Rudolph W. Giuliani's all-or-nothing strategy in Florida has turned out to be all nothing.

Despite spending more than $7 million and nearly 60 days campaigning from Miami to Tallahassee to Jacksonville, the former New York mayor only eked out a distant third-place finish in the Sunshine State's primary yesterday, raising questions about his future viability as a Republican presidential candidate.

"The responsibility of leadership doesn't end with a single campaign, it goes on and you continue to fight for it," Mr. Giuliani told supporters in Orlando last night. "We ran a campaign that was uplifting."

Asked directly if he was dropping out of the race, Mr. Giuliani said only: "I'm going to California."

Republican presidential candidates are scheduled to debate in Simi Valley tonight.

Although he did not say he was quitting, the tone of his remarks indicated he thought he was done. Many reports last night said Mr. Giuliani would pull out of the race as soon as today and throw his support behind his longtime friend, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

The defeat of "America's Mayor" represented a stunning repudiation of a candidacy based largely on Mr. Giuliani's stoic performance after the Sept. 11 attacks and his reputation for cleaning up New York City, which made him the favorite both in Florida and nationally by a wide margin last summer and in early fall.

But once the primary season got under way, Mr. Giuliani's frontrunner status evaporated as he lost six straight contests. His loss in Florida last night, despite months of appearances at town meetings, churches, senior citizen centers and shopping malls, along with roughly $1 million a week in advertising, also served as an important reminder that presidential contenders who skip early primaries or caucuses -- Mr. Giuliani largely bypassed Iowa, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina and Nevada -- do so at their peril.

"I think the strategy of not engaging in South Carolina and New Hampshire was probably a mistake," said state Rep. Carl Domino, who chaired Mr. Giuliani's campaign in Palm Beach County. "If he'd just competed and finished third in those places, that would be considered a reasonable showing. Even if he didn't win the state he would still be in the hunt."

Republicans also had an unusually competitive field this year, said David Garofolo, a Pasco County firefighter and co-chair of Florida Firefighters for Rudy.

"Not just formidable because of other primary wins," he said, "but because each candidate was really strong on a particular issue, whether it was [former Arkansas Gov. Mike] Huckabee with social conservatives, McCain with his Senate experience, [former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt] Romney with his business background and Giuliani with his leadership of New York."

Still, he said, "the ground game Rudy had here in Florida was awesome. There were so many volunteers. I got 30 robocalls but I never got one from Rudy Giuliani. He did it the old-fashioned way, but maybe that way just doesn't work anymore."

Mr. Giuliani's collapse in Florida, state political insiders said, began when success of the U.S. military "surge" in Iraq last fall meant fewer front-page headlines about casualties and more focus by voters on their economic problems.

"There was only one plausible reason for Mr. Giuliani's candidacy and that was 9/11, and to the extent that the surge began to succeed, Iraq receded from the public consciousness, making room for other issues like the economy," said Mac Stipanovich, a Tallahassee lawyer and GOP activist.

While Mr. Giuliani came across as intelligent, "he didn't engage voters," coming across almost as a living artifact of 9/11, he said. "I think some voters who turned out to see him were just curious. It was almost like going to a museum to see an exhibit."

Jim Cooper, a Naples resident and Giuliani supporter, agreed. "People are tired of hearing about 9/11, and associate Rudy only with that and want to move on," he said, noting that Mr. Giuliani's turbulent personal life -- he's been married three times, and is estranged from his children -- worked against him among Florida's more conservative voters.

Mr. Giuliani's moderate politics might have attracted independents, but in Florida, independents can't cross party lines to vote -- and most ex-New Yorkers living in Florida who might have felt some residual loyalty to Hizzoner or empathy for his positions on abortion or gay rights aren't Republicans.

"You cannot win a Republican primary and be pro-choice and pro-gay and for gun control," said John Stemberger, a conservative lawyer based in Orlando.

While Mr. Giuliani worked hard to court Cuban-Americans in Miami, he rarely appeared before the state's other Hispanic groups in the melting pot that is central Florida, who mostly were gravitating toward Mr. McCain, Mr. Stembergerm said.

In the end, though, it was Mr. Giuliani's decision to largely ignore primary contests in other states that cost him momentum in this one. Only two other candidates in recent history have tried that strategy -- Al Gore and John McCain, noted Kathleen Kendall, a professor of communications at the University of Maryland.

Mr. McCain skipped Iowa in 2000 to focus on New Hampshire, where he won that year. But voters were still talking about his snub this year in Iowa, which Mr. McCain lost, she said.

In 1988, Mr. Gore mainly concentrated on Southern primary states participating in Super Tuesday's primaries. But then, as now, candidates who had already won other contests -- like Michael Dukakis in New Hampshire -- had, by Super Tuesday, accrued more national visibility than Mr. Gore, making it too late for him to catch up.

In recent days, while Mr. McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney hurled the Republican equivalent of insults at each other ("liberal" and "flip-flopper"), Mr. Giuliani showed little sign of the combative, acid-tongued mayor of old, maintaining an upbeat stance -- despite dwindling crowds in Sanford, Clearwater and Fort Lauderdale -- proudly noting his decision to keep to the high road.

"Outwardly, he was upbeat," said Mr. Domino. "The difference really wasn't in him, it was in the size of the crowds, even though I can tell you that up until the end volunteers were dialing the phones like mad.

"In sports as in politics, you agonize if it's close," he added. "If it ain't close, you accept it the way it is, and I think Rudy has done that."