The Giuliani Strategy

With all the discussion this morning of Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, I wanted to return a little bit to Giuliani and his 'Big State Strategy', to explain it and attempt to tease out the potential for its success. It's a gamble, that's for sure, and could revolutionise the way that presidential primaries are fought in an era in which the primary calender has become compressed to the point of creating a February 5th National Primary Day. Giuliani's strategy will provide a lot more insight into the effect that the early primary states, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have on the overall process, which is what makes his strategy so exciting for those interested in the presidential primary process.

First, the contemporary candidate playbook.

IOWA AND NEW HAMPSHIRE - THE MAKE OR BREAK

This conventional wisdom has existed since Jimmy Carter, a little-known former Governor of Georgia swept to the 1976 Democratic nomination above better known candidates such as Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson. How did Carter succeed? He pioneered the strategy of focusing upon Iowa and New Hampshire, performing better than expected in both those states and building momentum from there.

Up until that point the primary contest had been much like a beauty contest. 1976 was the first primary process in which new rules applied. Before the contemporary primary process candidates had elected to enter their preferred primaries, much like a beauty contest, because it was the party bosses at the national convention that had the most power in selecting the nominee. Candidates spent much more time courting these bosses than voters, hence the McGovern reforms that created the contemporary primary process. Carter and his campaign manager Hamliton Jordan understood the implications of the new system for building momentum, and therefore while other candidates were electing to dip in and out of primaries as they had done in the past, Carter spent most of his time campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire. His better than expected showing there allowed him to build momentum, and from that point forward the contemporary playbook was written.

Candidates campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire to do as well as they can there and build momentum. Success in these early states create favourable media coverage, better fund-raising and ride that notoriety to the nomination. It is thought that people pay attention to how the Iowa caucus-goers and New Hampshire primary voters, and then make up their minds in accord with that selection. Hence the focus every four years on Iowa and New Hampshire, and the huge influence that the early states have.

FRONT-LOADING

State parties have recognised the influence that the early states have on the process. Even if, as we have discussed before, that influence is not as high as made out, the attention and money received by Iowa and New Hampshire each election cycle is quite staggering. Other states, particularly the larger, diverse states such as New York and California desperately want a piece of that action, and so every year move their primaries as far forward as possible to get the most influence in the process. This is called front-loading, and whereas before all the primary contests were spread out over the course of six months they have now been effectively compressed into six weeks. This year we have over 20 contests on February 5th, in which the majority of delegates will be committed to candidates.

Super Tuesday (which has traditionally had around 10 contests, including New York and California) has become Super-Duper Tuesday and effectively a National Primary Day. The Florida primary also takes place on January 29th, in which a large number of delegates will be committed in a 'winner takes all' election.

THE GIULIANI STRATEGY

Hence the Giuliani Strategy. He knows that he can do considerably better in industrial, more liberal states like New York, Florida and California than he could in Iowa or South Carolina. He will play a role in New Hampshire, but he has still not committed anywhere near the number of resources to the contests as the other candidates. Yesterday Rudy was not in Iowa - he was in Florida, carrying out his strategy.

Rudy polled at 4% in the Iowa Caucuses, a dismal result for a candidate if he had put work into winning the Iowa Caucuses. But the pivot of the conventional primary process is that the candidates who win in Iowa need time to turn that victory into increased poll numbers and enough money to win New Hampshire and onto the other states. There are only four days between Iowa and New Hampshire, and only four weeks between Iowa and Super-Duper Tuesday, which the Giuliani camp and a lot of academics feel is not enough time for an Iowa winner to turn their victory into nomination.

If he wins big on Super-Duper Tuesday all this talk about Huckabee and Iowa, and Romney and New Hampshire, is just that - talk. Rudy walks away with the nomination from the National Primary Day without having had to court Iowa and New Hampshire voters. That's crazy from a conventional perspective which says that a candidate can't win the nomination without doing well in the early contests.

But we'll see. Front-loading may have taken us to the point that it's possible to skip Iowa and New Hampshire and still get nominated. It's certainly a happy thought for states like New York, California and Florida who get to wrestle influence away from Iowa and New Hampshire because it would be the Super-Duper Tuesday states, not the early contests, that helped the nominee to victory.

Unfortunately there's still a while until we see whether Giuliani is right about this. But it'll provide plenty of campaign strategists with plenty to think about if it works. It may also be some comfort to Hillary Clinton coming out of Iowa. If Iowa doesn't matter but Super-Duper Tuesday does, she could belatedly adopt a Giuliani strategy and stop Obama on February 5th. We'll see.