October 21, 2007
Rudy's Hot, Fred's Not at Presidency 4 Rally in Fla.
ORLANDO - Rudy Giuliani scored points with Florida voters yesterday with a nearly 30-minute speech at the state GOP's presidential rally ahead of the 10/21 debate. Meanwhile, Fred Thompson's five-minute speech left some undecided voters dissatisfied. The rally was part of Presidency 4, a weekend-long event sponsored by the Republican Party of Florida and costing each candidate $100K to participate in.
The convention crowd was buzzing about Giuliani for hours after yesterday's speech, and even rival campaigns acknowledged that he performed very well. The mayor also managed to sway some voter opinions in his direction. June Hahn, an ambassador for the state party (a selected post similar to a delegate), attended Romney's ice cream social after the rally and said she had been vacillating between Mitt Romney and Giuliani. After the candidates' rally, however, she said her mind was made up and she would vote for Giuliani.
"Rudy set the place on fire," she said. Hahn added that all of the GOP candidates "have the same values," and suggested that the Republican contest will be decided on strength, personality and electability. "We're going up against a woman who's really strong," she noted, explaining that "you can't hate her - she's just really strong."
Vero Beach resident Marsha Littlejohn, who hosts a local radio talk show called "Community Focus," agreed. "Giuliani just totally changed my mind," she said of his speech. She said she had previously been very supportive of Romney: "He's wonderful and family-oriented, and he's beautiful, which is interesting, and I just love him to death." But she thought Giuliani was the most dynamic of the day and said ultimately his focus on terrorism won her over.
Also speaking at the rally were John McCain, Romney and Thompson. Giuliani was the first candidate to speak in the alphabetically arranged schedule, and he spent his time walking around the large stage, rallying the crowd with an anti-Democrat call to action.
McCain followed Giuliani's lead, casually walking the stage before perching himself up against the side of the provided podium and speaking to the crowd for nearly 25 minutes about principled stances he's taken on conservative issues while serving in the U.S. Senate. The Arizona senator addressed the crowd frankly, seeming to acknowledge that his campaign's message may have had some trouble finding traction with Republican voters, but at least he had been true to his beliefs.
Romney appeared on stage flanked by his eldest son, three members of his Florida campaign and his wife Ann. He spoke for more than 15 minutes about the need to return to conservative principles and draw clear distinctions between Democrats and Republicans
Then, Fred Thompson took the stage with his wife Jeri. Thompson was introduced by a short biographical video that the campaign has used since his official announcement in Des Moines on September 6.
After beginning with a few jokes, Thompson spoke for roughly 5 minutes -- less than half the time taken up by his opponents -- before abruptly thanking the crowd, and walking the wrong way off the stage. The Thompson campaign said after the speech that they were told by the event's organizers to keep their candidate's speech very short, less than ten minutes to be precise, and that Thompson shook hands in front of the stage for nearly 15 minutes after the speech.
The campaign was also quick to point out that Thompson's brevity should have come as a relief to many members of the audience who had been standing and listening to speeches for more than two hours.
According to an event organizer, each candidate was given 15 to 20 minutes to address the crowd and the campaigns were allowed to use the time anyway they saw fit. Despite the fact that Thompson was the last candidate to speak, the organizer said that the rally was running on schedule and Thompson was not asked to cut his speech short due to time constraints.
Either way, several undecided voters expressed confusion after the speech as to why Thompson didn't try to make more of an impression on the crowd with a longer, more substantive speech. One voter said that after yesterday's rally, Thompson might have some ground to make up with undecided voters at this evening's debate. [ADAM AIGNER-TREWORGY]
Posted at 08:33 PM
Comments
Fred probably said more in 5 minutes than anyone else said in 30 minutes if you really drill down. Fred is the only person speaking from the heart and telling the truth. The other's answers are so canned that it's totally predictable.
Both Rudy and Mitt must have hired Bob Hope's joke writers. At least they were funny when Bob delivered them.
Dave P | 10.22.07 08:45 AM
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