While many people are thinking about the holidays, Rudy Giuliani is thinking about winning in Missouri. Most of the candidate attention in the run for the presidency is in the early voting states: Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. But Giuliani is not leading in any of them. MU Political Science Department's Professor Marvin Overby says Giuliani's strategy is to look beyond those states.

"Giuliani is basically saying I'm not going to contest to these early contacts in Iowa and New Hampshire. I'm looking down the road, to the bigger states, to more swing states, to places like Florida, New York, California, and like Missouri," he said.

But Boone County Republican Central Committee's Bruce Cornett thinks you can expect to see more Republicans than Democrats.

"Because of some formulas the Republican Party uses at the national convention, we have quite a few convention votes, higher than you would expect us to have, so we will get a lot of attention from the Republican candidates," he said.

Giuliani's visit may be the first of many. There are differing opinions on whether or not the holiday visit is effective.

"I don't think the general population is paying attention at this holiday time of the year and it's so early you can't really think about next November this November," said Cornett.

"Is it a good thing," said Overby. "Well, from the perspective of democracy broadly conceived, probably not. Is it an understandable thing."