Kansas City, MO — Rudy Giuliani will spend Wednesday campaigning and fundraising in Missouri (albeit a Feb. 5 primary state) but with no stops planned across the border in Iowa—only 100 miles from the site of his first appearance in Kansas City tomorrow. The trip comes as his national approach to the nomination is being met with increasing criticism by pundits and strategists who are questioning his decision to pay little attention to the traditional early primary/caucus states of Iowa (1/3), New Hampshire (1/8) and South Carolina (1/19).

But the campaign is still hitting the early states with ads, direct mail and recently deploying surrogates to the make the case for Hizzoner in the last week.

Among them:

–Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson and other campaign supporters have been heading up to New Hampshire.

–Televangelist Pat Robertson is hitting the radio airwaves in South Carolina.

–And Texas Governor Rick Perry has visited Iowa and South Carolina in the last week. However, Perry got himself in a bit of hot water last week after attacking President Bush as “never, ever” having been a fiscal conservative in an attempt to distinguish Rudy’s fiscal record. “Rudy is a real fiscal conservative. He’s a bonafide Reagan Republican. George Bush isn’t and he never was,” Perry told a house party in Cedar Rapids. (See video)

Giuliani also returns to New Hampshire this weekend for a multi-day swing but it is unclear when he will stop again in Iowa before the caucus.