NEW YORK, NY December 27, 2007 —Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani has released a new campaign ad. In it, the former mayor draws a parallel between New Yorkers who came together after the September 11th attacks... and the generation that fought the Second World War. WNYC's Andrea Bernstein reports.

BERNSTEIN: The ad invokes Tom Brokaw's book, the greatest generation, and immediately pivots to New York in the aftermath of 9/11.

GIULIANI: Immediately, when I saw people helping each other. I saw the picture of the firefighters putting the flag up at ground zero. I said these are the children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren of the greatest generation.

BERNSTEIN: The ad will air in Florida, New Hampshire, and on the fox news network. That channel watched closely by Republican elites, who've begun to question Giuliani's chances to win the nomination.

The mention of the greatest generation is a direct appeal to senior citizens living in Florida, who, Giuliani said yesterday, increasingly hold his electoral fate in their hands. For WNYC, I'm Andrea Bernstein.