After weeks in the shadows, Rudy Giuliani returns to the spotlight this week as he stakes his presidential bid on the Florida Republican primary, which is already a close, fourman race and only eight days away.
“We’re concentrating on Florida,” Giuliani told ABC on Sunday. “We decided some time back that this is the place where we should put our most emphasis, that it worked our strengths and weaknesses the best.”
One of those strengths, according to Giuliani, is his position on the economy, which polls show has displaced the Iraq war as the top issue with voters. Although Giuliani previously played up his national security credentials, that strategy might prove less effective against John McCain, a war hero.
Accordingly, Giuliani went after McCain on the economy.
“I am the strongest fiscal conservative in the race,” he said. “I have a record of supporting tax cuts. John voted against the Bush tax cuts, I think on both occasions, and sided with the Democrats.”
Although McCain voted against President Bush’s tax cuts, he now wants them to be made permanent, which might provide him with some political cover. McCain is also riding high on the strength of his victory Saturday in South Carolina.
But rival Mitt Romney has his own momentum, having handily won Nevada on Saturday. Although Romney has more delegates than any other Republican, the GOP race remains a muddle.
In an effort to break out of the pack, Romney portrayed himself as an outsider and McCain as the consummate insider.
“If people want somebody who has been in Washington all their life and understands Washington’s ways and has been part of the Washington scene for a quarter of a century, then John McCain will be their person,” Romney told Fox News. “Given the challenges we face in our economy right now, I’m going to get the nod.”
McCain’s victory in South Carolina was a setback to runner-up Mike Huckabee and a potentially fatal blow to third-place finisher Fred Thompson.
There was speculation that Thompson might soon pull out of the race and throw his support to McCain, for whom he served as campaign chairman eight years ago. On Saturday, Thompson gave a wistful concession speech in South Carolina before flying to Tennessee to visit his ailing mother instead of racing to Florida, as the other contenders did.
Meanwhile, the Democratic race is equally clouded in the wake of Saturday’s Nevada caucuses, in which Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but Barack Obama won 13 delegates to her 12. Furtherconfusing the Democratic outlook is the widespread expectation that Obama will win South Carolina’s primary next Saturday, giving him and Clinton two victories apiece heading into the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday, when voters in 22 states will award more than 2,000 delegates.
