The Giuliani calculation

Kimberly Strassel:

Give Rudy Giuliani this: He's living his campaign slogans. The flinty ex-mayor keeps telling America he's fearless, a risk-taker, the guy who can accomplish the impossible (say, cleaning up Sin City). As if to prove it, he's betting the shop on a high-stakes path to the Republican nomination.

Ever since a relatively unknown Georgia peanut farmer used the early primary states to garner the national spotlight, the track to the presidential nomination has run square through Iowa, New Hampshire and (more recently) South Carolina. Go to Des Moines, get famous. Yet there was Giuliani campaign manager Mike DuHaime this week telling reporters that times have changed. His boss is doing it His Way.

It's been clear for some time that Mr. Giuliani was putting his chips on bigger, if later, primary states such as Florida, California and New York--where a less ideological Republican electorate might prove more open to his social record. Still, there was something about Mr. DuHaime confirming this approach--and by extension dissing the usual three-state slingshot--that had a national press corps blinking. It also earned the Giuliani camp a scoffing dismissal from rival Mitt Romney, himself running a textbook, and so far winning, campaign in every early race.

Some scoff is in order. There's a reason presidential hopefuls have for so long genuflected at the Davenport and Concord and Columbia altars: It works. The momentum that accompanies those early wins is often unstoppable, and it makes the Giuliani plan an audacious gamble. Then again, there's a pragmatism to Hizzoner's approach, one that has wisely recognized that times have indeed changed. If there were ever a chance of shattering the old primary mold, this is the year, and Mr. Giuliani is the man, to do it.

...

Changed circumstance No. 1 is this year's hypercompressed primary season. Whereas winners once got to bask in the glow of their early victories--and rake in the cash--for many weeks before Super Tuesday, this year they'll get to bask a few hours. Mr. Giuliani's Florida, his "firewall" where he has spent his biggest chunk of cash and currently holds a 17-point lead over Mr. Romney, will take place on Jan. 29, just 10 days after South Carolina.

Meanwhile the races on Giga Tuesday (Feb. 5) alone, which include other big Giuliani prospects such as California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois, represent nearly half the delegates necessary to secure the nomination. The Giuliani bet is that the time frame has collapsed enough that he can check any rival "momentum" by cleaning up big in the mega-states.

...

I think his calculation makes some sense. He is investing in the states with the most votes and where his chance of winning is best. He is also down playing expectations in the early states which should make any losses there less painful. It is certainly unconventional and no less an expert than Dick Morris sees the calculation as fatally flawed. I think the compression of the schedule makes it feasible. He also has Texas to fall back on on March 4th and he has a good team for winning this huge chunk of voters that will not have its delegation chopped in half by the race to be first.