Rudy Giuliani's campaign will stay the course with its nontraditional strategy of balancing its resources between early-state contests and a large cluster of later high-delegate states, campaign officials said yesterday.
Iowa kicks off the Republican nomination process with its caucuses on Jan. 3, and New Hampshire is likely to hold the first primary days after Iowa. While he trails in those states, the former New York mayor has maintained a double-digit lead in national polls and in many large later-voting states such as California, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania.
In a conference call with reporters, campaign manager Michael DuHaime and strategy director Brent Seaborn called it a "long-term strategy," not, as it has often been characterized, a "Feb. 5 strategy," referring to the day when primary voters in at least 20 states will select more than 1,000 of the nearly 2,400 delegates to the party convention next summer.
The Giuliani officials declined to say where they believe the former New York mayor must place in the early states to maintain momentum going into the Jan. 29 Florida primary, which is a cornerstone of Giuliani's game plan.
"It's impossible to think that it will be over after three states," DuHaime said. That includes South Carolina on Jan. 19, where most polls have shown Giuliani bunched in a pack with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former US senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, and Senator John McCain of Arizona.
BRIAN C. MOONEY
Tancredo to air terror ad
US Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado plans to air perhaps the most incendiary TV ad of the campaign so far.
The spot, which will air in New Hampshire and Iowa, focuses on illegal immigrants and says that besides taking jobs from Americans, they could launch terrorist attacks because porous borders are allowing Islamic radicals to roam the country.
The ad, first obtained by ABC News, shows the victims of terrorist attacks in Europe and ends with the sound of an explosion and the words on the screen: "Tancredo . . . before it's too late."
Tancredo, who is stuck in the second tier of Republican candidates, has crusaded against illegal immigration in Congress and has made the issue the centerpiece of his presidential bid. "I approved this message because someone needs to say it," he says in the ad.
FOON RHEE
Offering veterans support
Those who want to be the next commander in chief marked Veterans Day in ways that reflected the tenor of their campaigns.
Democrats Hillary Clinton, senator of New York, Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, and John Edwards, former senator of North Carolina, used the observance to highlight their plans to give more help to veterans. They are calling for improved healthcare, with particular attention to military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Edwards unveiled a $400 million plan under which veterans could seek counseling for the disorder outside the Veterans Health Administration system, the number of counselors would increase, and family members would be employed to identify cases of the disorder.
"I strongly believe we must restore the sacred contract we have with our veterans and their families, and that we must begin by reforming our system for treating PTSD," Edwards said yesterday in New Hampshire.
Republicans Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney largely skipped specific policy proposals for more general expressions of support for veterans. Romney offered his tribute in a video on his campaign website.
STAFF, ASSOCIATED PRESS
