Sunday, January 20, 2008

Giuliani on Attack in Fla.

THE VILLAGES, Fla. (AP) Girding for battle as the rest of the GOP field descended upon Florida, Rudy Giuliani challenged them for the first time by name.

"Do they agree that you should have a national catastrophic fund?" he said in a Saturday tour of the Everglades. "I support it — I was the first one to support it. Now let's find out where the others — John McCain and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson — let's see what their position is on this."

For weeks, the former New York mayor has had this state to himself, having pulled out of the early primaries to focus time and cash on Florida's 57 delegates. While others rallied late votes in South Carolina, he attended a round table about Florida's space industry and toured the Everglades.

But it has cost Giuliani — in raw delegate counts and lost news cycles to those men who did contend the six Republican primaries so far. Giuliani finally won his first delegate Saturday, in Nevada. But he is behind even long-shot Ron Paul in that department, after Paul picked up four out West.

Stretching to stay relevant, Giuliani went on the attack and called two big allies to his side.

Actor Jon Voight and former FBI director Louis Freeh, Giuliani's homeland security adviser and Delaware campaign chair, introduced him at a rally in the central Florida retirement community The Villages.......

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