globe graphic Rudy Giuliani's travels
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THE VILLAGES, Fla. - In a little more than 24 hours this week, Rudy Giuliani raised money in Fargo, N.D., met voters in a small town in western Iowa, addressed a law enforcement charity dinner in Sioux Falls, S.D., and spoke to retirees near Orlando, Fla.
His unorthodox, zig-zagging strategy to win the GOP presidential nomination puts less emphasis on the early-voting, but smaller, states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina than any other leading candidate - and far more on the megaprimary Feb. 5 of more than 20 states, which includes several of the largest.
And as the former New York mayor tries to turn the conventional wisdom of the presidential nominating process on its head, it is the Jan. 29 primary in Florida and its large population of transplanted northerners, many of them New Yorkers, that is the linchpin of his strategy.
With a double-digit lead in the national polls, he is seeking to capitalize on the new compressed nominating calendar with its early super primary by hopscotching across the country, often hitting multiple states in a single day. This week, for instance, his coast-to-coast campaigning took him not only to Florida, but also to California, Missouri, and North Dakota, three of the at least 20 states that will vote on Feb. 5.
On Wednesday, while he made two forays into western Iowa, he spent most of the day in the Dakotas raising money, becoming the first Republican to stump in North Dakota, which has just 26 delegates, and the only presidential candidate to campaign in South Dakota, which won't hold its primary until June 3. In Sioux Falls, S.D., near the Iowa border, he attended a fund-raiser at the Minnehaha Country Club, then addressed 1,600 law enforcement officers and spouses at a "Game Feed" charity dinner.
Giuliani spoke about the Sept. 11 attacks and told the officers that they are no longer first responders, they are the first line of defense against terrorists.
On Thursday, he gave a stump speech in The Villages, a virtual city of about 75,000 with 30 golf courses about an hour's drive north of Orlando. Giuliani was 45 minutes late, but the big crowd still cheered when he took the stage at the bandstand in Market Square. Afterward, there were traffic jams of golf carts, the favored mode of transportation in this big retirement community.
The speech was vintage Giuliani - tough on taxes, Democrats, and Iran - and was sandwiched between fund-raising events in the Gulf coast cities of Tampa and Naples. Giuliani is scheduled to return to Florida tomorrow to attend the NASCAR Nextel Cup season finale outside Miami.
Of the five top Republican candidates, Giuliani has held the lowest percentage of his total events in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina - 42 percent - according to an analysis of candidate tracking data compiled by The
With the Iowa caucuses only 47 days away, Giuliani has so far confounded the wise guys and traditionalists. They don't believe the GOP will nominate an abortion rights advocate for the first time in more than three decades.
And they don't believe Giuliani can lose the first three states and bounce back to take the nomination, even with his strong polling numbers in Florida and many of the states voting on Feb. 5. They point to the long history of nominees emerging from the winners in Iowa or New Hampshire or both, and the importance of momentum gained by victories.
"They're trying to set the expectations lower in Iowa and will probably look to break through in New Hampshire," said Mike Murphy, a Republican consultant who has worked for Romney and McCain in the past but is neutral in this year's campaign. "It's a good strategy if you can pull it off, but it's pretty transparent."
But two top Giuliani aides insisted he will do it his way. In an unusual briefing of reporters this week, they laid out a strategy that acknowledges the possibility that he might not win any primaries before Florida on Jan. 29.
Campaign manager Michael DuHaime went so far as to claim Giuliani has "momentum-proof" leads in polls in Florida, California, New York, New Jersey, and other later-voting states that would survive mediocre finishes in the early voting states.
He insisted that the delegate math will work for Giuliani, since more than 1,000 of the nearly 2,400 delegates will be awarded on Feb. 5. "It's impossible to think that it will be over after three states," DuHaime said, referring to Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.
In Iowa, Giuliani has done few all-day barnstormings, the trademark of retail campaigning in the runup to the Jan. 3 caucuses.
Terry E. Branstad, a four-term former Republican governor of Iowa, said Giuliani "has hurt himself [in Iowa] because he hasn't put a lot of time or resources into the state."
"There are three tickets out of Iowa, and it's possible he could come in fourth," said Branstad, now president of Des Moines University, who is neutral in the race.
Giuliani consistently finishes a distant third in Iowa polls behind Romney and Huckabee, who has been surging in the Hawkeye State. In most of the surveys, Giuliani is slightly ahead of Thompson, who finishes fourth.
"We're really in, sort of, a battle with Governor Huckabee there, for who's going to be in second place," said Giuliani's strategy director, Brent Seaborn.
New Hampshire, which has not yet set its primary date, could be critical to the fortunes of a few candidates. In four New Hampshire polls this month, including one done for the Globe, Giuliani placed an average of 14 percentage points behind Romney and about three points ahead of McCain, who was third.
McCain, who thumped George W. Bush in the 2000 New Hampshire primary, has flatly predicted he will win again, all but making the Granite State the Alamo of his candidacy if he fails.
In South Carolina polls, Giuliani finishes at or near the top of a pack of four candidates, with Huckabee also now moving into contention in the Jan. 19 primary.
Giuliani's campaign did not begin airing TV ads until this week, buying time in New Hampshire. He had, however, already spent about $1 million on radio ads in the three early states and several million dollars more on about a dozen targeted direct mailings to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.
By contrast, Romney's campaign has spent more than $10.2 million on TV ads, mostly in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, according to computations done for CNN.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
