I know I haven’t written much about the presidential race lately. What can I say? It’s the Dog Days and nothing much is happening. The races on both sides are in a sort of stasis, with few people paying attention. On the side I really care about, the stasis is magnified by everyone waiting for Fred Thompson to finally get in the race and reveal whether or not he has game. Then again, stasis probably isn’t a bad place for the races to be six months prior to the Iowa caucuses.

That said, this Rasmussen poll of Florida provides a piece of horrendous news for Rudy Giuliani. The poll shows Rudy drawing 22%, Fred! pulling 21%, and Romney at McCain at 13%. As Rasmussen writes, Florida looks a lot like the national race.

This is problematic for Rudy. Florida is his firewall. He always planned on using Florida as his springboard to Mega-Tuesday. As you know, I never found this plan particularly compelling. I thought Rudy was kidding himself if he believed that he could spend three weeks losing in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and then somehow emerge victorious in the Sunshine State. Now that the polls are showing him holding only a 1% lead in Florida, that plan is looking even more ludicrous.

I’ll defer to our erstwhile Rudy insider on this, but I assume the Florida numbers are why Rudy has suddenly hit the airwaves in Iowa. He realizes that if he doesn’t win Iowa, he also doesn’t win New Hampshire and gets crushed in South Carolina. Those consecutive losses mean he’ll also lose in Florida, and officially be a dead-candidate-walking come Mega-Tuesday.

THE REAL QUESTION EVERYONE HAS going into this cycle is does the trampoline still exist? In other words, can a candidate win in the early states and make a leap in the national polls, or has the nation collectively decided to tune out Iowa and New Hampshire this time around?

There are two schools of thoughts: The first says that with what’s in essence a national primary this time around, no one will care about the exhibition season in Iowa and New Hampshire. The other says that with an accelerated campaign schedule, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina will mean more than ever.

For what it’s worth, I come down squarely in the latter camp. I don’t think most normal people begin paying attention to the presidential campaign until right before the Iowa caucuses. An obscure guy who emerges there will officially hit the big time. A candidate who can win both Iowa and New Hampshire will spend two weeks in the national media’s spotlight looking like a winner. No matter how much money you have on hand, you can’t buy publicity like that. (Something that Barack Obama and his fearsome fundraising machine should take note of.)

The only unique wrinkle this time around is that on the Republican side, the third state in the line-up, South Carolina, is a place where Fred Thompson looks very strong and Mitt Romney looks very weak. If Thompson turns out to actually have game and can survive the consecutive blows of losing Iowa and New Hampshire and still win in South Carolina, it will be a dogfight between him and Romney on mega-Tuesday.

Of course, this entire scenario depends on the early states still mattering, and mattering a lot. Like I said, I think the accelerated schedule will make them matter more than ever. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the Giuliani campaign, which has just expressed its feelings on the matter with its wallet by purchasing airtime in Iowa.

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