Richard Whalen

Rudolph W. Giuliani – who had been the lead reindeer of the GOP sled in the polls – has taken the wrong turn and his advisers and staff are now quite uneasy.

Giuliani’s decision to ignore Iowa (January 3), New Hampshire (January 8) and South Carolina (January 19) to concentrate on Florida (January 29) and 22 states that hold primaries or caucuses on Feb. 5, including California, Illinois and New York, may turn out to be an irreversible mistake. Granted these states, by the sheer number of their delegates, should carry more important weight in the nomination process but as Tony Fabrizio, a Republican strategist recently told CNN: “No candidate has won a nomination in the modern primary era without winning Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina. For his strategy to work, Rudy Giuliani has to defy history.”

His political defiance conceivably might have worked. But recently Giuliani has had to respond to a spate of negative stories about his extramarital affairs, the use of New York’s taxpayers dollars to court Judi Nathan, his relationship with disgraced police commissioner Bernard Kerik and his puzzling, unexplained return to St. Louis to enter a hospital and stay overnight because of a “headache and flu symptoms.” All of these headlines about his turbulent past have not only been embarrassing but have cost him major slippage in national opinion polls.

The candidate who strings together electoral successes changes minds to his advantage everywhere. The candidate who’s missing from the action loses visibility, electability and momentum. “Big Mo” matters crucially.

Hence Giuliani is taking a high-risk gamble that Mike Huckabee will win Iowa; John McCain, New Hampshire; and Fred Thompson, South Carolina that would split and thus discount their victories. But what happens if Huckabee or Mitt Romney wins two or even three of the first contests?

In my book, the party would be over for Giuliani after South Carolina and he would not be able to recover. Everybody likes a winner and Mr. Tough Guy’s erosion in the polls is starting to accelerate.