The final day of this primary battle in Florida featured sharp words between Mitt Romney and John McCain, as those two candidates try their best to win and to put away Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee for good.

The Romney-McCain tiff involves both Iraq and the economy, as McCain accused the former Massachusetts Governor of favoring timelines for a US withdrawal at about the time the US military surge began.

The charge was denied by Romney, but McCain has kept hammering away on it, even though the basis for his argument might be characterized as "thin."

Romney hit back on the economy, skewering McCain repeatedly at final rallies on Monday for knowing little about the ways of the business world. Romney says it makes him, as a former business executive, a much better choice for the voters.

The debate got even more heated as I drove down I-4 to Tampa, as the Sean Hannity show seemed to morph into what was almost an advertisement for Romney and against McCain, as Hannity argued that McCain had basically lied about Romney's record on an Iraq withdrawal.

As I have written previously, the Talk Show Denizens are not at all interested in a McCain Administration and the vigorous nature of their discussions about McCain make that very clear.

At his final rally on Monday, McCain stayed positive, as he'd already gotten his message out on Romney during the day. Their battle is not over, no matter who wins on Tuesday in Florida.

What I Saw On The Ground In Florida

Monday was a very good day, because I got to see all four of the GOP heavyweights in separate events, giving you a good feel for what's going on around their candidacies.

First up was Rudy Giuliani, who has insisted to the bitter end that he can still win in Florida, even as he's poured in more and more money and watched his poll numbers go down.

His final airport rally in Sanford was one of those events that seems to haunt candidates who are hanging on in the Presidential race by their fingernails.

The turnout was okay, maybe a hundred plus people. The microphone stopped working during one introduction by the actor John Voight. The backdrop was badly planned, as the candidate kept walking in and out of the sun, which doesn't look good on TV.

The great dynamic about the Giuliani event was the presence of the New York News Media. They know they have a great story either way on Tuesday night - either Giuliani wins and it's a great comeback, or he loses and they broadcast his very public demise.

After that, it was down the road to a Mitt Romney airport event north of Orlando, which had at least several hundred people more than Giuliani.

What was most striking about the Romney event was that campaign aides would go into the crowd and ask people to walk over to an area of tables which served as a "virtual" phone bank.

Supporters were then handed a list of names and numbers and a script, and with their own cell phones, they started calling GOP voters at home to make sure they were going to vote and vote for Romney.

The real eye opener was after the event was over. Usually most everyone heads for the exits quickly. Not at this rally. At least fifty people stayed behind, not to schmooze or suck up to anyone important, but to volunteer their work for the campaign.

I have to say, I have never seen that before in the 16 years that I have covered Presidential campaigns.

Romney's main adversary John McCain was again playing to big crowds, as he did on Sunday when I saw him in Lady Lake, Florida. A colleague of mine who has been covering McCain here said that was his biggest event by far. A good sign for him.

While McCain went after Romney by name earlier in the day, his final rally in Tampa (where I write this) there were no potshots at Romney at this event.

Was that by design? I don't know, but it was an omission that my journalist mind certainly noted.

As for Mike Huckabee, he spent most of the day campaigning not in Florida, but in Tennessee, one of the Super Tuesday states.

But Huckabee returned for a final rally in Tampa that certainly drew more people than the Giuliani event I went to first and maybe as many as the Romney rally.

While Huckabee never caught fire here, it still has always seemed to me that he has a very committed group of supporters.

Some here are even raising the possibility that Huckabee could beat Giuliani for third place, which would really send the New York News Media into a full blown News Tizzy.

And judging by the number of people out on a chilly Florida night at an airport hangar in Tampa, the Huckabee people seem more interested in their candidate than Giuliani in the I-4 corridor.

We'll see what the verdict is on Tuesday night.

Don't Forget the Democrats in Florida

The weird situation involving Florida and the early Primary here of course cost Democrats their delegates to the national convention, which will most certainly be restored at some point.

When Hillary Clinton arrives here Tuesday night to claim victory, it will be the first public rally by a Democratic Presidential candidate in Florida in over three months.

I certainly understand what national party chairman Howard Dean was trying to do, but talk about a public relations disaster for Democrats in both Michigan and in Florida the last few months.

Still, even with no candidates, no rallies, no public events, the Clinton-Obama-Edwards race has clearly galvanized Democrats in Florida.

Officials report a huge turnout so far in absentee and early voting, with Orange County (around Orlando) reporting that by the time the polls open, almost 15 percent of eligible Democrats will have voted already.

The latest poll from Florida yesterday showed Hillary with a 20-point lead. Let's face it, the polls don't have a good track record so far in the Democratic contest. Let's see how they do with this one.

Expect Hillary to very publicly celebrate a victory tonight in Florida and then see how many newspaper front pages she makes; probably a photo of either Romney or McCain next to Hillary on a lot of them, even though no Democratic delegates are at stake.

A Fun Day On The Campaign Trail

Monday was a great day of chasing candidates around Central Florida. What made it even better was that I was with one of my oldest friends in the news business.

Mark Curtis and I met each other in college when we both worked in radio news at the University of Florida. He ended up in television, I stayed in radio, but we always remained in touch.

With Curtis and the rental car GPS acting as navigators, we hit Guiliani, Romney, McCain and Huckabee, hitting for the News Cycle so to speak, a day before the big primary here.

The first time we covered an election together, it was 1984. We sent one girl down to cover a protest by an animal rights group. Later we learned that she had put down her microphone at one point and joined the protest. She didn't make the cut in the real world of news.

Both of us were tired yesterday, as we've been on the road for most of this month. But both of us knew that if we didn't push it and get to see all four of the top contenders, then the day would have been half empty.

We met up before 9am and got back to our hotels at 11pm, with two more hours of work still to do, but neither of us was complaining one bit.

It was a day of news, a day of old stories, tall tales, family stories and stark political realities.

In other words, we worked hard, but we had a hell of a lot of fun.