If various reports and polls from Florida are to be believed, all former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani needs to do is to climb up on a palm tree and shout: “I’m King of the world!!!”

By most accounts, Giuliani’s big gambit to make a huge political impression in Florida has succeeded: unless there is an upset, he’s likely to flop at the polls tomorrow and his early, and in-retrospect flawed, primary strategy will indeed be talked about for years.

Could the two front-runners Arizona Senator John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney siphon-off enough votes from each other to put Rudy in? Perhaps. But these days, analysts note, he’s teetering towards third-fourth place. Giuliani is in political trouble and should call 911 (OOPS! He’s done that MANY TIMES already):

Florida now appears to be a two-way race between Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain, as two new polls show Rudolph W. Giuliani losing support after skipping six straight presidential-nomination contests.

Just 48 hours before the Florida primary, the former Massachusetts governor and the senator from Arizona are deadlocked at 30 percent, according a Reuters-CSPAN-Zogby poll released yesterday. Another poll, by Rasmussen Reports, showed Mr. Romney up by six percentage points over Mr. McCain.

But both polls show the former New York City mayor unable to reignite his campaign. The Zogby poll showed Mr. Giuliani slumping to fourth place — one point behind former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — at 13 percent, down two points from its last poll. The Rasmussen poll put Mr. Giuliani at 14 percent.

[UPDATE: The latest Zogby poll shows some slight change in the numbers:

In what’s become a two-man game for the Republicans, Arizona Sen. John McCain now holds a slim lead over rival Mitt Romney while all others lag well behind in the Florida primary race, the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby telephone tracking poll shows.

Boosted by a strong endorsement from Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, McCain has 33% support, compared to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who wins 30% backing. The two leaders have been locked in a tight contest ahead of Tuesday’s election. This three-day tracking poll, which surveyed 818 likely Republican voters, carries a margin for error of +/- 3.4% and was conducted Jan. 25-27.

Eight percent of voters remained undecided in the tight race.

In the battle for third place, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is once again ahead of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, 14% to 11%. Huckabee had leapt ahead of Giuliani in yesterday’s three-day tracking poll, but he gave back three points in the last 24 hours and again trails Giuliani.]

Pollster John Zogby flatly says:”Giuliani is becoming less of a factor in Florida…This is a two-man race: It’s all coming down to McCain versus Romney.”

Mr. Giuliani’s campaign embarked on a risky strategy of not focusing on the big three early contests — Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — and three other smaller contests, to target Florida, where his campaign strategists viewed the electorate as a better fit. The strategy appeared to pay off — three different candidates won among the first six contests and none has been able to break out of the pack.

But the former mayor did not foresee plummeting in the national polls, which he led for months, and all but disappearing from media reports about the Republican race.

It’s abundantly clear now — and future politicos will take note — that vanishing off the mainstream media and new media radar and sitting it out is not smart politics. It’s also notable that former Senator and actor Fred Thompson also blew it when he didn’t enter the GOP race amid a huge clamor, instead doing a Hamlet imitation and pondering his entry until his moment had passed.

“It’s clear that his support is sinking, and he’s being crowded out by two men who have already won primaries,” Mr. Zogby said. “The best you can say about his strategy is that it was risky, and the worst you can say is that it was foolish.”

Mr. Giuliani defended his strategy on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” but sidestepped a question about whether he would drop out if he lost, having pinned so much on a win in the state. “We’re going to win in Florida,” he said. “We have been campaigning here very steadily since the early voting began. There’s been an unprecedented, I believe, amount of early voting, so, I think we’re going to do very well here.”

Perhaps. And to be fair, Giuliani has been a bundle of energy.

Outwardly defiant in the face of southward moving polls, the former mayor has pressed-on even after getting the terrible political news that Florida Governor Charlie Crist decided to endorse McCain. He has even learned that his once insurmountable lead has evaporated in New Jersey.

But he has pressed on — making his last stand in Miami’s Little Havana, the Christian Science Monitor reports:

Paying homage to Miami’s Cuban-Americans – and knocking back Cuban coffee at Café Versailles in the heart of the city’s Little Havana neighborhood – is a staple of any political campaign in south Florida.

But for Rudolph Giuliani, the one-time national front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Cuban-Americans represent his last redoubt. As his support fades among the rest of the GOP electorate in Florida on the eve of Tuesday’s primary, the former New York mayor is still the toast of Little Havana.

In an appearance Friday at a neighborhood senior center, Mr. Giuliani basked in the adoration of older Cuban-Americans, who called out “Rudy, Rudy!” as the former mayor praised their love of freedom in the face of a “vicious, murderous, communist dictatorship.”

“You brought with you what’s inside your soul, and no tyrant, no dictator, no bully can take that away from you,” Giuliani said, standing amid the Cuban-American senior citizens who had entertained the crowd with dancing before his arrival. “The Cuban-American story shows that freedom prevails over oppression.”

But unless there is some monster upset tomorrow night, Giuliani’s historic moment — like fellow GOPer Thompson’s — has passed…the victim of a calculated risk that didn’t factor in the variables of politics, the impact of media saturation coverage on poll numbers, and how a good image could be run into the ground by overuse.

When his mentions of 911 became comedians’ punchlines and were parroted by some political foes, he had jumped the shark — but even if he could jump a shark, the athletic abilities that would require would STILL make hard for him to overcome the major electoral hurdles he’ll face tomorrow night.

But, yes, there have been surprises this year. And a Giuliani victory would be the biggest of all.