What is your take on this comment regarding the Republican primary in 2008?

[Snowe08]

I think that it's something of an overstatement; while there's certainly truth that those two primaries in particular are important to gaining momentum and public perception of success, candidates can and have survived defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire. Of course, since I'm backing a New Englander, I'd really like for it to be true that New Hampshire calls the election, but it just doesn't seem supportable with the evidence available from previous elections, and in terms of 2008, the wider the primary field, in terms of the candidates' ideological dispositions and geographical origins, the less relevance any one state primary will hold, I suspect.