California had their delegates halved for moving up. This was a major blow to Rudy’s strategy. The article I read today seems to think that the rural counties seemed to be leaning to Thompson. If this is true, he should do alright there.
The GOP Primary Wiki shows no indication of California losing any of their 173 delegates. And they are not statewide WTA. The media markets there are lethal, but if you don’t compete in them, you don’t win.
Rural CA is conservative, In 04 I saw only Bush signs throughout CA farmland. In fact, if you look at the CA map by county, with red = Bush and blue = Kerry, California is a red state, sprinkled with blue here and there.