Giuliani strategy still in play

Chris Cillizza:

...

The only time Giuliani has cracked the national news in any real way over the past month was late last week when it was announced that much of his senior staff members are going without pay in order to save money for a final push in Florida. While that decision might make good financial sense, it's risky politics. Why give the impression that your campaign is hemorrhaging money if, as insiders insist, it isn't?

And yet, despite all of those problems, we can't help but think the way the GOP nomination fight has played out so far leaves open a scenario whereby Giuliani can still win the nomination. The Fix is not arguing that Giuliani WILL win the nomination; rather, for all of the ink spilled about the decline of Hizzoner's campaign, there still remains a reasonable path for Giuliani to wind up as the Republican standard-bearer.

Giuliani is still in it because the nightmare scenario for his campaign failed to materialize. That scenario was back-to-back wins in Iowa and New Hampshire for Mitt Romney, victories that would have given Romney a huge burst of momentum and made it very difficult for Giuliani to wait all the way until Florida's Jan. 29 primary to get into the game.

Of course, Romney won neither contest; Mike Huckabee bested him in Iowa and John McCain took first place in New Hampshire.

But in what turns out to be good news for Giuliani, Romney's not out of it yet. According to three new polls out Monday morning, Romney is either ahead or statistically tied with McCain in Michigan, where voters go to the polls today. Romney's lead in his home state creates the real potential that three different Republican candidates will have won the first three states, with South Carolina looming next Saturday and Florida now just 15 days away.

Could Giuliani have scripted a better scenario? It's hard to imagine how. Even if McCain can pull out a win in Michigan and use the momentum gained there to score another victory in South Carolina, it seems extremely unlikely that Giuliani won't still have a chance to derail the GOP frontrunner in Florida.

...

Actually it is easy to imagine how. He could have competed and won the early primaries and put his opponents away. OK, so much for fantasy. What is happening is that his strategy is working at this point which still does not guarantee a win, but it does give him a shot. If he comes out of Florida with a win and the momentum going into Super Tuesday he can still win or at least stay in the race until the Texas Ohio contest decide the winner on March 4.