Giuliani visits the Lake City

The former mayor of the nation’s most populous city came looking for support in one of the nation’s least-populous states Thursday, picking up contributions at a $500-per-head reception on the shores of Lake Coeur d’Alene and promising smaller government if he gets elected president.

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said his style of governing and a belief that “great things come from the people, not from government,” should play well in Idaho.

“Government can either assist in that or hurt it by becoming too big,” he said during a brief press conference outside the headquarters of Hagadone Corp. before boarding a boat for the fundraiser at a home on Kidd Island Bay. “I’m someone who understands that you’ve got to devolve power and reduce the size of government,”

As mayor of New York, he said, he held down the growth of that city’s government while cutting crime and the number of people on welfare. As president, he said, he’d be strong on defense “and not succumb to the pessimism, defeatism and diminishment that the Democrats would bring to us.”

Giuliani is leading a crowded Republican field in most national polls, although he was third in raising money in Idaho, behind Mitt Romney and John McCain when campaign spending reports were turned in on June 30.

Organizers of the fundraiser said they had slightly more than 100 donors at the reception, which could bump him up to second when the next set of reports are sent to the Federal Elections Commission.

Giuliani caught a ride to the reception on a boat owned by local business magnate Duane Hagadone, who said he wasn’t necessarily throwing his support behind the former mayor, just interested to hear what he had to say.

“It’s great exposure for Coeur d’Alene,” Hagadone said. Giuliani might be the first presidential candidate to visit the city since Ronald Reagan came prior to the 1980 presidential election, Hagadone added as he waited for the candidate to arrive.

That bit of history seemed to please Giuliani after he pulled up in a caravan of three black Cadillac Escalades that cruised past about a dozen people holding signs for another GOP candidate, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.

“It’s a great honor,” Giuliani said of Reagan. “He’s my hero.”

Although Idaho is a small state in a nationwide campaign, one never knows which state will be critical in a close election, he added.