Before, it was just an assumed strategy that Rudy Giuliani was giving up on the early states in favor of reaching February 5 and cashing in on a big-state bonanza. Now this is pretty well confirmed, and it’s really fascinating.
While Iowa and New Hampshire are crucial states for most Republican candidates, Rudy Giuliani thinks of them more as a nuisance. Giuliani’s campaign told reporters today that they think Giuliani can lose the first three contests in the cycle and still win the nomination. They essentially conceded defeat in Iowa and New Hampshire to Mitt Romney, who has double-digit leads in the polls and has poured millions into radio and television advertising.
Instead of the traditional strategy, Giuliani is hoping that Feb. 5 is a second Christmas, one where he’ll be given hundreds of delegates wrapped inside a Romney concession speech. According to his campaign manager and strategy director, Giuliani can come away with delegates from January primaries in Florida and Michigan, where he leads in polls. Then on Feb. 5, the campaign figures, Giuliani’s popularity in the New York region will guarantee him at least the 200 delegates from Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, plus many from the other 16 states that hold contests on “Tsunami Tuesday.”
Part of this is an expectations game. If Rudy gets blown out in the first two states (and actually, the third one, South Carolina, as well, since he didn’t bother to show up to his campaign office opening, showing less respect for the Palmetto State than Stephen Colbert), he can now say that it wasn’t part of his strategy anyway to minimize the fallout.
But it’s important to note that this has NEVER, in the history of the primary system, been a successful strategy. The rolls of failed candidates are littered with those who tried to tread water until a later primary and found themselves unable to do so. If anything, the bunching up of the primaries makes this less likely. The free media wave for Romney or one of his competitors will be cresting just as Feb. 5 voters start to think about their choices. Plus, you can’t tell me that a fourth or even fifth-place showing for Giuliani in Iowa, which is entirely possible, won’t hurt in the media and the public at large. And that Michigan primary he’s relying on was invalidated by the courts; we’ll see what happens on appeal.
But Giuliani’s certainly going to try and buck conventional wisdom on this one. Yesterday he was in Missouri, and today he’s in Glendale, California, both February 5 states.
7 Responses to “The Old “Win Nothing” Gamble”
There is definitely a case to be made for early primaries in small states where candidates are forced to meet voters and do intimate events rather than just raise money and spend it on advertising. Theoretically that also gives a shot to an underdog with less money. Does it follow that it must be the same states, especially two overwhelmingly white ones? No, of course not. The rotating regional idea is a good one, though I think in an idea world it would be worth thinking about how to set up a couple of small states in each region to go early. But that would require all the states to sit down and figure out a fair, rational solution. It won’t happen that way. I honestly don’t know how Iowa and NH will ever be forced to concede their status. They are willing to go months or years early if that’s what it takes. However, I think setting up some big regional primary in January, and just letting Iowa and NH go in Dec, might be a solution. The Christmas break would dissipate the momentum of the winners so much it would create a disincentive to put all your resources there.
giuliani and kerik are not even mentioned in her suit, the idea that the left would then try to spin this as something to do with rudy’s campaign is an embarassment. what are you cowards afraid of? if your clinton and obama are so magnificant, then why try to smear rudy insteading of letting them face off, and see who is truly the best? why the gutless, gutter politics? if you are so so right, and he is so so wrong, then have the balls the face him man-to-man, candidate-to-candidate, instead of pulling this pathetic bullshit.
judith regan is the best you got??? does she make up for obama’s pathetic resume or clinton’s collapse??? grow a pair you fucking wimps.
I’d be curious to see what Giuliani’s spending in SC, since that is what strikes me as the wild card in all this. SUSA has him still out in front. If Giuliani can still win SC after losing Iowa and NH then he will have a launch pad to Feb 5 and his strategy will be vindicated. But the SUSA poll has him up only 6 points over Romney, which means Romney only needs to flip 4 percent of the electorate from Rudy’s column into his after his early wins. One thing that’s sort of funny in all this is that the Rudy-Mitt battle is being played out almost identically lower down the ballot, with Huckabee hoping for a post-Iowa surge and Thompson planning to lose all the early states but make it up in the big southern ones. SUSA shows Huckabee creeping but not surging in SC, and comparing that with Iowa seems to suggest he can’t get serious upwards momentum unless Thompson totally crashes.
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I still can’t figure out why we have primaries on different days. The importance of Iowa and New Hampshire is obscene. No one outside of these early states cares how well each candidate did in the local corn eat-off, yet that’s how we select our nominees and presidents.
Left by Jake
November 13, 2007 at 6:06pm