As veteran Republican strategist Ed Rollins observes, more states could be holding competitive elections on Feb. 5 next year than on the actual General Election Day in November 2008.

That’s the impact of so many states moving up their presidential nominating contests to Feb. 5 or earlier. Who benefits? As usual, the people with the money. That’s sobering news for any so-called second-tier candidates trying to break into the big-bucks terrain of Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain among Republicans, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards among Democrats. Why? If Iowa starts things on Jan. 14, as currently penciled onto the calendar, and half the country votes on Feb. 5, only those with $40 million or $50 million to spend on advertising in the short window between will be able to hold up.

“It is very hard to envision a scenario where someone in the second tier is going to break though,” Democratic pollster Ed Reilly said at a briefing sponsored by The Hotline political Web site.

Florida’s decision this month to hold its nominating primary on Jan. 29, doubling up on South Carolina’s Democrats, is the latest in an early rush of big states pressing on the traditional first-out-of-the-gate roles of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Nevada was added into the early mix in 2008 to get some regional and ethnic diversity. But at least 22 states are now poised to hold caucuses or primaries Feb. 5, including the delegate-rich states of California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Except for Pennsylvania, all have been reliably one party or another since at least the 1996 election, and for the most part the quadrennial general election parades have detoured around them.

In 2004, George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger, John Kerry, invested little time or advertising in these big states, concentrating instead on a mixture of smaller Midwestern states that included Ohio, Minnesota and Wisconsin and Sun Belt swing states like Florida, New Mexico and Nevada. But as Rollins and Reilly point out, California and its big-state cousins will be plum targets for nomination-seeking Democrats and Republicans in ‘08. Hence, even more primary and caucus swing states than in the general election nine months later.

Recently, the government predicted a stormy and volatile hurricane season. That forecast also could be made of the ‘08 election season. Democrats have huge advantages when prospective voters consider Bush’s legacy, the war, immigration and other issues. But when specific names are put on mock presidential ballots, the generic advantages disappear and Democratic presidential candidates are locked in virtual dead heats with top-tier Republicans Giuliani and McCain. Translation: If the debate is about the future and not a referendum on eight years of Bush, Democrats still have a long row to hoe to the White House.

Rollins, who worked in the Nixon White House, said he has not seen presidential or Republican approval ratings this bad since “the closing days of Watergate” 33 years ago.

He said Bush is married to an Iraq War policy that is extremely unpopular with Democrats and independents and an immigration reform policy that is equally unpopular among conservatives in the GOP base.

“I just can’t visualize anything that Bush can do to get any kind of bounce back,” Rollins said, predicting Republicans in Congress would increasingly run from Bush on immigration, and that GOP presidential candidates, with the exception of McCain, would increasingly look for ways to downplay their support of Bush on the war.

But congressional Democrats have angered a potent liberal anti-war wing by their inability to override a presidential veto and hold Bush to an Iraq withdrawal timetable.

The considerable “Netroots” activist base on the blogosphere and anti-war groups, led by MoveOn.org, are pressuring Democratic leaders to not cave in to Bush.

“Democrats are frustrated that the change they were optimistic about in February and March is not being realized,” Reilly said. “These are tricky waters to navigate.”