Rudy 'not surprised' by drop in FL polls
Posted: Monday, January 14, 2008 3:57 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ's Matthew Berger
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The latest polls showing Giuliani in second in Florida didn’t catch the campaign by surprise.
“We were not surprised,” Giuliani told NBC News, adding that internal polling had shown similar results. The Quinnipiac University poll, released Monday, found Giuliani behind McCain, but within the margin of error in the Sunshine State. McCain garnered 22 percent of the vote, followed by Giuliani with 20 percent and Romney and Huckabee with 19 percent each.
It is an 8-percentage-point drop for the former New York City mayor, who led in the poll a month ago. The January poll had an 4.8 percent margin of error.
Campaign aides said they had anticipated by the shift, considering McCain’s victory in New Hampshire. They assumed the race would tighten, but said they believe they will be in a strong position on Jan. 29, no matter who wins the primaries tomorrow in Michigan and this weekend in South Carolina and Nevada.
Strategy Director Brent Seaborn said he believes votes for Giuliani are more committed than those for other candidates and that they have a stronger grassroots effort. He said they are already pushing people to the polls for early voting, which the campaign has been heavily touting.
“We’d rather be ahead than behind in any poll, but being a point or two points behind, we’ll take,” Seaborn said. “We all know this is a real close race, but I think by the time the circus comes to town, it will be Rudy Giuliani versus a field of candidates that will be seen as flawed in some way.”
Seaborn also suggested the campaign could start going after its challengers, which would be a sharp contrast to Giuliani’s pledge to abide by Ronald Reagan’s “11th Commandment” to not denigrate other Republicans.
“We’ll take Sen. McCain’s endorsement whenever he is ready,” Seaborn said. “When the time is right, Rudy will fight as hard as anybody.”
Giuliani was met with an old acquaintance Monday on the second day of his three-day bus tour across Florida. When Mitch Samuels told Giuliani at the Shell Point Retirement Community that it was good to see him again, Giuliani inquired whether they knew each other before. “Yes,” Samuels said. “You married us.”
As Samuels walked up to shake Giuliani’s hand, the mayor asked “It took, huh? You’re still married?” to which Samuels affirmed. But Samuels later reminded him that he almost made it a quickie wedding.
“You said, ‘would you take Christina to be your wife?’ and I said ‘yes’ and you said ‘now wait a minute, you want it the fast way or the slow way?”
Giuliani said he remembered the incident. “You did eventually do the whole thing,” Giuliani said. “He was a little anxious, what can I tell you."
