CONCORD, N.H. – New Hampshire Democrats promised a fierce fight if the national party fails to back their plan to save the state’s presidential primary and Iowa’s caucuses as the first such contests of the 2008 presidential election season.

Two state party leaders said Tuesday that Iowa and New Hampshire should remain first in 2008 and be followed by two more racially and ethnically diverse states. Other states would follow alone or in small groups, preventing “front-loading” early in the process that led candidates and the media to give short shrift to many states in 2004, state chairwoman Kathy Sullivan and former chairman Joe Keefe said in a conference call.

They said the rival “Michigan plan” to place two to four caucuses between Iowa and New Hampshire in 2008 appears to be gaining momentum with a commission scheduled to make its final proposal Dec. 10.

“We will resist that by whatever means necessary,” Keefe said. “We built this primary; it’s as important to our state as the (Kentucky) Derby is to Kentucky or Statue of Liberty to New York, and we’re not just going to let it go.”

That plan “will really exacerbate front-loading, which I think is just not good for the process,” Sullivan said. “As a member of the Democratic National Committee, I want a process that will nominate a Democrat who will become president in 2008.”

So do commission members and Michigan Democrats who helped launch it because Iowa and New Hampshire have such small minority populations. The Michigan plan probably would put a Southern state with a large black population and a Southwestern state with a large Hispanic population ahead of New Hampshire.

New Hampshire law requires the state’s primary to be at least seven days ahead of any “similar contest.” The secretary of state decides what is similar, and has always said the Iowa caucuses are not.