Crystal Ball: Why We Think Rudy Giuliani Will End Up Being Pure Poison For New Hampshire's First-In-The-Nation

Everyone knows that we play favorites on this blog.

And everyone knows that Rudy Giuliani rubs us the wrong way for a variety of reasons.

No news there.

But biased though we are, we know a thing or two about New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary. Just as we know a little something about the candidates who are competing in it.

And for 9 months we've been flabbergasted by Team Rudy's February 5th strategy. We think it's bunk. And we've said so. Repeatedly.

And for 9 months we've argued that the big loser in all this (besides Hiz Honor) will be New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary.

Why?

Because the day after the New Hampshire Primary, when Mitt Romney or John McCain is celebrating their hard fought victory, Team Rudy is going to slink onto the cable talk shows and kick the everlasting snot out of the "significance" of a first-in-the-nation win.

They're going to have to.

Of course, what Rudy's people say the day after the primary will have absolutely no chance of slowing Romney or McCain's momentum out of New Hampshire, hence our disregard of a February 5th strategy.

But what Team Rudy's highly polished and well delivered negative comments will do is sit and wait for that time after the 2008 election when decisions are going to be made about how to clean up the primary process moving forward, and then the derogatory remarks will be everywhere.

Carl Levin and company will see to that.

Can't anyone else hear Chris Mathews screaming, "14 months ago Rudy Giuliani raised a good point when he said that the New Hampshire Primary has too much influence picking a candidate. Should New Hampshire, with it's handful of delegates, be first? Let's play Hardball!"?

This will hurt New Hampshire as it attempts to hold onto its first-in-the-nation relevance. It will hurt big time.

Of course, we might not know what we're talking about.

But then again...