For months former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s campaign for the 2008 Presidential nomination has been atop of the GOP front runner polls but now some stumbles and sagging poll numbers raise the question: is Rudy Giuliani’s campaign a campaign with “legs”?

“Legs” is the Hollywood term that has a few meanings but the basic one is that it means a movie that debuts will continue to make strong grosses due to word of mouth and repeated viewings.

In Giuliani’s case, a series of poor early decisions, bad publicity and perhaps rolling out his 911 message so soon and using it so often that it became a comedian’s punchline have removed him as clear front runner at the worst possible time. Do we see a bit of bad political advice and overexposure here?

The New York Times notes:

Rudolph W. Giuliani has entered a turbulent period in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, marked by what his aides acknowledge are missteps, sharp shifts in strategy and evidence that reports about his personal life have hurt his national standing.

Sharp shifts in strategy are particularly perilous in primary campaigns, when candidates’ constituencies are party activists who are seeking above all someone who they can trust to do what they say.

A $3 million investment in radio and television advertising in New Hampshire, a belated effort to become competitive in this state, is now viewed by the campaign as a largely wasted expenditure.

A Boston Globe poll published Sunday found that support for Mr. Giuliani had dropped in New Hampshire over the past month, even before any fallout from the decision on Wednesday by an ailing Mr. Giuliani to have his campaign plane turn around and take him back to St. Louis, where he spent the night in the hospital.

Some of Mr. Giuliani’s advisers are frustrated at the extent to which his decision not to compete aggressively in Iowa has pushed him to the side of the stage at a moment when the political world’s attention is focused on the caucuses there that will kick off the election season in less than two weeks.

It clearly was a poor decision.

It went on the assumption that Giuliani would be exactly where he was months ago by the time Iowans made their decision. It also ignored the fact that mainstream and new media attention clearly follows the news cycle.

If there are huge numbers of stories, posts and newscast pieces on X story and candidate Y is not a player, then the candidates involved in the story — whether portrayed in a positive way or not — get free media publicity, are invited to do sound bytes, and become candidates sparking lots of (positive or negative) buzz.

Moreover, some partisans don’t like to see prospective candidates in effect chickening out and not running in states where they feel they might not do well.

In essence, Giuliani could campaign but he has been “out of the loop’ for most of the media which focuses on the “news peg” — and the biggest “news peg” has been the Iowa caucuses. And, there, Giuliani has not been a contender when it might have helped him to get his message and candidacy across via free media news coverage.

Mr. Giuliani’s initial campaign theme, built around his record as mayor of New York, has given way to a new one: “Tested. Ready. Now.” But its introduction, in a speech last Saturday in Tampa, drew little attention on a day when most of the other Republican and Democratic presidential candidates were grabbing the spotlight in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Compounding his problems, Mr. Giuliani drew the kind of attention last week that a candidate with declining national poll numbers and a history of treatment for prostate cancer would just as soon avoid after he abruptly entered the hospital in St. Louis and stayed there overnight.

Still, as the Times notes, Giuliani is still considered a VERY strong candidate with strong political skills who is an excellent campaigner.

A key problem for him now: the flow of early political stories will make him instantly look like an also ran (even if he didn’t really run). He won’t win Iowa. He won’t win New Hampshire. What political context will that put him in?

One aspect the Times and other publications don’t often mention is the decision of the Giuliani camp to overuse the 911 theme.

Due to the nearly sadistic length of American presidential campaigns, Giuliani has been hammering home his linkage to 911 and the positive and assuring imagery he communicated to a stunned nation…too long.

Any message or theme can lose its impact if it’s overused. In this case, it was rolled out so early that Giuliani’s Republican and Democratic foes will be able to counter it with prepared statements. The 911 role is now old hat now to the news media and to many voters. Editors can’t give big play to Giuliani touting his 911 performance (been there, done that) and voters will start to tune out (even TV shows lose ratings after the schtick is no longer a novelty).

The New York Post reports that Giuliani has been using the 911 card in mailings to New Hampshire and Iowa. And now, according to the LA Times, Giuliani is facing a political backlash:

In an effort reminiscent of the bitter “Swift Boat” campaign during the 2004 presidential race, a group of New York firefighters who lost sons in the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks is organizing a political committee to take on former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in Republican primary states.

A leader of the 9/11 Firefighters and Families group met Tuesday with union leaders and political consultants, readying plans to set up a tax-exempt committee that would fund appearances and a media drive against Giuliani.

Jim Riches, a New York deputy fire chief whose firefighter son was killed during the attack, said the group aimed to raise doubts about the central premise of Giuliani’s presidential campaign — his leadership role on Sept. 11. “If we have to follow him around all 2008 we’ll do it,” Riches said.

The result: Giuliani has recently been put on the defensive, defending his decisions in some key 911 related controversies.

Even McDonald’s changes its ad campaign and slogan from time to time. Giuliani might have been better served to have used the 911 more sparingly or judiciously.

It will have little new impact now in winning him votes — unless there is some new, terrible unforeseen event.

And if the Republican race isn’t already locked up by then voters might seek a candidate who had consistently articulated a strong and tough anti-terrorism theme.

Guess who’d probably first come to mind?