Palm Beach Gardens, FL — Rudy Giuliani punted today when asked to backup criticism his campaign surrogates have leveled against his rivals, including John McCain.
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In recent days, his national and state officials including his state chair, Bill McCollum, have equated McCain with Democrats and said he is “out of touch” with Florida voters because of his opposition to a National Catastrophic Fund. But Giuliani declined to back up McCollum today and continues to go easy on his friend McCain, noting that he doesn’t believe “Republicans should be attacking each other.”
We will be tuning in for Thursday night’s GOP debate to see whether Giuliani is finally willing to directly engage him.
But no such reticence today on the part of Mitt Romney, who attacked McCain’s economic credibility in a Palm Beach Post interview. “What’s his record by the way? What’s McCain’s record of job growth? What’s he done? Has he been involved in jobs at all in the private sector? In a state? In a city? I think you have to have a record before you criticize someone else’s,” Romney said.
There’s the tactical consideration — what Fabrizio called the “pool table” problem posed by a multi-candidate race — that criticizing, say, McCain would help Giuliani, but also help Romney. That’s because some of the voters Giuliani pulls from McCain could go to him, but a big portion could also go to Romney. “They are in a very difficult situation,” he said of the Giuliani campaign. “I don’t think it’s a clear shot for him to figure out who to go after.”
Palm Beach Gardens, FL — Priority number one for Rudy Giuliani this morning was addressing growing concerns about the economy, a world-wide stock sell off and the decision by the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates.
“It’s something, we have to be very concerned about,” Giuliani said Tuesday outside of a meet and greet at a West Palm Beach-area deli. “The Fed is independent and I am sure they are doing the very best they can to deal with the monetary part of it. And I think the fiscal policies obviously have to be a very very strong stimulus package. I would like to see it more on the side of permanent relief meaning extending the Bush tax cuts (and) reducing the corporate tax….if we can get some control over that and have a stimulus package that puts a lot of emphasis on permanent change I think thats the best way to handle it.”
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Giuliani also suggested Congress and the President work on a short term spending reduction program that will have a positive “psychological impact” on the markets by showing more fiscal discipline.
West Palm Beach, FL — With one week to go before the Florida primary the Giuliani campaign is beginning to take aim at who they believe is its biggest threat, John McCain.
Giuliani said Monday he is going to get “quite sharp on policy differences,” but is still playing clean for the most part as he vows to draw contrasts “in a respectful way.”
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Thus far, he personally has only pointed to McCain’s votes against the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 but has left the contrasts there thus far. Critics say Giuliani will have to ratchet up the rhetoric if he hopes to take the AZ senator down–noting that Romney already tried to critique McCain’s tax record in New Hampshire and it failed to resonate with voters.
But several surrogates and aides he sent out today did take it up a level, calling McCain “out of touch” and equating him with Democrats…..
Jacksonville, FL — Despite falling polls and a shortage of campaign cash, Rudy Giuliani attempted to assure voters Monday that his strategy is “playing out the way we thought it would play out.”
The latest polls out Monday showed Giuliani trailing in his home state of New York to Sen. John McCain. Giuliani is down by 12 in a new Sienna poll after leading McCain by 33 points in December and is trailing the Arizona senator in his home state by 15 percent in the latest Marist poll.
The NY polls come on the heels of two other recent polls showing him also losing ground in New Jersey and Connecticut–two states his strategists referred to as “momentum-proof,” and fall in line with his fall in national polling.
Giuliani’s reaction to the polls: it’s all about Florida. “For us, it’s Florida. We’ll think about New York and California. We’ll think about Illinois. We’ll think about Missouri….we’ll think about everything on the morning of the 30th of January,” Giuliani said. “It’s playing out the way we thought it would play out. Now the most important thing is, we thought it would play out with us our winning Florida so that’s going to be an important thing for us to accomplish…it’s all about Florida.”
Hizzoner will make one stop in the West Palm Beach area Tuesday before returning to New York to raise some necessary campaign bucks. He has previously said that he is planning to spend “almost everything” on the Sunshine State primary.
Daytona Beach, FL –During a stop at the Daytona International Speedway today, Rudy Giuliani got to take a lap around the track. But riding around the raceway in a full size campaign bus wasn’t quite enough for the former mayor. He pleaded with driver Rusty Wallace and multiple NASCAR officials on site to get a ride in one of the race cars but was continually rebuffed.
In the garage to Wallace:
“Do you have like a simple one?”
“Do you have one that is almost like a racecar? Something like it. Just so I get the feeling of driving one myself. I wont hurt anybody.”
And then, outside:
“I would like you to let me drive a car around.”
“I wanna ride, I wanna ride a pace car. Can you let me ride a pace car? Do I need a license for that?”
“Come on, one time! Boys, one time! We’re all little boys, don’t u know that!”
He finally gave up, throwing his hands up, “They wont let me drive a car. I am a good driver!!”
John McCain says he’s been under attack from other candidates since his poll numbers started climbing in December. A day after winning the SC primary, McCain took a shot at Rudy Giuliani. The former mayor has been campaigning in Florida, criticizing the Senator’s record on taxes.
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McCain admits that it’s a whole new ballgame now. The Senator shines in the town hall format, sometimes getting into heated debates with voters. He held more than a hundred town halls in New Hampshire, and quite a few in South Carolina.
But now there are too many states and too little time to rely solely on face-to-face contact with voters.
After semi-competing in the first few primaries (w/ little to show for it) and investing most of their resources in Florida, the Giuliani campaign says it is ready for their GOP rivals to join them in the Sunshine State, which they have already preemptively named “Rudy Country.” Senior Adviser Tony Carbonetti sent a half-hearted congratulatory note out tonight, taking shots at McCain and Romney:
“We congratulate Senator John McCain on winning the South Carolina primary. While the race remains wide open, we welcome the candidates to Florida for a real discussion of the issues we’ve been talking about since day one. Florida voters know that in a field where one candidate twice voted against the Bush tax cuts and another wasn’t even sure they were a good idea, Rudy is the only candidate who has a record of cutting taxes, a plan for the largest tax cut in modern American history, and a proven ability to jumpstart the economy.”
Since the Giuliani campaign is now using the Rudy movie theme song as their entrance music and are the underdog after a few primary losses, I thought it was apt to show the locker room speech from the movie where the Coach Dan Devine rallies the team for their final home game. In the movie, that Rudy enters the game for the last series with Notre Dame already up 24-3. But, this Rudy comes into his home game with different circumstances….time to rally the team!
In his third Florida TV ad in as many days, Rudy Giuliani is stressing his NYC bio and leadership background. The spot, “It Matters,” is set to air in the West Palm Beach market, home to a large population of ex-New Yorkers.
Tallahassee, FL — Welcome to the Sunshine State Mitt. In the first shot of the Florida primary, Rudy Giuliani is using a laudatory Mitt Romney quote to tout his fiscal credibility.
The Giuliani campaign’s latest Florida TV ad, “Quotes,” selectively uses an October 2007 statement by Romney where he said, “Mayor Giuliani has a great record of cutting taxes,” as the kicker to a spot in which several flattering quotes are displayed on the screen.
In the interview with Larry Kudlow on CNBC, Romney went on to say that Giuliani left “excessive deficits.” (see clip below)
It appears as if the Giuliani campaign is trying to get back in the national media dialogue and create a back and forth with one of his rivals after weeks of remaining “above the fray,” but so far the Romney campaign is not biting, solely pointing reporters to the full exchange.
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