The Giuliani campaign clarifies its delegate-centered strategy -- but can it really work?

Regular readers have probably long noticed that I have been a skeptic of Rudy Giuliani's strategy to win the nomination. I have never fully understood how he intends to "survive January" given that he could start off with 4 to 6 consecutive losses in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina and, possibly, Nevada. Giuliani's response has always been that he is very strong in non-early states (read IA, NH and SC) and that he will use those as firewalls to rebound from early losses.

But with Mitt Romney looking to sweep Iowa and New Hampshire and starting to climb up in the polls of later states, Giuliani has to face the specter of Romney momentum threatening him in his so-called firewall states. Yesterday's Florida poll showed that Romney is going up in that state, positioning himself to overtake Rudy if he has big winds at his back post-IA/NH. How can Giuliani expect to keep such small single-digits leads if the story going into the Nevada caucuses is that he lost Iowa and New Hampshire? And how can Giuliani expect to be the nominee if he goes into February 5th without a single win?

Today's conference call with reporters, organized by Campaign Manager Michael DuHaime attempted to answer these questions (The full transcript of the call available here). The key quote:

I think what we see is there's a possibility of two paths. And obviously, we agree that there's the ability for the momentum that comes out of early states, or we wouldn't be as focused as we are on some of the early states. But we also recognize that, with so many large delegate-rich states moving up to so early in the process, that it's impossible to think that it will be over after only three states vote.

So the Giuliani strategy is to concentrate on the delegate count. What does this consist in? It is really key to understand exactly what Rudy is hoping for here to be able to follow the dynamics of the GOP primary in the coming months - so here are a few pointers:

• Very few delegates will be attributed in January: Iowa officially allocates delegates only in June (on the basis of the caucuses, certainly, but there will not be an official count); New Hampshire will only attribute 12 delegates (the original 24 have been divided by 2 because the RNC's punishment; South Carolina has 24 (48 divided by 2). So whatever happens in January, no candidate will be far ahead in the delegate count.
• On February 5th, by contrast, there will be 1,038 delegates at stake -- truly a huge number.
• Of those, a few states have "winner-take-all" system, in which the primary winner gets all the delegates. And among those are the most pro-Giuliani states, namely New York (101 delegates), New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware. The Giuliani campaign is sure that it will win those 4 states no matter what, and get 201 delegates total versus none for their opponents.
• Most other states that are voting on February 5th do not have winner-take-all systems, for example California, Illinois, Georgia, or Alabama. So Giuliani calculates that even if he has awful momentum by then and loses in all those big states, he will still get some delegates here and there.
• Thus, and here is the key, the Giuliani campaign believes that they will have the most delegates come February 6th -- and thus will still be in the race no matter how badly they have done in the early states! They will then be able to compete in the later states!
• To repeat, the Giuliani campaign believes this will work because New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are "immune to momentum," that is, they are Giuliani's home-base; even if Giuliani gets awful results in Iowa and New Hampshire, he might lose his lead in Florida and California, but he will still get those 201 delegates, enough to keep him in the running.

So what to make of this strategy? It is certainly very unconventional, but it answers my objection to Giuliani's strategy very well. For I always repeat that Giuliani has no chance of keeping his lead in states like Florida and California, but Giuliani is probably right that he will win New York and New Jersey no matter what. After all, Howard Dean won the Vermont primary in 2004 after he had withdrawn from the race but while the Edwards-Kerry fight was still going on.

But Rudy's strategy is not without risk: (1) How much is the media narrative/perception of where the campaigns stand about delegates? People rarely follow how many delegates are being attributed, for a convention has not been brokered for decades now. With the nominee usually selected when all other candidates drop out, it has been media pressure and momentum that has led nominees to be coronated, not delegate count. So how can Giuliani spin consecutive losses in January and losses in California, Illinois into a win? How can he make sure people talk about the delegate count?

(2) Giuliani needs to reverse the media narrative with actual victories then, not just delegate count. But would wins in New York and New Jersey be interpreted as "actual victories?" Probably not: It's never impressive to win in a home state. It's better than nothing, maybe, but it never makes for a story. Dean's Vermont victory did him no good; and look at 1992, when all Democrats conceded Iowa to native Senator Harkin... Harkin won, but got nowhere. It will be virtually impossible for Rudy Giuliani to portray a win in New York and New Jersey as a significant victory if he wins nowhere else.

So we are back where we started: Giuliani NEEDS to make something happen in January. And he very well can, for he is not out of it yet in New Hampshire and can ensure that Romney stays weak in Iowa. But he needs to commit to that -- and it's unclear whether he is willing to.