Matt says with respect to Giuliani that "his strategy of skipping all the early primary states was clearly a mistake." Although this risks adding additional embarrassment following my assertions that McCain was dead, I think it's safe to send the floral arrangements to Giuliani's campaign. What I do wonder is why it would ever -- barring an unusual circumstance such as a credible native daughter/son running in both states -- make sense in modern primaries to essentially skip both Iowa and New Hampshire. I could see some logic in keeping your powder dry under the primary format 20 years ago, but with the highly compressed and very expensive primary schedule now in place I don't understand how what Giuliani did could ever make sense. The band wagoning effects in terms of popularity and resources are greatly amplified by the tight schedule, and not being competitive in the first two states puts you in an extremely difficult position. --Scott Lemieux
