Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, once the Republican presidential front-runner thanks to his status as "America's Mayor," suffered a debilitating defeat in Tuesday's Florida primary. He prepared Wednesday to quit the race and endorse his friendliest rival, John McCain.
Rudy Giuliani sounded like someone who was dropping out of the Republican race after a poor showing in Florida.
He thanked all of his opponents in an Orlando speech and talked about the race in the past tense.
The Associated Press reported that he was in discussions with the McCain campaign to give his endorcement.
Most of the polls have Rudy Giuliani in third place among the Republican contenders in Florida's primary today. Could the road to the White House be over for Giuliani? He's not saying so.
Rudy Giuliani said Sunday he's the best pick in the GOP field for any voter concerned about lower taxes and less government spending, counting on a shift in emphasis to the economy to boost him to victory in this must-win state.
"The case for me is that I am the strongest fiscal conservative in the race," he said on ABC's "This Week," launching a two-day bus tour through Florida nine days before the state's primary.
The main focus of Giuliani's early campaign derived from his response to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York. That claim to leadership is still an important campaign point now, just not the main one. The 2001 attacks themselves are hardly ever mentioned, and even then only tangentially. Instead, he talks broadly -- and briefly -- about the ongoing "Islamic terrorist war against us" and what he would do to prevail.
Last month, fighting irrelevancy and with his poll numbers in decline, Giuliani sought to put this core issue back to the forefront of his campaign. He aired ads referencing the attacks and delivered a national security speech in New Hampshire.
But he continued having trouble wresting national security conservatives away from GOP rival John McCain. At the same time, fears of a national recession and individuals' personal financial worries have given pocketbook issues greater importance in voters' minds, in Florida and elsewhere.
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who has traveled frequently with Giuliani, said he's seen a remarkable shift in interest in crowds in the last two weeks away from security. "There's more interest right now in the economy," Freeh said.
So Giuliani has been making a more aggressive argument that his two terms as New York mayor give him the strongest record to deal with a troublesome economy. Even critics acknowledge he was successful in stabilizing a city once on the brink of collapse.
On Sunday, Giuliani used that to paint a contrast with his rivals, though none by name.
Giuliani repeated what has become a common refrain from him and, even more pointedly, from his surrogates on McCain: that the Arizona GOP senator had voted against Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and "doesn't have that same fervor" about tax cuts that Giuliani does.
"I think it comes from the fact that he hasn't had the kind of experiences that I have -- running America's largest city, being involved in America's 17th largest economy, running the second or third largest government," Giuliani said at a banquet hall here. "When you have that experience, when you have that executive experience, you have to make decisions and decisions have consequences."
Another line was clearly meant to spread the criticism to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as well. Polls show the four in an essentially tied race for the GOP primary here.
"Sometimes people that are in Washington too long, in state capitols for too long, they think ... it's about the central government," Giuliani said. "They can have a plan to straighten things out for you. Beware of central governments that have plans to straighten things out for you."
But his remarks were dominated by superlative claims about his own accomplishments, abilities, and promises related to the economy: "the biggest tax cut plan of anyone running," "my record in tax cutting is so much better than anyone else," "more executive responsibility than the other candidates that are running," "turned around the economy of New York City ... the most successful government turnaround in the last 30 or 40 years," and "there will be nobdy better at controlling that (federal) spending than me."
His latest television ad quotes from conservatives such as Steve Forbes -- and even Romney -- to make his case on fiscal issues.
Giuliani also defended his decision to pull out of the early-state contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and elsewhere to pin all his hopes on Florida. Giuliani's campaign has become a win-by-losing gamble, and he upped his bet even further Sunday by saying straight out that the Sunshine State is not just pivotal -- but determinative. Candidates usually work to lower expectations, not raise them.
"This whole thing is going to get decided on the 29th of January," Giuliani told a small crowd in a Tampa restaurant. "Florida is going to pick, I believe, the next Republican nominee for president of the United States."
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Associated Press Writer Liz Sidoti in Miami contributed to this story.
Girding for battle as the rest of the GOP field descended upon Florida, Rudy Giuliani challenged them for the first time by name.
"Do they agree that you should have a national catastrophic fund?" he said in a Saturday tour of the Everglades. "I support it -- I was the first one to support it. Now let's find out where the others -- John McCain and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson -- let's see what their position is on this."
For weeks, the former New York mayor has had this state to himself, having pulled out of the early primaries to focus time and cash on Florida's 57 delegates. While others rallied late votes in South Carolina, he attended a round table about Florida's space industry and toured the Everglades.
But it has cost Giuliani -- in raw delegate counts and lost news cycles to those men who did contend the six Republican primaries so far. Giuliani finally won his first delegate Saturday, in Nevada. But he is behind even long-shot Ron Paul in that department, after Paul picked up four out West.
Stretching to stay relevant, Giuliani went on the attack and called two big allies to his side.
Actor Jon Voight and former FBI director Louis Freeh, Giuliani's homeland security adviser and Delaware campaign chair, introduced him at a rally in the central Florida retirement community The Villages.
Both Voight and Giuliani acknowledged he'd have to win Florida to stand a chance.
"I know there is no second place," Voight said. "I know this has to happen, and Florida's got to do it. This is a very important election; it's the most important in my lifetime."
Giuliani has been challenging the other candidates to come on down, and now they will. Ten days remain before Florida's Jan. 29 primary, the longest gap between votes since the nomination process began.
"We're waiting for you," Giuliani said. "We're waiting for you with a campaign we've been working on for I think almost a year."
The Republican used one of his last chances with an undivided spotlight to ally himself with President Bush in a swipe at opponents.
"I supported the Bush tax cuts. John McCain voted with the Democrats against the Bush tax cuts and Mitt Romney was equivocal in his support," Giuliani said.
Earlier, Giuliani addressed a few hundred outside a Broward County library in South Florida, one of several early voting locations.
At the end of the rally, Giuliani started to chant: "Let's go vote! Let's go vote!"
A handful of people made their way inside, voter registration cards in hand.
In a week and a half, he'll find out if it was enough.
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Associated Press Writer Rasha Madkour contributed to this report from Coral Springs and the Everglades.
John McCain and Mitt Romney are battling for
Michigan, while Rudy Giuliani is sticking to his plan of putting all
his eggs in one basket: Florida. Trouble is, he has lost ground there;
a new poll shows Giuliani, Romney and McCain is a statistical dead heat
in the Sunshine State.
WATCH THE REPORT
With his plan for winning the GOP presidential nomination riding largely on a Florida victory at the end of the month, Rudy Giuliani asked an evangelical congregation for prayers instead of votes Sunday and quoted scripture to evoke a message of hope and perseverance.
"I'm not coming here to ask for your vote," he said. "That's up to you and it's not the right place. But I am coming here to ask you for something very special and more important: I'm asking for your prayers."
While other Republican candidates are focused on Tuesday's Michigan primary, Giuliani is following a strategy of pushing for a Jan. 29 victory in Florida he hopes will propel him toward a dominant showing on Feb. 5, when more than 20 states hold primaries and caucuses, and then on to the nomination.
Once a strong front-runner in national polls, the former New York City mayor has fallen well behind the three candidates jockeying for a victory in Michigan, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
"I've faced odds that were at times seemingly impossible, situations where people had given up hope, but we didn't listen to the doubters, we didn't listen to the naysayers," Giuliani told several thousand worshippers at El Rey Jesus church in Miami.
"Fear not, be strong, and of good courage," he added, quoting the Bible. The church, with has a congregation of 10,000 people, was his first stop on a three-day bus tour through Florida.
After church Sunday, the candidate did remind crowds at some later stops about early voting, which starts Monday. His campaign has been putting an extra focus on voter outreach for the early balloting.
Giuliani's Florida bus tour -- expected to cover nearly 700 miles by the end of the day Tuesday -- comes on the heels of word last week that a dozen senior staffers are giving up their paychecks this month, which some have read as a sign that the one-time front-runner is struggling with a cash shortage.
Giuliani and his aides, however, have dismissed suggestions the campaign is running into money trouble.
"We're in good shape," he told reporters Sunday. "We really are. The reality is we have enough money to get through this." He said the people forgoing their pay "did that out of an excess of generosity but it really wasn't necessary."
He said that unlike some other candidates, notably Romney, he has not put any of his own money into his campaign.
"I never have," he said. "I believe that the way you run for office is you raise money and you've got to raise money among the people and you've got to have their support in order to run."
In an interview Sunday on Fox News, Giuliani was pressed about whether his campaign has been steadily retreating from early primary states like Michigan and South Carolina, where he once said he would compete and has now pulled back, Giuliani said the strategy has been to adjust.
"The reality is as these primaries played out, certain people were very strong in some, and you had to look for the opportunity where you had the best chance to demonstrate your strength," he said. "And it turned out that the analysis was that Florida was the best place for us to do it."
As Giuliani boarded a firetruck Sunday to ride in a Three Kings parade in Little Havana, some Miami-Dade County firefighters were protesting the decision by their union leaders to put him in a truck with the union name on the side.
Parade-goers along the two-mile route both cheered and booed the former mayor.
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Saturday that his experience as New York City's mayor during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is a big reason why he supports a national insurance backup fund.
"Maybe I feel more strongly about this because of what I went through as mayor. I don't even know how to describe Sept. 11. I don't know if catastrophe is even the right word," Giuliani said. "There's no possible way we could have gotten through that alone. No possible way."
A national catastrophe fund is a top federal priority for Gov. Charlie Crist and two Democratic congressmen from Florida, Ron Klein and Tim Mahoney, have a bill that passed the House which would create a the backup fund in hopes of making property insurance more affordable and accessible.
"I more than most realize how important it was to us to have federal help, federal backup," Giuliani said during a town hall meeting at a senior center. "Look, it's going to be there because of the kind of people we are. We might as well try to organize it in a sensible way."
Giuliani arrived 45 minutes late for the event, which drew about 500 people.
He spoke about familiar themes before taking questions -- fighting terrorism, limiting medical malpractice lawsuit awards and improving health care through private competition.
One young boy asked him if he was scared during the terrorist attacks which brought down the World Trade Center towers.
"I didn't have time to be," Giuliani said, before talking for several minutes about the experience. "Because it happened so fast, all that you could do was to think about the next decision to make and to remain as calm as possible."
While other Republican candidates are focusing on the Michigan primary Tuesday and next Saturday's South Carolina primary, Giuliani is sinking nearly all his time and resources into Florida's Jan. 29 primary.
About a dozen senior campaign staffers for Rudy Giuliani are forgoing their January paychecks, aides said Friday, a sign of possible money trouble for the Republican presidential candidate.
"We have enough money, but we could always use more money," contended Mike DuHaime, Giuliani's campaign manager and one of those who now is working for free. "We want to make sure we have enough to win."
At the end of December, he said the campaign had $11.5 million cash on hand, $7 million of which can be used for the primary. He disputed the notion of a cash-strapped campaign, and said Giuliani continues to bring in cash; several fundraisers are scheduled this week in Florida.
DuHaime and other aides stressed that relinquishing pay was voluntary and was limited to senior staffers.
"I want to do everything I can to make sure Rudy's president, and I speak for a lot of the campaign when I say that," DuHaime said. "None of us joined this campaign for money."
Still, the move raises questions about whether Giuliani's bank account is as flush as he needs it to be to cobble together wins in enough states to secure the party nod.
The former New York mayor has yet to win a contest and is counting on a victory in delegate-rich Florida to prove his candidacy is viable heading into the multistate contests slated for Feb. 5, where he believes he can prevail in states like California and Illinois.
It's a costly strategy because Florida and states that follow it are home to some of the most expensive media markets in the country. With so many states voting in such a narrow time period, candidates can do little else but rely on paid media to get their message out.
Republican strategists estimate that it will cost roughly $35 million to run heavy levels of ads in the two dozen states that hold contests on Feb. 5.
All Republican candidates have struggled to raise money for the 2008 presidential race, an indication that GOP donors aren't as energized as Democrats.
Giuliani, for his part, poured several million dollars into advertising in Iowa and New Hampshire, only to come in far behind his opponents. He has been spending millions of dollars over the past month to run TV ads in Florida.
