Rudy Giuliani, 0 for 4 so far, campaigns in Miamis Little Havana neighborhood
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Ed Pozzouli, who chairs the Giuliani campaign in Broward County, gives an example of how the mayor has gamed the system. On the day of the Nevada caucus and the South Carolina primary, when his gop rivals were occupied elsewhere, Giuliani arrived in Coral Springs for a rally that took place a required 100 ft. (about 30 m) away from a library where early-voting machines were set up. "The mayor spoke," Pozzouli said. "And then he said, 'O.K., let's go vote.'" More than 100 attendees walked to the library and cast their ballots. Two days earlier in Pensacola, the number of daily early voters nearly doubled after Giuliani visited the area and his volunteers bombarded homes with phone calls, locking in support that will not waiver with the news cycles to come.
The only GOP candidate with a comparable ground operation in Florida is Mitt Romney, who also boasts campaign offices and thousands of volunteers across the state. The smaller-dollar campaigns of Mike Huckabee and John McCain are only just now beginning to fly in staff and open offices. If the race remains close, experts say, the early-voting push mastered by Giuliani could prove decisive. "If you have a good organization and you have a multicandidate field," says political scientist Darryl Paulson of the University of South Florida, "it could clearly be the margin of difference in the campaign."
But Giuliani has to stay near the top for his gambit to succeed. Until now, his long-range vision has been unable to make up for his inability to connect with the voters right in front of him. And his lackluster campaign performance appears to be taking its toll in the 21 states that will select Republican delegates on Feb. 5, the day that may very well decide the GOP nominee. After months of leading the field, Giuliani is in a tight race for first in Florida and trails McCain by double digits in national polls. January surveys have repeatedly shown Giuliani trailing in his home state of New York.
Giuliani advisers will tell you these past few weeks are nothing more than the darkest hours before a Florida dawn. But they, like everyone else, still don't know whether gop voters will rally around a candidate who chose to sit out the first four weeks of the campaign.