Florida do-or-die for Giuliani

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Rudolph W. Giuliani, once the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has finished last in five of the first six presidential-nomination contests and tumbled from the top of the national polls, a spot he held unchallenged for months.

His response so far? Sit on the bench, collecting splinters.

After skipping the first half-dozen primaries and caucuses, it's finally Game Day for the former New York City mayor, and he calls the next battleground — Florida — "our home field."

"It's like going down to the fourth quarter: You know you're a really good fourth-quarter team — you've got to score three touchdowns," he told The Washington Times.

"You know you can do it, but you also know everything's got to go right for you," he said with a laugh.

Turning somber, he added: "A loss, and a bad loss, could be crippling."

Mr. Giuliani's risky strategy has gone almost exactly according to plan — three candidates have won so far, leaving the field crowded and jumbled. Also, each state to date has been a fight between two or three candidates, and none has been able to build lasting momentum.

"The chaos has helped us make everything go right," Mr. Giuliani said. "The results in all the other primaries have created a wide-open field, and I think we get some help from that. This is still a very wide-open race."

His opponents think otherwise. Sen. John McCain, winner of the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, took a swipe at Mr. Giuliani yesterday for his 0-6 record, saying, "If someone hasn't won a primary, I can understand why they would attack the front-runner."

Mitt Romney's campaign said Mr. Giuliani is a day late and a dollar short. "The mayor has just sat on the curb and clapped while every other candidate has gone out there and made a case to voters," said Kevin Madden, spokesman for the former Massachusetts governor. Mr. Giuliani "has chosen to just pick a date on the calendar in an attempt to make it only about his perceived electability."