In case you hadn't noticed, the 2008 Primary season is going to be shorter than ever.

Which raises an interesting question: which Republican candidate stands to benefit most from all the Primary schedule changes the States made in '07?

Before last week, the political pundits were all predicting a Huckabee victory in Iowa followed by a McCain or Giuliani triumph in NH. But that's before Governor Romney began resurrecting his early-primary campaign with a torrential advertising blitz in Iowa and NH this past week.

Now, with the actual voting set to start this Thursday, it's quite conceivable the Mass. Governor will win not only NH but possibly Iowa as well. And, more importantly, to go on from there to win the "big" primaries too!

The reason? It's those wacky Primary schedule changes I just mentioned.

Money will decide "Super Tuesday's" winner

First, a bit of history. Unlike the upcoming contests this year, past Primary line-ups tended to spread out the selection process over several months--rather than weeks and (in some cases) days this time around.

That gave each candidate repeated opportunities to make his case before the American voter. And that includes those candidates with the fewest financial resources (like Mike Huckabee) and the most limited medial coverage (like Ron Paul) this time around. Past Primaries also gave the candidates time to build (and replenish) campaign resources and recover from inevitable missteps along the way.

But that's all changed now!

This time around, there's just too little time between contests. The crunch gets especially bad right before the Florida Primary on Jan. 29.

The reason is Super Tuesday (on Feb. 5) which compresses twenty separate primaries into a single 24-hour period.

And it's not just the smaller states as in the early Primaries. Among those twenty Super Tuesday contests, the Republican candidates will be fighting for rich delegate slates in Illinois and Massachusetts as well as New Jersey--not to mention the grand-daddies of all the Primaries in California and New York.

Who profits from the new Primary schedule?

So back to our original question: "Who benefits from this hyper-compressed Primary schedule?"

Answer: The candidate(s) with the most money to lavish on TV ads.

Just think about it for a minute! There's simply no way a candidate can be in more than three or four states in a single day. At least not physically.

So the trick is creating a pseudo-presence in all key States simultaneously. And how do you do that? By blanketing the airwaves with campaign advertising, of course.

Just follow the cash!

But TV ads obviously don't come cheap these days. So who's got the cash to finance a Super Tuesday blitz?

The FEC's latest numbers show Gov. Romney ($61.6m) with the most campaign contributions by far, followed by Mayor Giuliani ($46.7m) and then Senator McCain ($31.4m).

Despite his surge in popularity, Gov. Huckabee ($2.3) is near the bottom of the Republican fundraising list--easily outdistanced by even Rep. Paul (at $8.2m) who's gotten little of the media attention lavished on the Arkansas Governor.

What it all means

1. The Republicans will have a Presidential nominee as early as Feb 6.

1. The most likely name of that nominee is Mitt Romney.