Urging a “proactive” approach to the war on terror and an energy policy that embraces diversity, Mayor Giuliani last night launched a fund-raising drive for Republican congressional candidates that will likely thrust him onto the national stage as he ponders a presidential bid.

The fund-raiser at the Four Seasons restaurant in Midtown drew more than 200 supporters and took in more than $2 million for Mr. Giuliani’s political action committee, Solutions America. Committee officials said the windfall far outpaced expectations; aides to Mr. Giuliani earlier predicted the event would raise $500,000.

While the committee’s goal is to help Republicans keep control of Congress in this fall’s midterm elections, last night’s event served largely as a toast to Mr. Giuliani amid speculation about his plans for 2008. Addressing the crowd, the former mayor acknowledged that talk about the next White House race had started “way earlier than any election has ever started before,” but he sought to keep the focus on 2006.

“People are concentrating on who wins the Super Bowl or the World Series and their not thinking about who wins the pennant or who wins the playoffs,” he said. “It’s a long way to getting to 2008.”

Mr. Giuliani spoke without a script for about 15 minutes as sharply dressed supporters sipped wine and ate hors d’oeuvres. He pointed to maintaining national security and a strong economy as keys to America’s future and extolled the GOP as the country’s best hope for delivering on those goals. He praised President Bush’s response to the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and said that going forward, America would be safe if it remained “proactive” in the war on terror.

“A Republican Congress will ensure that,” Mr. Giuliani said. “A Democratic Congress will put that in jeopardy.”

Mr. Giuliani hailed tax cuts as “fueling the economy,” saying that the government takes in billions more dollars in revenue from lower tax rates than it does from higher levies. A day after Senator McCain, a possible rival in 2008, spoke of “out of control” government spending in a Midtown speech, Mr. Giuliani also pushed for belt-tightening in Washington. “There’s absolutely no question that the federal government is in need of being cut,” he said.

As Mr. Giuliani spoke of the future, other speakers at last night’s event harkened back to his days as mayor, lavishing praise on his stewardship of the city before and after September 11, 2001. “There’s nobody I can think of in public life that has been more effective at providing real solutions to real problems that have faced our cities, our states, our government, than this man,” the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Kenneth Mehlman, said.

The finance chief of Solutions America, Kenneth Langone, who founded Home Depot, called Mr. Giuliani “both principled and pragmatic. Most politicians talk. Rudy moves the fray.”

Earlier yesterday, Mr. Giuliani advocated for a comprehensive national energy strategy in a speech to the Manhattan Institute. He repeated that refrain last night, saying the country needs more diversity in energy options, including more nuclear power plants, refineries, off-shore drilling, and hybrid cars. He criticized the government for doing little to address the energy crisis. “Here’s the problem: We know the problem. We even know the solution. We just don’t do it,” he said at the fund-raiser. “That’s the major frustration, that we’re not getting things done.”

The Yankees diehard also laughed off a report over the weekend that he was interested in buying a professional baseball team. Last night’s fund-raiser was so successful, Mr. Giuliani joked, that it “will really get us very, very close to our goal of having enough money to buy the Chicago Cubs.”

Mr. Giuliani made no mention of social issues such as abortion and marriage, about which his moderate views place him to the left of the Republican base. Yet for the out-of-state GOP candidates who attended last night’s event, the question was: How will Mr. Giuliani play in the heartland?

Very well, according to David McSweeney, the Republican nominee for Congress in Illinois’s 8th District. “A lot of people see him a viable candidate,” he said, pointing to Mr. Giuliani’s leadership in the wake of September 11. Mr. McSweeney said Mr. Giuliani stumped for him last week, helping to raise $75,000.

A GOP candidate for the House in Des Moines, Iowa, Jeffrey Lamberti, said Mr. Giuliani was also received well there, but so too was Mr. McCain. “I think they start with a level playing field” in 2008, he said.

Indeed, the presidential race was on most everyone’s mind last night, including Mr. Langone’s. Encouraging supporters to have a photo taken with Mr. Giuliani, he said, “I think it’ll be a historic picture in about three or four years, when we look back and remember how it all started.”