Republican Rudy Giuliani's campaign manager said this week the former New York City mayor does not need to win the Iowa caucus or follow-up primaries in New Hampshire and Michigan to win his party's presidential nomination.

Neutral observers and top competing campaigns say it's a risky venture to downplay the effect that New Hampshire and Iowa's contests will have on the nominating process and focus on contests in large, delegate-rich states that will come several weeks later. One independent analyst called the unorthodox assessment offered by the Giuliani camp's Michael DuHaime "a big mistake."

Iowa is scheduled to hold a caucus on Jan. 3. New Hampshire's primary has not yet been scheduled, but there is speculation that it will be held on Jan. 8. Michigan's primary, recently struck down by a judge, will be held on Jan. 15 if it is held at all.

According to The Washington Post, a reporter on a DuHaime conference call on Monday asked him if he is confident Giuliani can go "0 in 3 out of the gates and still be strong" when big states such as Florida, New York, New Jersey and California hold their contests several weeks later, but still far earlier than those states had held contests in past cycles. Giuliani is polling well in those states.

"Yes, I am confident of that," DuHaime reportedly replied. "There are multiple paths to the nomination." He said Giuliani's campaign is focused on the early states but added, "We've taken a longer approach."

The Giuliani strategy, dubbed "Big, Not Early" by the Post, dogged Giuliani early in the campaign when he made relatively few visits to New Hampshire.

But recently, Giuliani picked up the pace of his visits and, for the most part, had dispelled suspicion that he was effectively "blowing off" the first-primary state.

But after a Boston Globe-University of New Hampshire poll released on Sunday showed that Mitt Romney increased his lead over Giuliani to 32 to 20 percent, DuHaime held his conference call to effectively lower expectations of Giuliani's performance in New Hampshire and Iowa, where he is running third, and say that the early states may not be as important as they used to be.

DuHaime said that while his campaign has "tremendous focus on Iowa and New Hampshire," he believes that "if you do this as a (national convention) delegate game, this very much lines up very favorably for us."

Giuliani has been leading in the national polls, but traditionally, national polls are clearly effected by the results in Iowa and New Hampshire.

"What happens to the Giuliani national lead if he loses Iowa, Wyoming (which has county convention voting scheduled for Jan. 5), New Hampshire and Michigan between January 3 and January 15?" asked NBC political director Chuck Todd on his "First Read" blog yesterday. "Something will give."

"Normally that's just a bad strategy," Stu Rothenberg, an independent political analyst, told Newsday, a New York newspaper. He said that traditionally, "the early contests define the field, create expectations. And if you don't play, you're irrelevant."

Romney and John McCain have campaign organizations in the large states, too, but are clearly focusing on the early states in line with the traditional thinking that winning or exceeding expectations in those states can create enough momentum to propel a candidate to victories in the larger states that hold contests later.

McCain political director Mike Dennehy said that New Hampshire voters are sophisticated and "will know if a candidate is running to win in New Hampshire because they will meet them in town hall meetings, in coffee shops, on Main Street, in businesses, or even in their living rooms."

McCain won the primary in 2000, gained momentum, but then lost South Carolina and the nomination to George W. Bush.

Dennehy said Giuliani "has been here more than Fred Thompson, but if a candidate is clear about running to win, then they need to be seen very often and in front of thousands of voters. It's becoming clear that (Giuliani) isn't willing to put the time and effort in to take New Hampshire seriously. It's a very risky strategy."

Romney spokesman Kevin Madden, in a statement, downplayed Giuliani's lead in national polls, saying that the "front-runner label and 50 cents won't even get you a cup of coffee nowadays.

"Mayor Giuliani continues to hang his hat on national polls that show him garnering around 30 percent support," Madden said, "yet fully 100 percent of the electorate knows who he is. That is a very big gulf to have between the number of voters that know him and the number that actually support him."

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