On a stage decorated with a massive American flag, Rudy Giuliani began his pitch here Monday to a roomful of retirees with news from Afghanistan, reporting an attack on a Kabul hotel apparently by al-Qaida terrorists.
"Before I start I would like to mention that there was something that reminds us of what's at stake and what's going on in the world," he said of the attack, which the Taliban later said its militants carried out.
"I commit to keeping America on offense in the terrorists' war against us," he said, stressing an issue that once made him a front-runner.
The 700 people in the audience clapped, a welcome sound to a campaign hit Monday by a series of sobering opinion polls showing Guiliani in a four-way tie here in his must-win state, dropping to third in California and sinking nationally.
Brent Seaborn, his strategist, said the campaign expected these "dark days" as the others duke it out in Michigan and South Carolina votes this week.
But because it finds he's still competitive here, Seaborn was satisfied with a new Quinnipiac Florida poll, showing him at 20 percent sandwiched between John McCain at 22 percent and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee at 19 percent.
And in reaction to a New York Times-CBS national poll showing McCain soaring to 33 percent and Giuliani falling to 10 percent, the campaign put on a calm outward face.
Giuliani said he was not surprised and not worried.
In the meantime, Seaborn said Giuliani's campaign hopes to steal a march on those rivals in Florida, with four offices, 50 paid staffers and 6,000 volunteers, ready to take on whoever emerges from Tuesday's crucial primary in Michigan and Saturday's contest in South Carolina.
Giuliani sat for a while on the reporters' bus Monday, chatting and looking relaxed. But he wouldn't talk about Michigan, which he skipped.
"I can't control it," he said, adding "we're just going to react" to whatever happens.
GOP analysts say Michigan is a must-win for Romney, who came in second in New Hampshire and Iowa. If he wins it would boost him and Giuliani, they say. If McCain wins, he would be harder to stop.
Overall, the race is still wide open, the analysts said. The New York Times-CBS poll, for example, shows 72 percent of Republican voters say they still might change their minds.
As he made a half dozen stops on a long day on the second day of his three-day bus tour Monday, Giuliani revived some of his lines from last summer, once again raising the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency -- a sure sales point in the solid GOP counties here on Florida's West coast.
Before large and enthusiastic crowds at most stops, the result of strong advance work, Giuliani often takes questions, many predictable, some not.
"Do you remember me?" Mitch Samuels asked at the Shellpoint Retirement Community here. "Do we know each other?" Giuliani said.
"Yes, you married us," Samuels replied.
Samuels later said Giuliani conducted the wedding on Feb. 14, 1998, a favor for Samuels' saving a baby's life while working as a city elevator inspector.
"I don't talk about this much, but I did over 200 weddings, I think, as mayor," Giuliani said. By staying married, he told Samuels, "I'm glad you helped my batting average."
But Giuliani still didn't close the deal with many retirees.
"I think he said things that resonated with me," said Paul Holden, 68, a retired Air Force colonel. But he said he wanted to see "a lot more" of the others, particularly McCain.