Excerpt:

Marc Ambinder had a post yesterday about the lack of effort Rudy Giuliani is putting into Iowa. Ambinder writes that Rudy has not visited Iowa in September. His last visit was way back on August 8th, unless you count a stop in Moline on August 28th (which is in Illinois, but Ambinder counts it anyway).

Ambinder outlines Giuliani’s strategy…

The Giuliani’s campaign’s nomination strategy is delegate-based. It begins with a win in one of the early primary states, proceeds to take some proportionally allocated delegates from others, gets delegates from Michigan, surprises the world by placing second in South Carolina (maybe), wins all of Florida’s delegates and then romps to victory on Feb. 5.

Winning Iowa isn’t as important.

Ambinder concludes that Giuliani wants to at least be strong enough that if Romney falls flat then they can take advantage of it. This shows the lack of respect Giuliani has for Romney on a national scale that he is basically conceding Iowa to Romney.

Still, Mitt Romney has spent 300% more time in Iowa that Giuliani, as has Sen. Sam Brownback. Even Sen. John McCain, who skipped the Iowa caucuses in 200, has spent 5 more days in the state than Giuliani.

Giuliani’s campaign will never admit that winning Iowa is not a necessary hurdle for their strategy to clear — Iowans are nothing if not vain about making sure that candidates not only take them seriously, but put enough resources in the state in order to give that appearance. Giuliani, therefore, has to cross a threshold, but he doesn’t have to exceed it. Also: it’s true that Giuliani wants to win Iowa; his campaign therefore is putting in more resources than is required to give the appearance of competition there… but fewer resources than they would if Iowa was a must-win state. If Mitt Romney falters, Giuliani’s campaign wants to be able to build a large enough net to capture his supporters.

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