As Rudy Giuliani fades in the state where he staked his candidacy, Florida's Republican primary on Tuesday is looming as a showdown between John McCain and Mitt Romney - with the winner in a strong position heading into the 21-state national primary on Feb. 5.
The state's size and geographic, ethnic, and ideological diversity also make it the first good test of a candidate's national appeal.
"The person who comes out ahead is going to be presumed to be the front-runner nationally," said James Krog, a veteran political strategist in Florida and chief of staff to former Democratic governor Lawton Chiles, who is unaligned in the presidential race.
With Fred Thompson out of the race and Mike Huckabee scaling back his efforts in Florida, Romney's camp is trying to seize what many sense is a chance to emerge as the party's conservative favorite.
"Without Thompson and with out Huckabee in Florida, that creates an opening for Romney that would not have existed had either of those been able to fish out of the conservative pond," said Rich Galen, who was a senior Thompson adviser. "But now Romney gets kind of a free running lane on the right while McCain and Giuliani are duking it out for the more moderate Republican voters in Florida."
Florida is unusual political terrain: It has the highest percentage of any state of residents age 65 and over, and also has a mix of left-leaning Northeast transplants, political moderates, and dyed-in-the wool conservatives.
It is also the first Republican primary in which independents cannot vote, a rule that is forcing all the candidates to appeal to the party's true believers. That could hurt McCain, who has appealed to independents and Democrats.
"Now we're going to see what kind of messages are resonating among core Republican voters," said Daniel A. Smith, a University of Florida political scientist. "It's anyone's race."
Romney has had a giant advantage in being able to fuel his campaign partly on his vast personal fortune. Romney's camp refused yesterday to confirm or deny a Wall Street Journal report that he plans to spend as much as $40 million of his own money. As of Sept. 30, he had poured in $17 million.
McCain, in contrast, had to leave the Florida campaign trail this week to raise money in New York. A spokesman told The
"The one guy who does not have to win here is Mitt Romney, because of his resources," said US Representative Tom Feeney of Florida, a Romney supporter. While a loss in Florida would force McCain or Giuliani to "hold 50 fund-raisers" to refill their depleted campaign coffers, "Romney apparently can spend what he needs to be competitive in the key states," Feeney said.
Romney sought to solidify his conservative credentials with Florida voters yesterday with a new TV ad that features glowing testimonials from the Weekly Standard and the National Review.
For months, Romney has argued that he alone can unite the disparate Republican factions that once carried Ronald Reagan into the White House.
"He's not just talking to national security conservatives like John McCain; he's not just talking to social conservatives like Mike Huckabee. He's saying and enunciating the things that economic and social and defense conservatives want to hear," Feeney said. "He's the entire package, and statewide he has the best message."
But McCain's camp disagrees. On Wednesday it released a Web-only ad that shows McCain chatting with Reagan on the White House portico. The spot also features former US senator Jack Kemp, senator and former presidential candidate Sam Brownback, and even Huckabee vouching for McCain's conservative stripes on taxes and judicial appointments.
"I enlisted as a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution," McCain says in the ad. "I will match my record with anybody who's running."
McCain also picked up an endorsement yesterday from US Representative Jeff Miller, a conservative Republican from the Florida Panhandle who had backed Thompson.
The latest poll in Florida, released yesterday, suggested that Romney and McCain were virtually tied, at 30 percent and 26 percent respectively, with Giuliani in third at 18 percent and Huckabee in fourth at 13 percent.
The Mason-Dixon Polling and Research survey of 400 voters was conducted Monday through Wednesday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
At a rally in Boca Raton, Giuliani breezily dismissed polls this week that suggested he was in third place, even though his entire strategy hinges on Florida. "I have no reason to not anticipate winning," Giuliani said, according to ABC News.
The former New York mayor largely bypassed the early GOP contests. McCain took New Hampshire and South Carolina and Romney won in Wyoming, Michigan, and Nevada.
While campaigning across Florida this week, Romney has been playing up his private-sector business experience and focusing on the economy, hoping to make that a signature issue as a recession looms and the financial markets falter. But his push sparked new attacks yesterday.
"If one looks at his business career, it is largely dealing with a capital company that took companies, often broke them apart, people lost jobs, didn't gain jobs," Huckabee said in Fort Lauderdale, according to CBS News.
"If that's how we recover America's economy, I'm not sure how many Americans benefit out of that."
Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, leveled similar criticism against Romney, the former head of Bain Capital in Boston.
"He learned politics and economics from being a venture capitalist, where you go and buy companies, you strip away the jobs, and you resell them," Davis said in an interview with National Journal. "And if that's what his experience has been to be able to lead our economy, I'd really raise questions."
Kevin Madden, Romney's spokesman, said Huckabee's remarks "show a hostility toward the free market rather than an understanding of it. He sounds like a liberal Democrat who thinks that tearing away at the wage-payer somehow benefits the wage-earner."
And McCain, Madden said, "doesn't have a record on job creation and has instead voted against tax relief policies designed to grow the economy and create jobs."
Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.
