Showdown in the Sunshine State: Candidates battle for Florida

The Associated Press

Rudy on the march in Florida.

Featured Topic | Posted 43 weeks 5 days ago

Showdown in the Sunshine State: Candidates battle for Florida

Rudy Giuliani always said he was running a national campaign, aiming for the big states with the fattest delegate counts. So he avoided Iowa and New Hampshire. He had no presence in Michigan or Nevada or South Carolina. And he lost those contests. Lost big.

Florida is the test. The conventional wisdom is, if Rudy can't win there, he can't win anywhere.

Does running a "wholesale campaign" at the expense of old-fashioned "retail politics" make sense?

Ben likes: Rudy's Last Stand

Larry Thornberry/The American Spectator

Rudy is here because Florida is more important to him than Nevada or South Carolina. The rest of the boys and their campaign staffs and their telemarketers will be here shortly after the votes are counted in South Carolina. I'm eager too see how it turns out. But I'm not eager to spend the next 10 days answering my telephone in this wise: "Hello. This is not a recording. This is Larry Thornberry actually speaking. If this is a sales or a political call, hang up now. If this is a friend, a relative, or a legitimate business call, please speak..."

Joel likes: Where's Rudy?

John Nichols/The Nation

Ron Paul has now done something that Rudy Giuliani has never done. The anti-war congressman from Texas, who famously tangled with Mr. 9/11 over foreign policy in the only interesting GOP debate, has finished in the top tier of a Republican caucus or primary contest.

"America's mayor" either wins Florida -- where he has camped out as the other candidates have slogged through Iowa, New Hampshire, Wyoming, Michigan, Nevada and now south Carolina -- or there really is no way to make a case for carrying his bizarre campaign forward.