a dream come true," Santorum said Monday as he raced through a campaign schedule that spanned more than 14 hours.

New Hampshire, which allows independents to vote in its primary, will help decide whether a candidate with Santorum's focus can appeal to a broader electorate, as would be required in a successful general election. On the other side, Huntsman is relying upon independents and moderate Republicans to fuel a late surge to relevancy.

A former ambassador to China in the Obama administration, Huntsman spent the last 48 hours trying to capitalize on a notable debate exchange with Romney. A relentless critic of President Barack Obama, Romney had criticized Huntsman for serving as an ambassador in the Obama administration. Huntsman countered that he had put his country ahead of partisan politics.

Huntsman, a former Utah governor, aired a new television ad highlighting his call for national unity and adopted a new campaign slogan, borrowing "Country First" from 2008 GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain.

Polls suggested Huntsman may be on the rise, but New Hampshire voters will decide if it it's too little, too late. Having skipped Iowa to focus on New Hampshire, he could be pushed out of the nomination race if he finishes below third place in the six-man field.

Huntsman told supporters packed into the Exeter Town Hall Monday night to remember one word as they head to the polls Tuesday: "Trust."

There are multiple wild cards, however, including Ron Paul, the 76-year-old Texas congressman who has worked for months to build a strong organization here and enjoys a passionate following. He is sometimes marginalized because of a quirky demeanor and unconventional foreign policy, but he has run a strong second to Romney in the New Hampshire polls for much of the year.

And there's former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who may have a tremendous impact on the contest even if he doesn't fare well personally. Picking up on Democratic criticism, Gingrich and his allies have fueled attacks on Romney's business career that intensified in recent days.

"Now we'll see if he has the broad shoulders and can stand the heat," said Gingrich, whose positive message in Iowa became distinctly negative following his disappointing finish there.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry joined the Romney bashing from South Carolina, where he's been planted for the last week.

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How a Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann fight would shape GOP race (Exclusive to Yahoo! News)

Now that former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman has announced his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination, the biggest question remaining is whether Texas Gov. Rick Perry will jump into the race.

If former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin opted in, watching her and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota tangle would be worth the price of admission. That bout is unlikely to materialize, but a Perry-Bachmann fight for supremacy among social conservatives and tea party Republicans would also be entertaining. Both have the potential to raise a lot of money, motivate armies of passionate conservatives, and run no-holds-barred campaigns aimed at the two-thirds of Republicans who prefer their politics unvarnished and undiluted. Even though Bachmann and Perry would be going after the same market, that hard-core space in the GOP is large enough to prolong the fight for a while.

The potential for Perry and Bachmann to suck all the conservative oxygen out of the campaign is great, and their rivals for the right side of the GOP bracket, such as businessman Herman Cain and former Sen. Rick Santorum, will have to fight for attention. Just as the battle between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008 left their nomination rivals gasping for air and attention, a Bachmann-Perry duel could have the same effect in the more conservative and larger of the two GOP tournament brackets. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson will have their own competition for the narrow but vocal libertarian faction of the party, and former Speaker Newt Gingrich will have to deal with the perception that he is running against himself—and losing.

That leaves former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and Huntsman battling over the smaller, less conservative bracket. Each is hoping that he can emerge as the non-fire-breathing conservative contender in the GOP nomination championship game. Each believes that the electability argument will work in his favor, that Republican voters will choose him as the one who can play the best game against President Obama.

Electability has not been the strongest argument for a candidate seeking a party's presidential nomination, but Republicans' antipathy toward Obama is so great that such a platform might work. A June 8-11 Gallup/USA Today poll found that among 851 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 50 percent said they preferred the type of candidate who would have the best chance of beating Obama; 44 percent would choose a candidate they agreed with on most issues. While the gap between the two options was not statistically significant, it was conservatives who preferred the more-electable candidate by 10 points, 52 percent to 42 percent; moderates and liberals preferred a nominee they agreed with by 8 points, 51 percent to 43 percent.

The obvious danger for Bachmann and Perry is that they might move too far to the right in trying to outflank each other. In that case, whoever wins the one-on-one game could realize only a Pyrrhic victory—unable to make a convincing case that he or she could attract enough moderate voters to defeat Obama. So the question for Bachmann and Perry may be less about how conservative they are and more about where they will end up after fighting it out among themselves.

All of this is purely theoretical, of course. During the 2008 election, one could have easily argued that the marathon battle between Clinton and Obama had the potential to force the victor too far to the left to win a general election. That obviously didn't happen. Perhaps that is because their fight wasn't about who was more liberal. Instead, it was more of a generational clash. Each projected a different vision, with the older Clinton representing a more conventional image and the younger Obama conveying a more inspirational style.

One way of thinking about the fight for the GOP nomination is that, in the end, Republican voters will have a roster of players from which to choose. They can pick an unadulterated conservative or someone who is more pragmatic and less hard-edged. It's an ideological distinction but also very stylistic. One type of Republican is like the golf fan behind the rope at the U.S. Open, politely clapping after a good shot. The other is like a Philadelphia Flyers hockey fan, screaming with eyeball veins on the verge of popping.

Although many Republicans remain less than enthusiastic about the field of candidates, it's still very early. As the campaign engages, the competition more fully develops, and the perceived value of the nomination rises, we might see the roughest, bare-knuckle fight for the GOP nomination in memory

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