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Giuliani gets head start in make-or-break Florida

BY MARK HARRINGTON | mark.harrington@newsday.com

10:15 PM EST, January 19, 2008

THE VILLAGES, Fla. - While his rivals battled it out in the South Carolina primary, Rudy Giuliani sharpened his tongue Saturday in this make-or-break state for his campaign, faulting two top-tier Republicans by name for failing to support President George W. Bush's tax cuts.

Giuliani said Florida will determine the country's next president and challenged his rivals as they make their way here.

"Come on down," he said. "We're waiting for you."

In a speech heavy on his economic proposals and with decidedly measured emphasis on terrorism, New York's former mayor told a crowd of several hundred seniors that his support for the tax cuts was steadfast, while John McCain "voted against the Bush tax cuts twice" and Mitt Romney's support was "equivocal."

Giuliani declined to comment directly on the South Carolina primary, where his showing was always expected to be near the bottom. Asked about that vote after his talk here, he said, "Welcome to Florida."

For most of the day, Giuliani continued a strategy of nonstop campaigning in the Sunshine State. He started the morning in the Everglades, traveled east to Coral Springs, then landed in midstate in this bucolic, Levittown-like retirement community. The stop included a rally and a $50-a-plate fundraising dinner, the latter presumably to boost his sagging campaign finances. Some top aides have been voluntarily working without pay, he said, to help keep the campaign flush as his national poll numbers have sunk.

Giuliani's top campaign officials also are turning up their criticism, breaking an unwritten gentleman's agreement among Republican candidates not to bash one another by name.

"John McCain is no Rudy Giuliani," his state campaign head, Bill McCollum, said at the fundraiser, criticizing McCain's tax-cutting record and his conservative credentials.

While Giuliani was greeted by a large, generally receptive crowd, interviews with residents suggested he may have his work cut out for him.

Romona Birdsell said Giuliani is not her first choice among GOP candidates, primarily because of his positions on gay marriage and abortion (he doesn't oppose gay marriage and he supports abortion rights). She said her voting is based "on my moral convictions." Yet, she said, Giuliani would have her vote in a presidential contest if he were the Republican candidate.

"Rudy would be a better choice than Hillary or Obama, so if he's my choice I'll take it."

Tony Bacceliere, a transplanted New Yorker from Farmingdale, said he'd vote for Giuliani because "he's decisive, he has good ideas and he'll secure the border."