(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-29 10:07

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Rudy Giuliani loves to prove people wrong. He's trying to do it again in Florida.

Polls show the former New York mayor, last year's national front-runner, trailing badly in the state where he has bet almost everything in his pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination. If he wins on Tuesday, he will have earned the biggest, brashest "I told you so" of his political career.

Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani talks with supporters during a campaign rally with his wife, Judith, in Clearwater, Florida January 28, 2008. [Agencies]

Lose, and Giuliani may be uttering his final words of the campaign.

"Wednesday morning, we'll make a decision," he told reporters between campaign appearances.

"In the past, I've done the impossible -- things that people thought were impossible," he told supporters at a rally Monday. He was talking about immigration policy, but he might as well have been discussing how to resuscitate his presidential campaign.

"This is a place where we have to test ourselves," Giuliani added later. "The winner of Florida will win the nomination; we're going to win Florida."

In an unconventional move, Giuliani largely bypassed the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina, pinning his hopes on a fractured field and the prospect that his moderate GOP record would attract support in the delegate-rich states of Florida, New York, California and Illinois.

Florida has been less than hospitable. Surveys show rivals Mitt Romney and John McCain fighting for the lead, and the state's top two Republicans -- Sen. Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist -- endorsed McCain. The news back home is just as bad; the latest USA Today/Gallup poll showed McCain leading in New York and Giuliani dropping.

Inside an airport hangar, as a crowd of supporters dispersed, some grumbled about Crist's decision to endorse McCain -- a major slight to the ex-mayor.

"That was a rotten trick. I'm disappointed," said John Fischer, a self-described "geezer from New Jersey" sporting bright red suspenders and a Giuliani sticker plastered to his cap.

Fischer said he thought Giuliani might still win, but if not, "I would hope one of the other guys could find a place on the ticket for him."

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