Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

The Giuliani camp released (via surrogates)  today that following the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8, Rudy Giuliani will essentially be taking up residence in Florida until the primary on Jan. 29. He will occasionally take day trips to other important primary states like South Carolina and Michigan; but will focus most of his time on the Sunshine State. This news comes on the heels of their strategy memo released earlier this week.

In making his Tsunami Tuesday gambit, Giuliani has two groups of people he has to sell: the national media and the voters.

His camp knows that following Iowa, and then New Hampshire, that he will have a hard time getting positive coverage from the national media. He will either be completely ignored in favor of the winners; or he will get negative coverage for his poor showing.

Thus, releasing this news is an attempt to reinforce his strategy and sell the national media (and political insiders) on the idea so that they will continue to cover him as a viable candidate. Although local earned media is more important than anything the national media says; Huckabee's rise demonstrates that voters do pay attention to see who's legitimate.

Selling the voters is an entirely different challenge. Giuliani will have to make the argument that even though he is a 'loser' in the early states, he can still be the nominee.