If you are a member of the media covering the New Hampshire primary and you don’t know about The Hotel, Center of New Hampshire, you are professionally negligent. “Civilians” who do know about it are political junkies.

The Hotel is the epicenter of media coverage of the primary. In the lobby, you are as likely to run into Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews or Joe Scarborough as your average stranger.

In the evening in the hotel restaurant-bar, JD’s Tavern, you are even more likely to run into news media celebrities. That was always the case, but now MSNBC is broadcasting from the back of the bar, and the watering hole is packed with even more journalists and junkies.

But, now, the viewing public is being let in on the secret. The Center of New Hampshire is no longer the secret hideout of the media elite.

And the same can be said of the entire New Hampshire primary itself. Where once it was the semi-exclusive province of the denizens of the Granite State, now the media is bringing it in real time to your TV, computer and smartphone screen. Citizens nationwide and viewers worldwide are seeing virtually everything that the state’s citizens are seeing and doing -- “virtually” in both senses of the word, virtually, as in “almost everything, almost the same,” and virtually, as in virtual reality or vicariously.

This new reality has a bearing on the quadrennial debate concerning the first-in-the-nation status of the primary. Critics say the state is unrepresentative of the nation’s demographics and shouldn’t enjoy its special position. The state’s defense of its position is written into New Hampshire state law that requires the Secretary of State to schedule the state primary at least one week before any other primary (allowing only one caucus to go before). Not only is the Secretary required to do so, he is empowered single-handedly to do so. He doesn’t have to obtain committee or legislative approval – to avoid a cumbersome process that might allow another state to steal first-primary status with some kind of blitzkrieg.

Last night I ran into a self-confessed political junkie up from Connecticut to observe the primary first hand. He took up the critic’s case, on the substance and out of convenience, saying “Why shouldn’t we do this in Connecticut. We’re more diverse. It would be fairer.”

Despite sharing his home state, I remain a firm supporter and defender of New Hampshire’s role, which has been transformed. Historically, as now, New Hampshire has subjected the candidates to the closest possible scrutiny and winnowed the field. Historically, however, the process was largely hidden from the nation’s view. The nation had to trust in New Hampshire’s process.

Now, everything that happens in the state’s primary unfolds before the eyes and ears of the nation and the world. A citizen in Connecticut can watch candidates as closely as a Granite State inhabitant, albeit from afar. But even New Hampshire residents don’t personally attend every candidate event. Even they rely upon the media to bring them a look at, and news of, in-state events.

Today, New Hampshire’s role is to stage a process for the whole world to see. It is only slight exaggeration to say that it is almost incidental that New Hampshire citizens vote before other citizens.

So, the question is not so much which state votes first, as which state is best equipped to stage the process leading up and including the first vote. In this respect, long experience has developed New Hampshire into an incredibly sophisticated and evolved staging operation.

Late yesterday afternoon, I ducked into the Portland Pizza Company, two blocks down from The Hotel, the Center of New Hampshire. While I wolfed down a small pizza, I made quick friends of patrons at neighboring tables, a radio broadcast crew from France and a print reporter from Finland. As I paid my bill, two guys rushed in with radio equipment to set up for an early morning broadcast this morning by regional radio station WOKQ. This in a pizza parlor, a very nice one, by the way.

This kind of thing happens all over New Hampshire throughout the process. New Hampshire is skilled at mounting all manner of events.

Today, the role of the first state is to stage a process for all of us to watch and through which to learn about the candidates. It is no longer to winnow the field in a largely opaque process, as it used to be, given yesteryear's technology.

Prediction

On the GOP side: Trump will underperform his poll numbers. With his momentum halted by his problems in last Thursday's debate, Rubio is unlikely to finish second. The three governors will outperform their poll numbers. Cruz will come in about where the polls predict. We may have a virtual tie for second – with two, three or four candidates in the tie.

Red Jahncke (RTJahncke@Gmail; Twitter: @RedJahncke), an occassional contributor, has been providing dispatches for theday.com from New Hampshire leading up to today's first in the nation primary. Jahncke is president of The Townsend Group, LLC, a business consulting firm.