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The National Republican Congressional Committee should have stayed out of the GOP primary race in the 8th Congressional District. Its support of candidate Steve Huffman sends the wrong message that national party leaders know better than locals who would be the best candidate for Congress.

The NRCC's move also has harmed local party unity and opened up Huffman to attacks within the Republican Party and from Democrats. If Huffman wins the primary on Tuesday, he will be a wounded contender heading into the general election.

The Republican Party broke its longstanding policy of not taking sides in primary races when it decided in late August to support Huffman with $122,000 in television ads. Not surprisingly, GOP rivals Randy Graf, Mike Hellon, Frank Antenori and Mike Jenkins took umbrage over the national party's meddling.

A poll sponsored by the Arizona Daily Star showed Graf leading the race by 8.5 points over Huffman, 33 percent to 24.5 percent. Hellon was third at 10 percent, with Antenori and Jenkins in the low single digits. The margin of error for the poll was 4.9 percent, with nearly 30 percent of likely Republican voters undecided.

Though Graf has the most reason to be upset by the NRCC's backing of Huffman, it was Hellon, the consummate GOP insider, who was probably the most annoyed.

"Never. Never. Not in 30 years have I seen this kind of interference," said Hellon, a former chairman of the state Republican Party and a longtime GOP loyalist who ran Ronald Reagan's Arizona campaign in 1980. "The RNCC promised that it wouldn't take sides. They didn't consult with any members of the Arizona Republican delegation. They blindsided everyone.

"I'd be less angry if the NRCC had come down on my side, but I would still think that it was improper interference in a primary election."

Ed Patru, an NRCC spokesman, told The Associated Press last week that the party hasn't run ads in support of other candidates in a GOP primary this year. He said it's party policy not to get involved in primary races. So why support Huffman?

"It falls under the category of strategy, and that is not something we discuss publicly," Patru said.

What is apparent is that the Republican Party doesn't believe Graf, a hard-liner compared with the moderate Huffman, would win in the general election. The party is rallying behind Huffman in an attempt to hold a seat it has held for 22 years.

The Star poll supports the GOP's apparent assessment of the race. In a general election against Democratic front-runners Gabrielle Giffords or Patty Weiss, the poll shows Graf losing to both by about 10 points. With Huffman advancing, the poll shows he would narrowly beat Weiss and lose a close race to Giffords.

Regardless of how the national party sees the race, its move to support Huffman has already backfired.

Because of the NRCC ads, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee joined the fray by buying ads last weekend attacking Huffman.

The four other Republican candidates, meanwhile, held a press conference Tuesday decrying the NRCC's anointing of Huffman. The Star's Josh Brodesky reported that while the candidates said they will support each other in the general election, none said he would support Huffman if he wins.

The local Republican Party was already somewhat polarized between hard-liners and moderates. The NRCC's move to back Huffman has only widened that chasm.

Huffman's campaign manager, David Stuempfle, said, "We welcome any support that we get, whether it's the NRCC or any other organization. The support shows us that Steve is the best candidate in the race."

But what may be good for Huffman in the short term may be bad for him and the Republicans in the long term.

We believe the NRCC's involvement in the primary will leave the local GOP more fractured. Whoever wins the primary might have to go into the general election without the support of one segment of the party — Huffman without the right wing or Graf without moderates, for example.

If Graf wins, meanwhile, it puts the NRCC in the awkward position of supporting a candidate it tried to sink.

The NRCC whipped up a lot of unnecessary emotion by prematurely joining the District 8 race. These are the community's candidates, after all. National leaders should allow locals to decide the primary winners, then support that politician to the fullest.