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.

UPDATE—Why won’t Rudy throw a punch? Marc Ambinder counts the reasons…

And Tony Fabrizio observes:

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.”

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…..

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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!

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New Smyrna Beach, FL — After weeks of staying “above the fray,” Rudy Giuliani drew a line in the Florida sand Tuesday, signaling that his rivals’ fiscal records will be in his sights when they arrive in the Sunshine State next week.

“Compared to the other candidates who are running, I am the one who has lowered taxes. I am the one who lowered taxes over and over and over again,” he told about 150 supporters outside county GOP headquarters. “I am the one who supported the Bush tax cuts. And I supported the Bush tax cuts, which have been very critical to the growth of our economy because I had done the same thing as mayor of New York City….so there was no hesitation on my part to support those tax cuts.”

Giuliani sees an opening on the Bush tax cuts and fiscal issues overall given that both Mitt Romney and John McCain did not outwardly support the 2001 and 2003 cuts.

McCain voted against both cuts, saying in 2001 that he could not “in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate at the expense of middle-class Americans.” While he did not oppose the cuts, the Boston Globe reports that Romney refused to endorse the 2003 tax cut. But both Romney and McCain now endorse making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

Giuliani introduced what he is calling the largest tax cut in American history last week, trying to expand his resume beyond the war on terrorism. He is currently on day three of a bus tour through Florida, a must-win state for the former New York City mayor.