Politics

Giuliani strives to rebuild momentum

The former front-runner hits on hot Republican issues during a state bus tour.

By DAVID DECAMP, Times Staff Writer
Published January 15, 2008

Rudy Giuliani reaches to sign a copy of his "My Twelve Commitments" pamphlet offered by James Imfeld during a Monday night campaign stop at Tucson's Southwest Grill in Clearwater.
	[Jim Damaske | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [AP photo] Rudy Giuliani is banking on a big Florida win to propel him to the top of the GOP field.

FORT MYERS - All eyes on him, Rudy Giuliani hit the hot Republican issues like it was batting practice. Cut taxes, fight terrorism, stop illegal immigration - whack, whack, whack.

On the sixth leg of a 15-event bus tour, the former front-runner of the GOP presidential field moved with ease on stage Monday at the Shell Point retirement village church, gesturing and laying out his plans. More than 1,000 people listened.

"My campaign is about, talking about, how to make changes in the right direction. To make changes for the continued growth of our economy, continued economic security for Americans here in Florida, and throughout the country," he said.

Despite Florida's two time zones and expensive media markets, Giuliani is approaching January in Florida like he's campaigning in the early contests he mostly abandoned in Iowa and New Hampshire. The former New York mayor wears a cinched tie everywhere, giving thumbs-up signs and signing autographs.

Besides the town hall meeting at the church, Giuliani on this tour has glad-handed Floridians at a Coconut Grove cafe and a Sarasota diner. He also joined a parade in Little Havana, waving from a fire truck and then walking until he perspired through his longsleeved shirts.

The trip has not gone entirely by design. Giuliani showed up nearly two hours late in Sarasota and at a town hall meeting at Tucson's Southwest Grill in Clearwater. When he arrived for a Pinellas GOP meeting, he apologized to a still thick crowd. Then he rehit the tax cuts theme and national security, joined by campaign advisor Steve Forbes.

Giuliani's trickiest moment was when Fred Thompson supporter Bill Bunting of Pasco County pushed him to support a national law allowing concealed weapons permits. Giuliani, who supported gun control as mayor, said he wanted a state-by-state process.

He opened the trip Sunday by speaking to an evangelical megachurch in Miami, even though social conservative voters are considered his weakness here. It was a sign of how deeply he is pressing for a victory in a bus tour that finishes today in Central Florida and the Jacksonville area.

"I'm not coming here to ask for your vote. That's up to you, and it's not the right place for it," Giuliani told the charismatic El Rey Jesus crowd of 7,000. "But I am coming here to ask you for something very special. And more important. I'm asking for your prayers."

His strong lead two months ago in Florida has unraveled into a neck-and-neck campaign. John McCain moved into a slight lead in new polls by Quinnipiac University and Rasmussen Reports, who show the state in a statistical dead heat.

"It's disappointing how the polls went," said supporter William Schmitt, 66, after watching Giuliani at the retirement village, a Republican voter bastion.

His friend Bob Paolellasaid Giuliani is his first choice.

"I like how he handled the questions. He answered directly," Paolella, 69, said, before adding, "the publicity hasn't been good."

You wouldn't know it from the sign on Giuliani's tour bus, which says "Florida is Rudy Country." Giuliani and his aides have at least kept the appearance of being unbothered by their toughening task.

Campaign aides say a 50-person staff and 6,000 volunteers give Giuliani the soundest organization in the state. Senior leadership staffers are going unpaid so he has enough campaign cash.

In what is looming as a dogged stretch to win Florida on Jan. 29, Giuliani plans to campaign in the state almost every day. Sometime after a Panhandle trip this week, Giuliani plans to visit Pasco and Hernando counties.

Speaking to reporters aboard the tour bus, Giuliani brushed aside worries that he's losing momentum after two dismal primary finishes. He was more interested in whether his Giants would win a playoff game.

"We're in good shape, we really are. The reality is we have enough money to get through," he said. Referring to the staffers forgoing pay, "the people who did that did it out of an excess of generosity."

While Giuliani has addressed his situation to mostly supportive crowds, it has caused him and his advisers to parry questions on whether his all-on-Florida bid is smart. Other candidates are competing in Michigan today and South Carolina later this week.

His trek through the state also has been notable for oddities that at times have nudged him away from his message of security and tax reductions.

On Sunday, Giuliani staffers fended off questions about Katherine Harris showing up unexpectedly at the Miami church.

Also, a Miami-Dade commissioner had to be found to answer why a union fire truck Giuliani rode in the Little Havana parade would have the union logo covered. (Answer: Some union members don't support him.)

Then there were the antiabortion hecklers shouting at Giuliani over his liberal social policy positions. (He supports abortion rights.) He kept speaking during the seven-minute stump speech at his Broward County headquarters, even as one heckler's noise and Giuliani supporters threatened to throw him off.

David DeCamp can be reached at ddecamp@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6232.

[Last modified January 14, 2008, 23:20:47]