The Empire State's presidential primary is less than two months away, and there's nary a stilted photo opportunity in sight. No Hillary lighting the liberty pole with Mayor Duffy or Mitt Romney cutting figure eights at Rockefeller Center.

Where is everybody?

"Our primary really doesn't carry the weight that New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, any of those do," says Sean Hart, communications director for the Monroe County Democratic Party. "Most activity will be outside of New York."

It wasn't always this way.

Reagan carried the now-reliably Democratic state in 1980 and 84. And people were looking at Jesse Jackson as a viable candidate until he lost the New York primary in 1988, says Timothy Kneeland, associate professor of political science and history at Nazareth College.

We used to matter.

"New York's been pretty important as a means for determining or at least feeling the front-runner status," Kneeland says. "In the past, it has been a very interesting place to come."

What's changed? A lot, actually, starting with the calendar. The 2008 primaries are earlier and more tightly packed than ever.

"We used to spread the primaries out, which gave the candidates weeks and weeks to go and slowly build their organizations, spend the money, put the ads on the air, have their debates, Kneeland says. "Then they would slowly drop out as they ran out of money."

More than 20 states, including New York, have primaries or caucuses on February 5 - Super Tuesday - this year. There's no time or money, Kneeland says, for candidates to leisurely build a foundation in less-significant states.

With money and time so precious, candidates may be conceding New York to the state's junior senator - Clinton - and New York City's former mayor, Rudy Giuliani.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense to say, ‘Well, I'm going to concentrate on New York on February 5,' if, in fact, you lose every primary and caucus before then," Kneeland says. "You're out of the race, because no one's going to give money to your campaign."

There are eight primaries-caucuses before Super Tuesday.

Contenders probably won't ignore New York entirely, though, in case fortune smiles - in the form of catastrophe for someone else. Think Mike Dukakis and the tank.

"Maybe there will be a ‘Dean Scream' moment from Clinton or McCain, or something that will kill them that the media will play over and over," Kneeland says. "They never know."

But that's hypothetical. Let's say you've got a fire in your belly for presidential hopeful Joe Biden. Or you heart Mike Huckabee. Or you're still hoping Al Gore will swoop in, Nobel Prize in one hand, a copy of "A Sand County Almanac" in the other. What do you do? "Launch into cyberspace" is the best answer I can get. Candidates' Web sites let people sign up to volunteer and, Kneeland says, if you're dedicated and willing to traipse to Iowa or New Hampshire, someone will contact you.

There are local groups out there, too, if you can find them - and it's not easy. I found groups for Obama, Huckabee, and Ron Paul in the Rochester area. Meetup.com is a good place to start.

Yeah, that's a bit of a letdown. But there's hope, New York. We will shed our second-class status in a big way if the title bout is Clinton v. Giuliani.

"New York would be battleground central," Kneeland says. "We would actually see candidates come."