For the lameness of the 2012 presidential primary in New Hampshire, there is plenty of blame to go around. There also are solutions, if we and national political elites want to revive this process that serves the nation so well.

The blame starts with the candidates, most of whom treated the state as though it really were, in a phrase used often by the national media, “Mitt Romney's fortress.” Romney's Wolfeboro home is a beautiful (and enormous) lake house. But it has no parapets, no cannon, no bomb-proof bunker. (OK, we're making an assumption on that last one.) Though Romney invested a great deal of time, effort and money in New Hampshire since 2008, his defenses were never impregnable. The right candidate with the right message could have broken through. That more formidable challengers chose not to take up the fight early on made all the difference.

Some left the field to compete in Iowa, where they thought their chances were better. Others made the strategic decision to concentrate resources on the many televised debates. Those debates were so frequent and so seductive (it is less risky and less expensive to attend debates than to run significant ground operations in Iowa and New Hampshire) that they changed the nature of the race. The sheer number of this cycle's debates left much less time for retail campaigning, in which candidates are more thoroughly vetted.

What started it all, though, was the refusal of the Republican National Committee to institute substantial sanctions for states that ignored the party's nominating calendar. Without a real punishment, states such as Florida and Nevada and Michigan will continue to front-load the calendar, shrinking the amount of time candidates have to campaign in the early states, where they have to test their ability to connect with voters one-on-one, and where the non-establishment candidates have a better shot at becoming the nominee.

Bigger windows between Iowa and New Hampshire and New Hampshire and South Carolina would better serve the people, the candidates and the country. Pressing those contests together helps the best-funded, better-known candidates at the expense of us all.

The parties have to take control of the nominating calendar. And the candidates and political consultants, whoever they will be four years from now, have to realize the disservice done to them and the people when the process is dominated by debates rather than more direct interactions with voters. Fix those two flaws, and chances are good that the full value of the New Hampshire primary will be restored.