BOCA RATON, Fla. (CBS) – Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel returned to his city today after spending the weekend in Florida, courting voters for his former boss, President Obama.

Emanuel made nearly a dozen stops over three days in a state he believes is in a dead heat right now. It’s especially in Florida, he told group after group, that every vote counts.

“You don’t want to wake up the next day (and say), ‘Woulda coulda shoulda,’” he said.

The mayor’s Sunshine State visit preceded Monday evening’s debate between Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.

The debate, focusing on foreign affairs, was expected to pick up where the last one left off, with Obama blasting Romney for making the death of four Americans in Libya a political issue.

“Everything’s fair, but not politicizing an international situation,” Emanuel tells CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine. “If that’s the truth, Congress shouldn’t have cut $300 million from security-for-embassies budget the president submitted.”

But west suburban Congressman Peter Roskam, a Republican, said the Libya incident is fair game, given reports the U.S. consulate had asked for additional security before the Sept. 11 attack that resulted in the death of ambassador Chris Stevens and three others.

“I think they ignored it based on bad decision-making,” Roskam says of the Obama administration. “That’s a question only the president can answer.”