How to Knock Rudy Out of the Campaign Before Florida

The campaign for the Republican nomination doesn't have any clear winners yet. But it does have its obvious losers. Minor candidates like Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo have bowed out, and Fred Thompson's exit can't be far off. What we're all waiting for now is to see whether Jan. 29's contest in Florida will confirm that Rudy Giuliani has become as irrelevant as Thompson, or give him the shot in the arm he's hungering for.

But it need not be that way. The current front runners who have worked to capitalize on the calendar's early votes can make Republican primary goers forget Giuliani if they bypass the state the way that Giuliani has sat out the contests in which they have succeeded. Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee should skip Florida.

The conventional wisdom now says that Florida's primary will crown a leader heading into Feb. 5's Super Duper Tuesday and it's 1000+ delegates. And if you look at the calendars for McCain and Romney, their strategists would appear to agree.

But Florida will do no such thing. Even if Giuliani is defeated by one of his competitors in the Sunshine State, the contest is likely to be a close one. It will be difficult for any of the candidates to claim strong momentum from a decisive victory if they only take the state's 57 delegates by a few thousand votes.

Instead, a victory in Florida that appears hard won by Giuliani will move him back into the column of seeming viability. And lack of viability for Giuliani's campaign appears to be confirmed over and over again in recent polls results. While Romney more or less closed up shop in South Carolina, he still received a reasonable share of votes. Giuliani, on the other hand, came in behind Ron Paul once again, showing that all but the zaniest of Republican primary voters think that "America's mayor" isn't the right man to lead their party.

Giuliani wants to be out of that column, and he's setting up Florida as his Waterloo. He's sort of like an 18-year-old bully with a muscle car. He'll challenge you to a game of chicken on the outskirts of town late at night to show you up in front of all the other kids in town. And because his car is meaner than yours and he spends every day working on it, he very well could win.

But that victory will only mean a lot if he runs you off the road in front of that big audience. And if you don't show, and they sit out the game of chicken, too, the bully's cry of victory sounds pretty hollow.

A collective decision to skip Florida would be a lot like everyone deciding they have something better to do than watch the bully play chicken. It would represent the three leading candidates saying they aren't willing to play the game as the Giuliani campaign is trying to dictate it. Instead, the candidates could say they were getting ready for the big dance, which won't come until Feb. 5.

Thus the other Republicans ought to really make Florida a knock-out punch against Giuliani's campaign. The latest polls seem to indicate that even if Rudy wins, it's going to be a close one for him. And that's after the other candidates have done the hard work of winning contests in other states and haven't spent too much time in Florida. Giuliani achieving a difficult victory against challengers who don't even bother showing up will complete his transformation into an eccentric irrelevancy who is unproven in other states. By letting him have this one and focusing on the national primary day, Romney, McCain, and Huckabee can spend the next two weeks proving they are nationally palatable to the Republican Party and further thin out their herd.

Cross-posted from The Right's Field.

Comments

[ljsfolly]

All of these states changing their primaries and the different dates for people to vote for different parties is insane. The idea that rudy thinks florida will save him from destruction is amazing. I do not see the logic here even if he won what would be the point? Not one state has he shown he can win if he was the nominee. I know florida has the bunch of delegates if you would believe they still have all of the ones they would have if they had not played games with the dates. I wish all states would vote same day and then get it over with not one state would be the one to be deciding who will win. anyone who votes for trudy is more the fool than all of the politics played to get him a place on the ticket. He has lied he has 9/11 tourettes that he falls back on when ever anyone questions him, he tells stories that when looked at closely doesn't make sense. Anyone according to his rules can go to any country and be called a negoitator or ambassitor or whatever he wants to be this week.

[3fingerbrown]

I've been commenting here since last spring that Rudy would self destruct, but I always thought it would've happened in a dramatic crash (a foot-in-the-mouth gaffe sputtered in anger, or a dramatic revelation from his past).
It never occurred to me that his campaign would just peter out, to the point where key staffers volunteer to work without pay.
His strategy of betting all his chips on Florida looks so far like a reckless gamble. It's tough to attract new money and fresh bodies to a campaign when the candidate is getting smoked in primary after primary while he waits around for the "big one." I think what Rudy is finding out too late is that they're all big ones, even the little ones.

[MsLiz]

I have a question. Florida, like Michigan, violated the party rules by scheduling its primary earlier than the parties preferred. The Democrats decided that Florida and Michigan would get no delegates; I thought the Reprobates decided that Florida and Michigan would get half their normal number of delegates. Is this not the case? I don't hear or read anything about this.

I must add that I am informed that, in Florida, the Republican controlled legislature moved up the primary date against the objections of the Democrats.

[sonofloud]

NO, NO, NO!!!
We want to keep Rudy in as long as possible.
The more candidates there are, the more money and time they have to spend attacking each other.

[GiggidyGeshmoygen]

kudos for your fresh "outside of the box" political strategy, a real rarity these days

9iu11iani has a long history with electronic voting going back to his early days as nyc mayor when he was trying to get the first electronic machines in the state of ny installed in the bronx

sequoia voting machines are installed in the top three (by population) voting districts in florida - this is the same company 9iu11iani was in bed with back in those early nyc days

9iu11iani partners/sage has a history of dealings with overseas companies specialising in internet/electronic "security"

vote rigging and corruption is endemic in florida and the corrupt republican machine has had 8 years to perfect the process - sarasota county, in 2006, had 18000 missing (and largely democratic) electronic votes (sequoia machines again) in a race the republicans "won" by a very small margin

it doesn't take a genius to connect the dots and see why rudi is so confident in his florida "strategy" and no one should be surprised if he comes up a "winner" despite every indication and prediction to the contrary

[zannamar]

And everyone thought Fred Thompson was the lazy candidate. Rudy has gotten him beat on laziness.

[Semaj51]

Its too late -- Rudy's extremely poor showings so far are more effective. As Patton said, "Americans love winners...­" and poor old Rudy is not a winner.

[Nutcase]

Your suggestion makes sense in the abstract. I would worry, however, that other candidates, particularly Huck, would think that the greater the division of the pie, the greater the chance of the nominee being picked at the convention. One or more may not see themselves winning outright but think their chances are better at the convention.

cognito ergo populistae

[ThomasDoubting]

Rudy Guliani is a bully and a thug. It's a pleasure to see him lose. I would like to see all the other candidates ignore Florida. I don't think that we can trust the state of Florida to conduct a clean election.

[oldpotsmuggler]

As I understand it Guiliani actually did not sit out New Hampshire, and he still got his butt handed to him. All of the retirees that he's going to pander to in Florida are in Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, and he is not going to play at all well in the entire rest of the state. Also, if he is cutting campaign staff expense, is he going to have money for the media buys he'll need to counter the direct onslaught he's going to face.

Personally, I think the reason he comes in below Paul is because that is a true reflection of his level of support. Ever since GWB conquered the Mid East the other day, and spread peace to the far horizons, Guilani saw his main issue move onto the back page.

[Kundera]

Brilliant. You are amazing.