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Posted: January 18, 2008 11:21 AM
In Tricky Delegate Math, Will Florida + Giuliani Win = Nomination?
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Calculating Republican delegates is tricky, but former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s campaign claims his pending victory is all about the math and that he will enter the equation when Florida votes on Jan. 29.

In the current breakdown, Giuliani holds zero of the 1,191 delegates needed to win the GOP nomination. But four contests in, his rivals are still in the low double digits: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has 42 delegates after his wins in Michigan and Wyoming, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has 32 and Arizona Sen. John McCain has 13. With three separate winners and a divided Republican party, Giuliani is banking on a solid Florida sweep before Super Tuesday on Feb. 5.

“If Fred Thompson pulls it out in South Carolina on Saturday, then — and you have four different winners for four different contests, major contests, then the Giuliani strategy at least looks semi-plausible,” said NewsHour analyst Mark Shields.

Florida has a whopping 57 delegates, and that’s after the Republican National Committee stripped the number in half for violating party rules by scheduling a pre-Feb. 5 primary.

But while his Feb. 5 strategy is grounded in numerical logic, it still may be too soon to tell whether his plan will work. Giuliani has had to sit on the sidelines as his national lead plummeted to fourth behind McCain, Huckabee and Romney. Recent matchups in Florida show a close four-way race.

The former mayor has also missed out on positive media coverage that other rivals gained from their individual wins, and much of Giuliani’s attention has centered around analyzing his strategy.

A front-page New York Times article on Thursday quoted Giuliani advisers saying that if the former mayor loses Florida, he’ll probably have a hard time winning in his home state of New York.

“It’s pretty certain that he has to win Florida,” Giuliani’s New York co-chair Guy Molinari said in the story.

Giuliani has visited Florida more than 70 times since January 2007 — more time than any other candidate — and blanketed the state with expensive ad buys. He just completed a tour in a bus painted “Florida is Rudy Country” and he will head out on another one this weekend. On Thursday and Friday, Giuliani will appear in Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Tallahassee, Cape Canaveral and Titusville.

In the past two days, Giuliani has released two TV ads in Florida, the first titled Jumpstart in which a narrator claims Giuliani will “jumpstart our economy with the biggest tax cut in modern history.” The second TV ad, called Quotes flashes quotes praising Giuliani’s record on cutting taxes from George Will, Steve Forbes, Grover Norquist, Pat Toomey and even Giuliani’s rival Mitt Romney.

On Tuesday, he released an ad to air on Spanish-language radio in Florida that features Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina and Miami-Dade County Commissioner Rebeca Sosa.”

His campaign might also face financial trouble. News leaked last week that some of his staffers would forgo their January paychecks.

“I want to do everything I can to make sure Rudy’s president, and I speak for a lot of the campaign when I say that,” said Giuliani’s campaign manager Mike DuHaime. “None of us joined this campaign for money.”

Giuliani spent money in both New Hampshire and Iowa with poor results, and the Feb. 5 states he’s banking on for the nomination include some of the country’s most-expensive media markets. At December’s end, his campaign had $7 million cash on hand to spend on primaries.

The next big Republican contest is in South Carolina on Jan. 19 and while Giuliani has campaigned there, he is not expected to do as well as his opponents.