Chelsea Nain

Polls show Mitt Romney could win the Florida Primary. John McCain is under attack, much as he was in 99 and 00. Rudy Giuliani’s slide appears to have halted – so far there is no sign of an uptick out of third.

The timing may be perfect for Romney. His business experience is proving a great asset with the economy dominating much of the contest. He is a tireless, disciplined, smart campaigner. His aides and strategists are top notch. His policies eare fully developed. His rhetoric is tight. His Florida campaign is centered in the triangle between Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa where they expect about 57% of the GOP votes to be.

Romney in so many ways has done it the old fashioned way. Any successful candidate in a competitive race for office is going to initially need three things; Message, Money and Organization. Check.
When running for president add; get to Iowa and New Hampshire early and often, have a reasonable claim to your party’s political base in the early states, don’t be the early front-runner, take some risks, survive a few bad patches with a comeback, have dumb luck, then time your peaks for when people are in voting booths. Check, Check, Check, Check.

Mitt could be having a moment. In the first polls after South Carolina Romney was ahead. McCain got the Palmetto state bounce and inched ahead. Rudy tanked. Fred bailed -which helped Huckabee, who according to Mason Dixon could beat Rudy for third.

Now republicans coast to coast are unleashing on McCain: wrong on the Bush tax cuts, amnesty, campaign finance reform. He collaborates too often, they say, with Ted Kennedy et al. And for years in the senate they say he has been an unreliable republican, largely disliked for angry outbursts and bullying.

Wait. Because McCain is highly respected by the public his rivals are loath to attack hard. Enter the anti-McCain forces. They range from Rudy and Romney boosters to the uncommitted. The only common denominator is they appear to detest McCain. DO NOT rule McCain out. Seniors and veterans and retirees LOVE HIM. There is still some South Carolina wind in his sails. It is a tossup.

Rudy is in trouble. At every event some supporter will tell me about being worried that he’s fading. Seniors, vets, and transplants, in South Florida like McCain and Romney too. Crowd members repeatedly note Rudy’s absence from the news for the last month and lament that he did not compete with others elsewhere.

All politics is local but not always a winner. Hizzoner’s support for a National Catastrophic Insurance fund is very popular but Floridians aren’t rubes. The land of recount injunctions and Supreme court appeals is not likely to miss so blatant a pander.

In short:
Governor Charlie Crist pushed a measure through the legislature aimed at lowering skyrocketing insurance costs in hurricane plagued Florida. Premiums may have stabilized but state taxpayers are now on the hook if the insurance companies can’t handle a future disaster. Crist now wants Washington to establish a $250 billion National Catastrophic Insurance fund that would ostensibly put taxpayers in all 50 states on the hook for Florida (and other states) should bailing out the insurance companies require catastrophic state tax hikes.

Rudy has signed on to it. Critics in Florida and elsewhere think its doomed as a big government risk guarantee for disaster insurance, funded by taxpayers in 50 states.

Giuliani has spent a lot of time around the I-4 corridor and his aides are talking up big crowds. That’s ironic since in big states like Florida crowd size is not really that relevant. Rally enthusiasm and attendance is a good yardstick in early retail states. Rudy did a bit of it in NH, but nothing compared to Mitt and McCain. The most stunning thing about Rudy’s support is that in Southern Florida (from Boca Raton to Miami Beach..affectionately known as the 6th buro of NY for all the Big Apple snowbirds and transplants) McCain leads by 10% in the Miami herald Poll.

Still Rudy is a respected and much loved hero. His staff is working triple time and they are crackerjack pro’s. Ever optimistic, doggedly loyal, disciplined message managers, they all hate to lose and are not familiar with it.

DO NOT BE shocked by a final Rudy surge before Tuesday.

As for Governor Romney; Michigan fine tuned his economic message and its clicking in Florida. He has run a text book air war. Several months ago he began with bio ads. They evolved into issue ads. Those turned to contrast ads. Then back to bio ads and now closing arguments. No other candidate came close to such a well run campaign. When the message needed to evolve, it did. When he lost in Iowa and New Hampshire adjustments followed.

Sure he has probably spent more than $30 million of his own money but since when is personal wealth (and spending it) a problem among republicans? Sure he has flip-flopped on key GOP issues in the last five years, but his bent has been decidedly rightward and his rivals have plenty of policy deviations from GOP orthodoxy of their own.

Anything can happen. The polls could be wrong. Romney could win Florida and tank February 5th. McCain could EASILY win Florida. Rudy could re-surge.

But if Romney pulls out a victory in Florida he will have arrived. His talking point will no longer be that he won Michigan and leads in delegates, it will be that for the first time there is a clear front-runner heading into February 5th, and he’s it.