I’m watching this speech with Rudy Giuliani endorsing John McCain, and afterwards McCain gets up there and mentions 9/11 three times in his 5-minute speech.

It’s like a disease that’s catching.

p.s. The end of the prospect of Rudy Giuliani in federal government should bring howls of joy across the nation and maybe even the world. The man was a psychotic with post-traumatic stress disorder, and an authoritarian narcissist who would have been the worst possible outcome for any logical human being. The idea that he would be in any kind of McCain veepstakes is beyond crazy. Um, what great campaigning skills does he bring to the table? Would he compel a strategy of sitting out the general election and waiting for a December run-off?

John McCain, Rudy Giuliani | 23 Comments »

Who will Old Man McCain choose?

There’s a possibility that since his radical rightwing turn on immigration, Mike Huckabee would shore up Walnuts‘ base deficiency on that issue. Plus there’s the whole Huckabee talks to God thing which would help McCain shyster the “Jesus did so ride a dinosaur!” vote.

My other guess is Charlie Crist. A southern Governor. Younger than McCain. Will deliver Florida. And then there’s the possibility that the “Jesus did so ride a dinosaur” voters might think that with a last name like that, the Governor of Florida could be related to Mr. Jesus Christ.

John McCain | 9 Comments »

This is it. Today could very likely determine who emerges from the rabid dog pile known as The Right’s Field, and leads the Republican Party to a win, a loss, or a tie (?) in the general election in November.

Who will win today?

Will it be Mittens Romney?

Will it be Walnuts McCain?

Will 9iu11ani somehow make a comeback?

Or will non-candidate Fred Thompson and Ron Paul both beat Rudy?

Will Rudy drop out tomorrow?

Will lowercase matt disappear from The Right’s Field?

Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Florida | 75 Comments »

It’s about a 99% bet that the winner of the Republican nomination will be announced tonight in the Sunshine State. Even St. Rudy of the 9/11 admits this. Sure, the Super Duper Tuesday votes won’t yield a clean sweep; Mike Huckabee is trotting out a Southern strategy that has him leading in Tennessee. But given that No Republican candidate is on the air with ads in any Super Tuesday state, the free media boost out of Florida for Mitt Romney or John McCain will be extremely important, especially for McCain, who soaks up the media love like no other candidate. That’s why it’s been so acrimonious; both sides know that Florida is really the end of the road for this race. So Romney and McCain lob charges of “You’re the liberal! No, you’re the liberal!” at each other, trying to appeal to conservatives in this closed primary.

Mr. Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, began attacking at dawn, accusing Mr. McCain of allying himself with liberal Democrats in the Senate and betraying conservative principles on legislation involving immigration, the environment and campaign finance.

“If you want that kind of a liberal Democratic course as president, then you can vote for him,” Mr. Romney said at a Texaco gas station in West Palm Beach at 6:30 a.m. “But those three pieces of legislation, those aren’t conservative. Those aren’t Republican.”Mr. McCain volleyed back by describing Mr. Romney as a serial flip-flopper who had taken multiple positions on a variety of issues, including gay rights, global warming and immigration. “People, just look at his record as governor,” Mr. McCain said at a shipyard in Jacksonville. “He has been entirely consistent. He has consistently taken two sides of every major issue, sometimes more than two.”

Josh Marshall comments on how close the polls have been, and the winner is really up in the air. But with what’s on the line being so clear, Florida voters aren’t likely to throw away their vote. Expect moderates to move to McCain, and conservatives to line up with Romney, and the result will reveal itself in which faction has those numbers.

UPDATE: I don’t know how else you can read this robocall:

“Mitt Romney thinks he can fool us. He supported abortion on demand, even allowed a law mandating taxpayer-funding for abortion. He says he changed his mind, but he still hasn’t changed the law. He told gay organizers in Massachusetts he would be a stronger advocate for special rights than even Ted Kennedy. Now, it’s something different.

Look, McCain knows what he’s doing. He saw how dirty attacks propelled George W. Bush to victory in South Carolina in 2000, and he’s following that path.

John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani | No Comments »

Single issue groups provide great information for voters; If you want to know where a candidate stands on guns, you turn to the NRA. If you want to know where a candidate stands on the forced return of the Gilded Age, you turn to any one of these groups. But if you wanted to know about where the candidates stand on Cousin Marriage, you had nowhere to turn… until now:

“Dedicated to providing objective, non-partisan information for voters and the media regarding cousin marriage issues in the 2008 Presidential Election. In particular, RudyMarriedHisCousin.org will provide substantive analysis of the campaign of Republican Rudy Giuliani, who married his cousin.”

More than the next generation of push polls, websites like these, I mean legitimate organizations like these, are different than push polls in one very important way: they’re freaking hilarious. This one also has the distinct advantage of being true. Rudolph married his cousin.

(more…)

Rudy Giuliani | 1 Comment »

Mitt Romney went into his oppo research bag of tricks and found this obvious nugget:

Republican Mitt Romney took aim at John McCain Monday over reports he once considered signing on to John Kerry’s presidential ticket, the latest effort by the Massachusetts Republican to paint his chief rival as an inconsistent and unpredictable conservative.

“I do recall a story that he was thinking about being John Kerry’s running mate — he gave that some thought,” Romney said at an early-morning rally in West Palm Beach. “Had someone asked me that question, there would not have been a nanosecond of thought about it — It would’ve been an immediate laugh. And of course, if someone asked him if he would consider me as a running mate, he would have also laughed immediately.”

“So, we are different,” Romney continued. “I’m conservative.”

I know that everything St. McCain has done immediately goes down the media memory hole, but in 2001 he was openly talking about leaving the Republican Party, and in 2004 McCain actually approached Kerry about joining the ticket as the Vice Presidential nominee.

Romney is obviously pulling out all the stops, because in recent days McCain has regained momentum in Florida, due in part to endorsements from Senator Mel Martinez and the popular governor Charlie Crist. But it is a closed Republican primary, and this re-hash of McCain’s past flirtations with the Democratic Party can be combined with this column alleging that McCain would never nominate an open partisan like Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court to confirm the suspicions many Republicans have about the Arizona Senator.

Fund wrote that “Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because ‘he wore his conservatism on his sleeve.’”

Commenters at conservative blogs such as the The Corner on National Review Online have been churning all morning:

McCain has got to explain himself to conservatives now, on Alito for sure, and on much else as well. While I’m unquestionably concerned about what a McCain nomination might mean for the Republican coalition, I’m not one of those who feels it would necessarily be disastrous. On the contrary, I can see scenarios where McCain and conservatives could patch things up rather well. But this Alito thing is serious. It bugs me, and I need to know more, quickly. McCain needs to forthrightly address conservatives concerns on this and other issues, and he needs to do it before Super Tuesday.

It seems to me that this all is coming a bit late. The winner in Florida is going to absolutely have a leg up going into Super Tuesday, and the time for Romney to stop McCain’s momentum was a few days earlier.

Florida, John McCain, Mitt Romney | No Comments »

Turns out St. John of the Straight Talk, the maverick from Arizona who will never compromise his ideals, is a politician.

Senator John McCain stepped up his attacks on his Republican rival Mitt Romney on Saturday, accusing him of once wanting to withdraw from Iraq and likening him to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in his approach to the conflict.

In response, Mr. Romney lashed back, saying Mr. McCain was being “dishonest,” and demanded that he apologize.

Mr. McCain’s comments marked the second straight day of going on the offensive against Mr. Romney, and they came as polls showed the two men locked in a tight race in Florida, where the Republican primary will be held Tuesday. […]

“If we surrender and wave a white flag like Senator Clinton wants to do and withdraw as Governor Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos,” Mr. McCain said to reporters in Fort Myers on Saturday morning.

At a town-hall-style meeting later in Sun City Center, a retirement community, Mr. McCain reiterated his accusation. “My friends, I was there — he said he wanted a timetable for withdrawal,” Mr. McCain said.

Romney has wanted a lot of contrary things, and has taken a lot of contrary positions, but he has never, ever, wanted a timetable for withdrawal.

I’m also wondering how the myth of “straight talk” squares with the farcical old man peddling a secret plan to capture bin Laden.

So Washington Wire was wondering, what does McCain know that President Bush and the Pentagon don’t about how to sweep up America’s most elusive enemy.

“One thing I will not do is telegraph my punches. Osama bin Laden will be the last to know,” he said today while riding on the back of his bus between Florida events. In other words: he’s not telling. Why not share his strategy with the current occupant of the White House? “Because I have my own ideas and it would require implementation of certain policies and procedures that only as the president of the United States can be taken.”

That response, of course, echoes Richard Nixon’s campaign promise in 1968 to stop the Vietnam War. Nixon also declined to say what his plan was. America’s involvement in the Vietnam war continued until 1973.

So, to recap: when McCain’s talking straight, he warns that there will be other wars (especially if he has anything to do with it). When he’s saying practically anything else, he’s not talking straight.

John McCain, Mitt Romney | 1 Comment »

So far while in Florida, Mitt Romney has pandered to black folks and Jews.

You knew the Cubans were next right?

I believe the garment Senor Romney is wearing is a guayabera.

Is there anybody Senor Romney won’t pander to?

(Cross posted at The November Blog)

Mitt Romney | 6 Comments »

You see, now even his campaign says so. Everything bad is good, two plus two equals five, and failing to be endorsed by anyone or anything of any note in the state you’ve staked your presidential bid on means you are qualified to be America’s main man:

Florida, Rudy Giuliani | No Comments »

My grandfather always said that after three days, houseguests and fish start to smell the same. I guess in the case of Florida and the presidential election, it’s three months.

It’s been close to three months since Rudy Giuliani declared that his road to the White House marched up the Florida Turnpike. And now Governor Charlie Crist has said, “Hey Rudy, it’s been nice having you here. If you could take the sheets off the bed and put them in the laundry hamper on your way out the door, we’d appreciate it.”

How else can we read Crist’s endorsement of Sen. John McCain to be the Republican nominee yesterday? He’s saying to Giuliani that it’s time to pack your bags, get on that Fort Lauderdale to JFK flight on JetBlue, and head back to New York and the private sector.

All those cafe con leches and all that key lime pie didn’t mean much to Florida’s political establishment.

This comes as something of a shock to Team Rudy. Giuliani believed he had brought the best possible gift to his hosts – a promise that he’ll set up a National Catastrophic Insurance Fund for the hurricane-prone state, which is Crist’s favorite policy hobby horse. By promising to help property-owners recover their losses from big storms, Giuliani was convinced that he’d get Floridians, including Crist, in his pocket.

After all, according to Giuliani, McCain says that he’s opposed to a national catastrophe fund. How could Crist, or Floridians, support a candidate who opposes one of their top national policy priorities?

Instead, it’s apparently been more like Hurricane Rudy moving up the length of the peninsula. Most Floridians have simply been ducking for cover, waiting for the storm to pass, and hoping the Spanish tiles will still be up on their rooftops when it’s over.

The calculation here seems to be one of viability. According to Fox News, Crist had promised Giuliani an endorsement until New Hampshire, where the New Yorker finished so poorly in the polls. And so it appears that Rudy’s last one out of the gate, first one across the finish line strategy caused Crist and other Republican Party leaders to question his real chances of picking up across the country.

But what’s most significant about this endorsement is what it means for McCain. As a former official in the Jeb Bush administration, Crist is closer to the Bush dynasty than many of McCain’s supporters. Crist’s thumbs up will allow the Arizona senator to put on the mantle of true conservative and party leader with the backing of his party’s power structure. And if Crist can help McCain appear closer to the Bush family and their core Republican supporters, it will allow him to once and for all overcome the argument that he only gets the votes of independents and moderate Republicans. That’s what he must do if he’s going to build the coalition he needs to credibly claim he can defeat the Democrats in November.

Florida, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani | No Comments »