The New York Times-20080129-Less of a Draw- a Subdued Giuliani Stays Upbeat

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Less of a Draw, a Subdued Giuliani Stays Upbeat

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For weeks, as he was getting shellacked in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina, Rudolph W. Giuliani, former front-runner for the Republican nomination, answered his skeptics with a simple refrain: just wait till Florida, his stronghold and his bulwark against the tide of losses in the early states.

Now Florida has arrived, and Mr. Giuliani's bulwark is looking a little leaky.

The Giuliani campaign chartered a 727 on Monday for a day of barnstorming on the eve of Tuesday's big primary, but none of the rallies at airports in Sanford, Clearwater, Fort Myers or Fort Lauderdale drew even a hundred supporters. Mr. Giuliani's edge on the airwaves has dissipated, too, as his rivals are now outspending him on television. And Mr. Giuliani has found himself an afterthought in some local coverage of the primary, which has centered on Senator John McCain and Mitt Romney, who lead in polls.

Mr. Giuliani, who had a showman's knack for making news when he ruled City Hall as mayor of New York, has been decidedly subdued on the campaign trail -- sticking to his stump speech, rarely saying anything provocative or outrageous or headline-grabbing. For days, he has tried to stay in the news by lamenting the negative campaigning of Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney, who are largely ignoring him.

And Mr. Giuliani -- who as mayor once told a man who called in to his weekly radio show to protest the city's ban on pet ferrets that there is something deranged about you -- called Monday for an end to the name-calling in the race for president.

Monday was the first time in the campaign that Mr. Giuliani had allowed the traveling press to fly with him. But the crowds at some of the airport rallies were so small that it might have been more efficient to fly them to the candidate, instead of vice versa.

When the microphone went out at the first rally, outside the airport in Sanford, the crowd was intimate enough that the actor Jon Voight, who was introducing Mr. Giuliani, found that he did not need it. I can talk to you guys! he said, perfectly audibly, as he lowered the broken microphone.

Still, Mr. Giuliani soldiered on, grinning widely and promising the faithful at each stop that he would work to keep them safe from terrorists and high taxes and rising property insurance rates, and increasingly mentioning what has emerged in recent days as a new pledge: to send an astronaut to Mars.

I think that the winner of Florida will win the nomination, Mr. Giuliani told reporters on his plane, as he held the hand of his wife, Judith, and we're going to win Florida.

Some reporters -- putting credence in polls, even though they proved spectacularly wrong this month when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York won the Democratic primary in New Hampshire -- quietly worked on preparing political obituaries of Mr. Giuliani in the back of the plane while he and his staff huddled in the front.

When Mr. Giuliani wandered back to take a few questions, some of them had a fairly bearish bent. Asked what he would do the day after the primary, Mr. Giuliani said: When it's Wednesday morning, we'll make a decision. The reality is the voting hasn't even started yet, at least the Jan. 29 voting hasn't started yet. I believe we're going to win.

Money appears to be in short supply. The campaign tried to hoard its cash during the earlier contests, in the hope that it would be able to overwhelm its exhausted rivals once they arrived here with their coffers depleted. That does not seem to have worked out as planned. As loss after loss made fund-raising more challenging -- Mr. Giuliani finished behind Representative Ron Paul of Texas in all of the early contests except New Hampshire -- Mr. McCain, of Arizona, saw his fund-raising improve after he won in New Hampshire and South Carolina. And Mr. Romney started to invest heavily in Florida after his victory in Michigan; senior Giuliani campaign aides, meanwhile, have agreed to work without pay.

In the final days before the primary here, the Giuliani campaign has spent roughly $200,000 less each day on commercials than its rivals, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising.

Mr. Giuliani drew his largest crowd Monday at his last rally, at Florida International University in Miami, where a couple of hundred supporters, mostly students, showed up. Earlier, in Clearwater, the small crowd looked even smaller in the cavernous, empty hangar where the rally was held.

Allen Jones, 60, a retired pilot from Clearwater, said he had expected a larger turnout. I was surprised, he said.

Mr. Jones -- who was stranded in New York for five days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and praised Mr. Giuliani's leadership after them -- said he liked Mr. Giuliani's energy at the rally, as well as some of his proposals. But he added that he was still thinking of voting for Mr. McCain.

I like to think that I have the big picture, and I think about who can win the general election, Mr. Jones said, explaining that he thought Mr. McCain could have a better shot in November.

[Illustration]PHOTO: Rudolph W. Giuliani leaving his rented jet on Monday on a tour of Florida before Tuesday's primary. Trailing in polls and low on cash, he drew fewer than a hundred supporters at each stop. (PHOTOGRAPH BY CHIP LITHERLAND FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)