The Candidates
I want to lift an item from this evening’s “Essential Reads” and highlight it:
Rudy: Demise rumors are ‘premature’
ORLANDO - Rudy Giuliani has a message for those who doubt his floundering presidential campaign can survive.
“The rumors of my demise are premature,” Giuliani told USA TODAY, paraphrasing Mark Twain’s famous line.Public opinion polls here show Giuliani, who has staked his White House bid on doing well in Florida, stuck well behind John McCain and Mitt Romney in Tuesday’s Republican primary.
The former New York City mayor said in an interview that he would “surprise people” by winning Florida and racing ahead to the de facto national primary on Feb. 5, known as Super Tuesday.
“If you win Florida, it’s the gateway to the Feb. 5 states,” Giuliani said, referring to his home state of New York and 21 other states that will vote in just over a week. “This is a question of momentum, right?”
Vanessa Acosta, a Miami lawyer who heard Giuliani speak before the Latin Builders Association, said she knows voters in the state who generally like him, but don’t understand why he didn’t compete harder in previous contests such as Iowa and New Hampshire.
“He lost his lead in Florida because he neglected the rest of the country,” Acosta said. “People get the fact you’ve got to win the rest of the country.”
Outside a Spanish restaurant in Sarasota, Darla Correll said she fears Giuliani’s slipping poll numbers are becoming self-fulfilling and that people may now vote against him because he’s seen as losing. Correll, a dental hygienist from Venice, said she supports Giuliani but doesn’t like polls because “they can sway people one way or another.”
Giuliani said he will keep making his case in what he considers to be a competitive three-man race. He plans to fly around the state Monday, following a bus tour of southeast Florida on Sunday.
“We’re going to win this election by getting the vote out,” Giuliani said Sunday outside of Paisano’s Gourmet Pizza in Port St. Lucie. “If we win here, we’re going to win the nomination.”
Port St. Lucie residents Irene and Michael McCambridge, two of the many transplanted New Yorkers the Giuliani team is counting on, expressed hope for their former mayor but are skeptical.
“He has a good chance, but I don’t know,” said Irene McCambridge, a retired secretary. “He has to work hard.’
Her husband, a former property manager in New York, said Giuliani needs a victory Tuesday. “He needs a jump start,” Michael McCambridge said.
Giuliani said he has no regrets about skipping the early nominating states, adding that Floridians are more receptive to his message of better security and lower taxes.
He also has tried to attract Florida votes with proposals for a one-page tax return form and a national insurance fund for catastrophic events like hurricanes.
On the stump, Giuliani says he is fighting back against “the pundits” and “the experts,” some of whom have already written his political obituary. “You’re the experts,” he told voters in Sarasota.
Giuliani said he sees “an opportunity” in the sniping between McCain and Romney, who have sparred over who can best deal with the economy and the war in Iraq. He pointed out that McCain says Romney doesn’t have enough national security experience, while Romney says McCain lacks experience with economic issues.
“I have experience with both,” said Giuliani, who won plaudits for lowering crime rates and improving New York’s economy - well before he made a national name for himself after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Giuliani said that “at some point” he can’t precisely recall, he and his advisers decided that Florida offered “the best opportunity” to make his play for the race. “It was better to concentrate on one big state and try to get our points across there,” he said.
Giulaini said he takes hope from the record pace of early voting here, which began Jan. 7.. He and his aides also noted that pollsters missed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s comeback win over Barack Obama in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary.
“So far, everything has been unorthodox about this election,” he said. “It hasn’t gone at all like people thought it would go, right?”
Still, Giuliani refused to call Florida a “must win.”
“I don’t think any candidate ever says that,” Giuliani said. “You evaluate where you are after it happens.”
I received news from someone on the ground with Rudy’s campaign last night who said that the internal polling for the campaign showed that within the previous 48 hours, Rudy took over first place, with Romney and McCain in a pitched battle for second; that Rudy’s level of support is secure, given the monumental success of identifying Rudy voters and getting them out to vote early; that internal polling in McCain’s camp confirmed the same; and that the commercial polls were flawed in one way or another. His victory will be carried on the shoulders of those early voters, so ignore the exit polling the networks will be drooling over Tuesday night. Whether this report is correct or not, we’ll know in about 48 hours, but there’s a greater confidence in Rudy’s campaign in Florida now than there was late last week.
The truth is that Rudy has been engaged in the campaign every day for almost a year now. The media spun that he “distanced” himself and receded into the background from IA through SC. To the contrary, Rudy was there, meeting with voters, campaigning, coming up with positions on the important issues facing the country. He was there if the media had been willing to cover him, but they’ve chosen to give him the “Bush” treatment…basically ignoring him in the hope that this will marginalize him. The media, being the lazy and biased SOBs they are, wanted to report on the horserace aspect of the campaign, and Rudy chose not to play their game. I’ll be sorely disappointed in Republican voters if they have been manipulated by the media in regard to this.
I trust on Tuesday the good people of Florida will pull the lever for Rudy, and will give the finger to the national media and their polls.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Greg. . . Wasn’t the early ballot return numbers only about 10% of all registered voters as of a few days ago?
January 27th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
As of Friday night, nearly 400,000 party Republicans had cast early votes, either in person or by mail, party officials reported.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I’ve known a pollster who’s worked under Giuliani (and says he’ll never do so again). Giuliani had unrealistic demands of updating internal polls and very disrepectful of those who worked under him. During his re-election as mayor, he wanted hourly polls updating him on the state of the race all because he wanted the largest margin of victory ever. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of this data was massaged just to please Rudy.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
What, is Rudy polling Miami exclusively? But, even that wouldn’t show him in first place.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I would concede that a good amount of pre-South Carolina voting in Florida would go to Rudy. But once everyone started campaigning equally in FL after SC, I don’t know how safe it would be to assume most of those early post-SC votes were for Rudy. Once the campaign started in full, those early votes could go towards anyone.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
1/3 of the vote was cast by early and absentee voting through Saturday in FL they predict.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Hasn’t Romney also had a strong organization in the state for some time now? Romney and Rudy both had staff and organization months ago. So they both probably got a lot of the early vote.
McCain and Huck had no early organization - basically after SC for McCain and very little at all for Huck….
Anyone heard anything about that?
January 27th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Rudy took over first place, with Romney and McCain in a pitched battle for second; that Rudy’s level of support is secure, given the monumental success of identifying Rudy voters and getting them out to vote early; that internal polling in McCain’s camp confirmed the same;
I just talked to one of my sources within the McCain campaign and they said there’s been no such movement. They said the polls have stayed remarkably stable over the past 3 days, except for a slight uptick in McCain’s Latino support in the past day. That’s come largely at the expense of Rudy.
It’s amusing that your source says that Rudy’s level of support is “secure” even though he’s dropped 20 points in the last 6 weeks alone.He shouldn’t even need to have a “shocking” come from behind win. He should be leading McCain and Romney now.
Even in the early absentee results McCain was leading and Romney was second. If Rudy gets over 20%, I will be shocked.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
“The truth is that Rudy has been engaged in the campaign every day for almost a year now. The media spun that he “distanced†himself and receded into the background from IA through SC. To the contrary, Rudy was there, meeting with voters, campaigning, coming up with positions on the important issues facing the country. He was there if the media had been willing to cover him, but they’ve chosen to give him the “Bush†treatment…basically ignoring him in the hope that this will marginalize him.”
Considering Rudy got Ron Paul like number in Iowa and South Carolina it was to his advantage that media didn’t spin him as playing hard for IO, or SC. Actually I thought that was the spin of the Rudy camp not just the media.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Romney and Rudy had a large organizational lead for early voting, I think they will do better there than predicted.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
McCain probably did pretty good in early voting because a lot of seniors took advantage of that. I wouldnt be surprised if close to 45% of seniors hadnt already voted either absentee or early.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Rudy has obvious reasons for circulating rumors of iternal polls which show him leading. He needs to regain viability. The fact that Rudy is having to argue that he’s viable shows that he is losing viability. A person does not want to end up on the wrong side of that slope.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I called about 50 Floridians today, actually having conversation with about 25. NONE were even considering Rudy, not one.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Way to support your guy!! That is what the primaries are all about.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
this is very bad for Rudy tho, I didn’t realize they already had a deal:
“Crist’s cancelled date with Rudy
Suffice it to say the that Rudy Giuliani folks are fuming over the surprise Crist endorsement tonight. After all, they remember when the deal had been set for Crist to jump aboard team Rudy. Nov. 18, to be precise, was set for a Charlie-Rudy fly-around. The Buzz is that Crist had even extracted a promise that he would be on Giuliani’s short list for running mates.
But imagine the pressure Crist felt from McCain, who surely reminded him that while Rudy and Mitt awaited the results of Gallagher vs. Crist, McCain jumped in and backed Crist. Crist sure kept this decision quiet, and by all account it really was a last minute one (though close Buzz readers caught the Giuliani/McCain shift).
But let’s face it, Crist and McCain are a natural fit and if McCain had not melted down last year this would have happened long ago. Romney, viewed by Crist allies as Tom Gallagher reincarnated, never had a shot at the governor’s nod.
What decided this for Crist? How about the 19th century poet William Ernest Henley and the 21st century columnist Bill Kristol. The Buzz is that this kind of blew Crist awayâ€
January 27th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
13, There you have it Rudy will get less than 4% of the vote.
January 27th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Assuming 1.2M turnout, with 400,000 already voted and Rudy getting 20% of the 800,000 votes cast on tuesday, he needs 140,000 votes out of 400,000 votes already cast to reach 25%.
Polls released today vary widely,Romney getting 25 in one and 33 in another; none of the polls expected 28 point margin for Obama,the maximum expected was 15% and that was more than 3 times MOE from the actual margin.
Absentee balloting has been going on since December 15. It is quite possible that Rudy got a much larger share of those than what is currently estimated.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I phoned 76 Floridians yesterday. Results:
Romney 22
McCain 3
None for the others, and a lot of hangups or refusal to discuss.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Rudy was done before he even made a stand. duhaime should have been fired a long time ago.
January 28th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Interesting if true.
January 28th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I agree with John Galt. Mike Duhaime does not know how to run a national campaign. Since when do you tell a candidate to ingore early staes, because “thy’re not that big and really don’t count’. The Repubicans are making a big mistake if they nominate Romney as he CAN NOT beat Obama or Hillary. So get use to 8 years of a Democrat ruining our country even more.
All the illegals and foreign countries are licking thier chops for an inept President. Friends America is finished ad a great country becuase people can’t see that only Rudy of McCain can win.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:30 am
I think it’s postmature. People in Florida are already voting, and according to surveys they’re not voting for Rudy.