Giuliani puts most of his eggs in the Florida basket

As his Republican rivals campaigned in snowy Michigan, Rudolph W. Giuliani addressed voters at two events in balmy Florida on Saturday, continuing his tropical strategy of betting everything on a win here.

Despite news this week that his campaign coffers have gotten shallow, Giuliani appeared upbeat as he sought to sway voters in two cities on the Gulf of Mexico coast.

Giuliani often mocked the Democratic candidates and repeatedly returned to his well-worn topic of the Sept. 11 attacks and what he terms “the terrorists’ war on us,” sometimes combining the two themes.

“They never say the word Islamic terrorists,” he said of his Democratic rivals. He likened it to not saying “Nazi” during World War II or “Communist” during the Cold War.

“Who do they think they’re insulting?”

At his first stop on Saturday afternoon in Bradenton, he also spoke about tort reform, recounting the much-lampooned story of Roy L. Pearson Jr., an administrative law judge in Washington, D.C., who unsuccessfully sued his dry-cleaner for $67.3 million after the business lost his pants.

“Pants don’t cost that much -- even in New York,” the former mayor of that city cracked to laughter from the audience.

He reiterated his support for an idea popular in often-weather-battered Florida: creation of a national catastrophe fund. “I, more than most, realize how important it was to us to have federal help, federal backup,” he said.

Giuliani was clearly popular with some audience members -- a middle-age woman from New York told him “I love you” during the question-and-answer session after his stump speech.

John Lakin, 47, a local lawyer and independent voter, asked him why voters should cast their ballot for him and whether he would be able to bridge the partisan divide in the capital.

Giuliani spent some time on the first part of the question but largely ignored the second.

Afterward, Lakin said he hadn’t been convinced. Giuliani went overboard when talking about tort reform during his stump speech, Lakin said, and added that his answer had not been satisfactory.

“Right now,” he said, “I’m more in favor of [Arizona Sen. John] McCain.”

Giuliani drew about 500 people to the town hall-style event at a retirement home in a modest neighborhood of trailer parks and auto shops. It was a larger-than-usual crowd for the former New York mayor, who has typically drawn fewer than 100 people to his campaign stops in recent weeks.

Sixty miles south -- and a world away -- at a yacht club in Port Charlotte, he spoke to about 300 Republicans who enjoyed sirloin steak and red wine as they listened to his pitch.

Speaking at a lectern bearing a sign saying “Florida is Rudy Country,” Giuliani began his stump speech by lashing out at Democrats whom he accused of wanting to “put us back on the defense” against terrorists.

“Democrats are talking a lot about change -- we hear it all the time -- change, change, change,” he said. “I want you to put a question mark right after that, and question what kind of change.”

Democrats, he said, favor raising taxes.

“Now, is that a good change or a bad change?” he asked the gathering of Charlotte County Young Professional Republicans.

He was aiming at two easy targets: Democrats and taxes.

The audience responded in near-unison: “Bad.”

This week, his campaign began airing a TV ad in Florida that outlines Giuliani’s plans for cutting taxes and simplifying the tax code. He has promised voters “the largest tax cut in history,” and last week he unveiled the single-page tax return he proposes to replace the current forms.

Giuliani’s stated strategy is to focus on the Jan. 29 vote in Florida, with the hope that a victory here will propel him into a competitive position on Feb. 5 when more than half of the delegates can be won.

After his 10-minute speech at the yacht club, Giuliani wound up his pitch with a joke.

“If it wasn’t for Florida, we’d have Gore as president,” he said to laughter from the crowd.

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louise.roug@latimes.com