CONCORD, N.H. -- Members of the presidential campaign-in-waiting for U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman are set to meet on March 18th in New Orleans for a strategy session.

Huntsman plans to leave his Beijing posting on April 30th to prepare for a likely White House bid in the 2012 election, but he will not be part of the New Orleans gathering and is not privy to it. Some who will attend include veteran Republican strategist John Weaver, GOP ad maker Fred Davis and New Hampshire Republican activist Peter Spaulding. Three staffers for Horizon PAC, the organization for Huntsman's campaign-in-waiting, will also attend, including executive director Susie Wiles, spokesman Tim Miller and Jake Suski.

The former Utah governor will not be able to begin campaigning for his likely bid until May, but he has already begun to receive invitations to appear in New Hampshire. The site of the first-in-the-nation primary will be central to Huntsman's strategy: Activists in the state who have begun strategizing both for and against Huntsman's bid said his ability to court independents who can vote in the primary is critical to his performance in the Granite State.

One of the early Granite State invitations came from Wayne Jennings, a black Republican who runs the New Hampshire Cultural Awareness Diversity Council. Jennings is planning what he calls a non-political event to focus on economic development, jobs and diversity that likely will occur at the beginning of May.

He didn't provide specifics, in part because he hasn't nailed down a date, but he explained that it will be the sixth annual event of its kind for his organization and will feature this theme: "Let's invest in America; let's import jobs to America."

Jennings said there's a strong chance Huntsman will appear in his capacity as an ambassador (or former ambassador) to China as part of a star-studded panel. And he noted that he previously invited Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to a dinner his organization hosted in January in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but Barbour declined, citing scheduling conflicts.

Huntsman's advisers declined to say whether or not he will attend Jennings' event because his schedule is far from finalized.

About half a dozen influential GOP strategists in New Hampshire - most of whom are not yet aligned with presidential candidates - told RealClearPolitics this week that they did not think Huntsman stands much of a chance even in New Hampshire's Republican primary because they don't see a plausible path to victory.

But Huntsman also has not set foot in the state in at least three years and has yet to introduce himself to its electorate.

Spaulding, who is headed to New Orleans for the strategy session, has been reaching out to activists in the Granite State to interest them in Huntsman's likely presidential bid, but, he noted, "It's hard to get support when you don't have a candidate; it's more like a draft movement."

He added, "We're not going to get the Republican establishment. A lot of them are with Governor Romney." Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is leading by a wide margin in a series of polls surveying New Hampshire's Republican primary voters, and he has begun to gather the support of some of the state's influential GOP organizers.

Although Huntsman could be seen as a top alternative to Romney, that's not how a handful of New Hampshire Republicans intrigued by the ambassador couched their interest in interviews with RCP.

Instead, the first thing at least three Republican activists interested in Huntsman mentioned was his international experience.

As Jennings put it, "He's the only one in the field who has foreign service experience."

And noting that conservative Republicans have begun to take issue with Huntsman over his past support for civil unions and cap and trade, Jennings explained, "Conservative values alone will not save your house from foreclosure or save your job. Conservative values and 50 cents won't buy you a cup of coffee in New Hampshire, and conservative values and $3 won't even buy you a gallon of gasoline up here."

A growing number of political strategists have begun to note that national security and foreign policy is inching up in importance to the 2012 presidential election, and a candidate like Huntsman is well positioned to take advantage of that shifting dynamic.

Bill Grimm, another Republican activist in the state, heaped praise on Huntsman, starting with his foreign credentials. In the same breath, he mentioned that he liked Huntsman's record on health care, because as governor, Huntsman oversaw passage of a plan for Utah complete with an exchange and portability but lacking an individual mandate. The individual mandate, a component of both the national health care law and the Massachusetts health law, is something that has dogged Romney.

But, Grimm added, "I like Mitt Romney - he's a good guy. I just think it's too early to close off the New Hampshire primary already."