CNN.com reports that John McCain‘s campaign is about to start running TV ads in New Hampshire. Right move, wrong state. The path to winning New Hampshire starts in Iowa. McCain should bet his scarce TV resources in Iowa with a large TV buy. TV ads move numbers in Iowa and a new Hawkeye poll showing McCain moving up would electrify the national media and supercharge McCain’s “comeback.” There will be three hot tickets out of Iowa. Former Gov. Mitt Romney will probably have one and former Gov. Mike Huckabee has a good shot at the other if he can consolidate the Christian vote. If McCain can double his existing Iowa support and crawl his way to about 16,000 to 18,000 votes on caucus night, he’ll probably capture third place and roar into New Hampshire with real strength. It’s a long-shot, but possible. Instead it looks like Team McCain 2.0 is trying to build a fortress in New Hampshire, clearly taking their strategic inspiration from John Connally’s South Carolina brainstorm of 1980. It won’t work this time either. The Iowa bounce is too strong. Nostalgia is not a strategy.
