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Rudy loses in Florida; may throw support to McCain

BY TOM BRUNE | tom.brune@newsday.com

January 30, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. - Rudy Giuliani failed his own test as a presidential contender yesterday, coming in third in the must-win primary here and clearing the way, sources said, for him to quit and endorse the Florida winner, his friend John McCain, today.

Giuliani desperately needed a win today after pinning all of his hopes on this diverse state loaded with former New Yorkers, but in the end finished 20 points behind McCain, his seventh loss in seven primaries.

With his unconventional strategy of skipping early states to focus on Florida and larger states voting next Tuesday in tatters, Giuliani has lost his viability as a presidential contender.

Giuliani stopped short of withdrawing last night. But after negotiating a deal with McCain, according to sources, the former New York mayor is expected to end his own campaign and endorse McCain today in California, where a GOP presidential debate will be held at the Reagan Presidential Library this evening.

"The responsibility of leadership doesn't end with a single campaign; it goes on and you continue to fight for it," Giuliani said last night to cheers and some tears among about 200 supporters in the Portofino Bay hotel ballroom.

"Win or lose," he said, "our work is not done."

In remarks made on a platform filled with supporters and with his wife, Judith, by his side, Giuliani praised McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and even Ron Paul, his frequent target, taking credit for running a "positive campaign" based on ideas.

But he also offered implied criticism in chiding campaigns engaged in cynical attacks, a veiled reference to McCain's and Romney's harsh war of words here, and he appealed to the Republican Party to open its doors to make a bigger party.

"I'm even in this party," he joked. "This is a big party."

In the past weeks, Giuliani repeatedly insisted he would win Florida, a victory his unconventional strategy absolutely required both as a firewall to offset his dismal early losses and as a springboard to the Feb. 5 mega-primary to amass enough delegates for the GOP nomination.

Even though he skipped South Carolina to spend an extra two weeks alone here to cultivate early voters and retool his message to target Florida concerns, Giuliani found himself overshadowed by his warring rivals and his strategy unraveled.

Florida's results reinforce McCain's front-runner status, flowing from his victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina. And Romney's third second-place finish leaves him a contender who has shown he has the determination and deep pockets to continue.

Still, McCain's win yesterday makes him much harder to stop going into next Tuesday's mega-primary of 22 states, including several large delegate-rich states, where he has led in recent opinion polls.

And it also gives Giuliani little hope of getting back in the race, since Giuliani and McCain rely on the same base of independents and socially moderate and national security-conscious Republicans.

In more than a year of campaigning, Giuliani proved to be a flawed candidate with a flawed strategy, never overcoming conservative unease with his moderate social views and never translating his 9/11 celebrity into Republican votes.

"The strategy was flawed from the beginning," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Poll. "Whether he could have won with another strategy, we'll never know."

The strategy turned on a bold premise: that with the shortened primary season - 29 contests in five weeks - a candidate could win later in big states without first building momentum in early smaller states.

Giuliani and his advisers have repeatedly argued the strategy was necessary, and it seemed aimed at minimizing his considerable weaknesses among the GOP base while playing to his strengths.

As early as May his advisers sought to avoid Iowa because of its strong conservative base opposed to Giuliani's support for abortion rights and Romney's heavy investment there.

Giuliani faced huge hurdles making him foreign to the GOP: a New Yorker in a Sunbelt party; a supporter of abortion rights among anti-abortion activists; a thrice-married father of estranged children in a family values movement.

And the ghosts of his past were always near: In November his former business partner and police commissioner was indicted and a news report on police protection brought back memories of his affair with his current wife while he was married.

And while Giuliani sought to patch those differences by learning to love NASCAR, promising to appoint anti-abortion judges, and offering school vouchers as a family-oriented promise, he never caught on.

Giuliani also faced complaints that his campaign style was too laid back - he had far fewer events than McCain, for example - and that he did not invest enough time in New Hampshire, where his brand of leadership had appeal.

Some analysts accused Giuliani of arrogance for avoiding conventional wisdom.

Based on his seemingly strong leads in early national and many state polls, Giuliani's campaign manager Mike DuHaime and chief strategist Brent Seaborn said the strategy could work and his support seemed so solid he could withstand his rivals' momentum.

In November, citing leads in polls in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware, DuHaime said, "Some of those leads are momentum-proof, I think, in terms of just how large they are at this point." But in the end, Giuliani's precipitous losses in all the states he skipped led to precipitous drops in polls in other states, including New York, where he is now almost 20 points behind McCain.