By Christi Parsons
Rudy Giuliani is stepping up his presidential campaign in Illinois today, launching a blitz of telephone banks targeting 20,000 Republican voters and releasing a list of 154 prominent GOP leaders who are jumping on the former New York mayor’s bandwagon.
Former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson and House Republican Leader Tom Cross of Oswego are among those stumping for Giuliani – who, like both of them, hails from the more moderate wing of the Republican Party.
As political strategists contemplate whether a gun control and abortion rights supporter can attract enough conservative support to win the Republican nomination, Thompson said Friday that he thinks voters should be focusing on other things.
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“The nation’s security is the Number One issue in my view,” Thompson said in an interview. “Unless the nation is secure, you can’t offer the American people any other issue . . . None of those issues will matter if the nation’s not secure.”
Other contenders for the White House are focusing the majority of their attention on early primary voters in New Hampshire and Iowa, where an early win, place or show can give strong momentum even to candidates lagging in national polls.
But Giuliani is operating with a more national strategy, based on the idea that he could win the party nomination with the delegates in his home base region of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut by combining them with wins in delegate-rich states like Illinois, California and Florida. The campaign is putting greater effort into the more moderate Republicans states that vote on Feb. 5 than in earlier states where conservative voters are more influential.
Illinois’ GOP primary will be a competitive race, and other Republican candidates are also building their organizations in the state. Giuliani currently trails Republicans John McCain of Arizona and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in fundraising in Illinois.
Also, Romney won the Illinois Republican’s straw poll at the state fair this summer, after campaign organizers mobilized supporters in the Chicago suburbs to travel to Springfield to vote.
In what may be a more telling measure of popularity with local organizations, a poll the same day of 48 GOP county chairmen showed former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson in first place with 22 ballots and Giuliani finishing second with 13.
Giuliani still leads in most national polls, though, which his supporters say helps their argument that Giuliani is their best chance for a general election win.
Cross, a co-chairman of the Giuliani campaign, said he thinks Giuliani’s persona as a leader in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks could overwhelm those points of disagreement. Giuliani’s list of supporters includes some of the more socially conservative members of the Illinois House.
“People want someone who is going to make them feel safe,” Cross said. “People say to me, ‘I don’t agree with him on everything. But I think he’s the one who can beat Hillary Clinton.'”