Whether trekking from house to house in New Hampshire or holding one last town hall meeting in Iowa before last night's vote, presidential candidates have put on their snow boots and put in their time in the first two states to cast primary ballots.

But yesterday, as Iowans settled in for a vote and New Hampshire readied itself for a candidate blitz before Tuesday's primary, Rudy Giuliani traded snow boots for flip-flops as he headed to Florida, a delegate-rich state that doesn't vote for 25 more days.

Giuliani is banking on an unorthodox strategy. His gamble is that Republican voters won't unite around a clear front-runner this month, giving him time to pull off late victories in Florida and some of the 22 states that vote Feb. 5.

Polls place him between third and fifth place in the early voting states, and his lead in national polls has evaporated. Still, Giuliani said he's not worried.

"This is a strategy that we selected pretty close to Day One," Giuliani told reporters in Bedford yesterday. "So maybe other people would get nervous in a situation like this, but this is what we expected.

"We see this as a different kind of election," he said. "We've never had 29 primaries and caucuses in one month. This is extraordinary. Something different is going to win this election. We hope it's our different strategy that wins it, and we're confident it will."

Political analysts agree that the front-loaded primary introduces new variables, but the result may not favor Giuliani.

"I think that the momentum from these other states means that whoever wins the early states is going to have a snowball effect. That's what historically happens year after year after year," said Andy Smith, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire and director of the UNH Survey Center. "Since we've seen the front-loading process of primaries accelerating in recent years, the momentum one gains from wining New Hampshire is even greater."

Giuliani bets that delegate math, not momentum, will carry the day. Giuliani's strategy director, Brent Seaborn, made his case last week in a memo titled "Looking Good," which was sent to supporters and reporters.

"For the record, only 78 delegates will be picked prior to Florida whereas 1,039 delegates will be picked on January 29 and February 5," Seaborn wrote. "Additionally, it is important to note that voting HAS ALREADY STARTED in Florida, Missouri, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey and New York - tens of thousands of people will have already cast their ballot by the time you are reading this note. And more February 5th states, including California will begin early and absentee voting soon.

"All of this points to the folly of over-estimating the impact of the results of Iowa and New Hampshire and the wisdom of our strategy," he wrote.

History is not on Giuliani's side. No candidate in recent elections has gone far without a win or a very strong showing in an early voting state, Smith said. The last time a Republican primary came down to counting delegates was in 1976, when Gerald Ford narrowly defeated Ronald Reagan, Smith said. Ford won New Hampshire and opened up a comfortable lead, winning the Florida and Illinois primaries. By March, Reagan's campaign was nearly broke. But with the help of North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms, Reagan upset Ford in North Carolina and picked up steam. Ford had a slight edge on Reagan heading into the Republican National Convention, where he secured the nomination.

Reagan had two advantages that Giuliani doesn't. In 1976, there were months between each state's primary vote, leaving campaigns time to regroup and test new strategies, said Dante Scala, an associate professor of political science at UNH. And Reagan had a sure win in a later-voting primary state: He was governor of California, a state that didn't vote until May.

"California still meant something," Smith said. "What's Giuliani got that's that far out that's going to count?"

Reagan's national campaign manager in 1976, John Sears, told a Harvard University Institute of Politics seminar about the importance of momentum.

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