Former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, will officially announce his candidacy next week Thursday. He will do so in New Hampshire.

As the Washington Post explains, that’s quite telling:

Three years ago, Romney tried to run the table of early-voting states — spending millions of dollars in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina only to lose all three and, with them, the nomination.

While his aides insist he will not be skipping Iowa — and he is slated to make a series of stops in the state today — it’s clear that for Romney, New Hampshire is the must-have victory of the 2012 race.

“No Republican has ever won contested events in Iowa and New Hampshire in the same year since [Gerald] Ford,” said former New Hampshire Republican party chairman Fergus Cullen. “Mitt tried last time and failed in both places. I don’t expect they will try to do that again.”

It’s quite entertaining that politicians nowadays announce an upcoming announcement – but that purely as an aside.

In any case, Romney’s new strategy makes sense. It’s incredibly difficult to win in both Iowa and New Hampshire. A smart politician chooses between them. With a little bit of luck, a victory in either state will propel you into a number one position in many (if not most) states to follow.

According to the most recent polls, Romney is at this moment the frontrunner. If Sarah Palin doesn’t join the race – and I suspect she won’t – he leads more or less unchallenged. No other Republican politician can count on such a high degree of support at this moment, except for Palin of course.

And that could very well be Romney’s major problem: he’s the guy to beat. All the other candidates know they’ve got to defeat him if they want to win. That’ll mean they’ll do everything in their power to discredit and perhaps even smear him.

In some respect, Romney is the GOP’s crown prince; that’s undoubtedly a great, prestigious position to find yourself in, but it’s also extremely dangerous. You’re the one everybody’s trying to bring down, you’re the one who has to win (and overwhelmingly so) in order to impress voters (somewhat).