The GOP race remains wide open

We are about one month into the presidential primary season, and the Republicans are no closer to selecting a clear cut frontrunner for their nomination than when the process began.

That isn't a bad thing. I've written before that the race for the presidency should be a marathon and not a sprint.

Both Democrats and Republicans have tried their best to condense the election process by frontloading the primary season. After all, more than 20 states will hold primaries on February 5 (including Tennessee).

I believe that is bad because voters need to see candidates exposed to the pressures of a campaign as much as possible. If nominees are established quickly, then they can coast their way to November.

However, that is not likely in either party this year, and that is especially so on the Republican side.

Watching the competition between the candidates has been exciting, and the results so far show us the race has a long way to go.

Arizona Sen. John McCain won New Hampshire and South Carolina. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won Michigan and Nevada. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won Iowa and placed a close second in South Carolina.

Nobody has been able to pull ahead of the pack.

The campaign has been aggressive, and because it has been so tight, the candidates have had to be on their toes.

Additionally, the presence of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will finally be felt when the Florida primary is held Tuesday.

Guiliani's strategy has been risky. He has virtually ignored the early primaries and caucuses, and he got trounced in each of those states.

He is hoping a strong showing in Florida will springboard him to big wins on Super Tuesday on February 5.

Though it could work for him, I hate this strategy. Frankly, I believe it is an arrogant approach.

The other candidates have sweated blood while fighting it out in the other states, while America's Mayor has chosen to set his own agenda at the expense of the American people.

Voters need to see Giuliani in the campaign thunderdome to determine whether he is presidential material. He is blowing that opportunity by believing he can breeze on to the scene late and expect everybody to accommodate him.

My prediction is that he is waiting too late and won't be able to generate momentum. Timing is essential in politics, and Giuliani is proving that he doesn't understand that.

Ask former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson about that. Last year, the political scene was abuzz about him possibly entering the race.

However, he waited and waited and waited before making his announcement, and he lost his momentum.

By the time he announced his candidacy on The Tonight Show, the moment had passed him. He seemed like yesterday's news even though his campaign was only beginning.

Though the party's convention is still months away, one can't help but speculate what it will be like if the situation remains as it is. We could be looking at the first contested GOP convention in decades.

In the last couple of decades, both the Democratic and Republican conventions have become more and more irrelevant. Nothing of real substance happened.

Party nominees have been selected in recent years well before the convention, so this event has been watered down to a well-choreographed public relations event.

There was some drama at the GOP convention in 1976 when Ronald Reagan strongly challenged then-president Gerald Ford, but other than that, these events have been fairly quiet.

Perhaps the protests that occurred at the disastrous 1968 Democratic convention caused officials in both parties to more tightly control these events. The violence at that convention occurred when protests against the Vietnam War were at their most passionate.

The result was the Democrats came off looking like a party that couldn't run an orderly convention much less run the country. That event likely played a significant role in getting Richard Nixon elected.

The bottom line is the Republican race will have a lot more drama as the weeks unfold.

That may not make the leaders of the party happy, but it is good for voters.

And that should be what is important, right?