Sunshine State showdown: Will Florida be Rudy Giuliani's last hurrah?

The Associated Press

The polls show Giuliani's standing has gone to the dogs.

Featured Topic | Posted 31 weeks 5 days ago

Sunshine State showdown: Will Florida be Rudy Giuliani's last hurrah?

John McCain and Mitt Romney enter Tuesday's primary in Florida trading blows over the war. But the real story, in many respects, is the vulnerable candidacy of Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani calculated that he could essentially avoid the early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, and South Carolina and vault to victory in Florida and the delegate-rich states lined up on February 5. If the polls are any indication, the strategy doesn't seem to be working as planned.

But what do the pollsters know, anyway? Can Giuliani come from behind? Or is the struggle between McCain and Romney the real fight?

BEN LIKES: Guiliani's last stand

Ryan Sager/The New York Post

Faced with deficits to make up on abortion and past support for gay rights, Giuliani pursued a strategy that systematically dismantled everything that once made his candidacy appealing to his core supporters. The man who was once supposed to extend the GOP's reach outside of the South -- in states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California -- instead played a southern strategy.

The best thing Giuliani can do now is to bow out gracefully should he come up with anything less than a win in Florida. He had his chance and wasted it: The least he can do now is stop wasting our time.

JOEL LIKES: "Best dope in the world ... and it's free."

Eric Alterman/Media Matters

The media has latched onto the eggs-in-one-basket storyline, keeping Rudy's candidacy alive, despite it being totally disconnected from the facts -- as they do when assigning grand narrative arcs to candidates that bear no relation to the simple fact of how many delegates have been compiled. Reporters insist on this narrative even despite being told by Rudy himself, as our sponsors note, that he hadn't skipped New Hampshire and spent more time there than he had in Florida.