A tell tale sign

I opened my e-mail today and found a message from the Huckabee campaign.  The friendly folks at his campaign take time out of their busy schedule each day to let me (and hundreds of others) know where the governor will be the following day.  The contents of today's e-mail was telling.

The governor makes an early campaign stop at a polling place at 7:30 to kick off his day, followed by a second visit to a polling place again at 8:30.  Both of these visits are in Tampa, Florida.

But by 12:00 tomorrow Mr. Huckabee will be in Jefferson City, Missouri for a press conference announcing new endorsements.

He'll be back in Florida for the primary results, right?  No.  And for good reason: he's currently polling in forth in the Sunshine state.

2008 has been an interesting year for primary politics.  It is, apparently, acceptable for candidates who are clearly not going to be successful in a state to just skip it altogether.  That would explain why Rudy Giuliani skipped Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina.  That is also why Mitt Romney skipped town on South Carolina, John McCain put all of his eggs into New Hampshire's basket and why Fred Thompson concentrated almost exclusively on South Carolina- skipping both new Hampshire and Michigan.

Now Mike Huckabee is largely blowing off Florida.  Although he has campaigned meagerly around the state this past week, he spent a lot of time elsewhere at fundraisers and such.

For me, this style of concentrating only in contests where you know you will be successful is not the right approach for any of our presidential hopefuls to be taking; nor is it a strategy the GOP should be endorsing.

This pick and chose strategy of campaigning forebodes only bad things for the general election.  It has become clear that the United States is divided so sharply, and yet so indecisively, that every vote in every state will count.  Republicans cannot afford to relinquish states to their Democratic rivals like they have done in years past.  Rudy Giuliani makes a compelling point when he touts his ability to put "blue" states in play.  Hopping around from state to state- based on electability- is not the way to sharpen the vote-getting knives.

The winner of the Florida primary will certainly come out with a heavy advantage going into Super Tuesday just one week later.  Regardless of who wins, however, one thing is true: the candidates (or at least three of them) have made a valiant effort in the Sunshine state... with South Carolina all but a distant memory.