On the humorless presidential campaign

JibJab 2004.
JibJab 2008.

Rudy can fail and will do so meekly

With a less energized base than the Democrats, and no circus of race and gender, the Republican primary has been flying under the radar for the last couple months. Tonight the GOP will finally come center stage, as the contest in Florida will go a long way towards determining if John McCain or Mitt Romney will represent the Republicans in 2008.

Right now Florida is as close as can be. With at least a half-a-million votes already cast in early voting, I give a slight edge to McCain, who was in the lead a week ago. But one thing is certain: Tonight will spell the end of Rudy Giuliani's bid for the White House. After he finishes a distant third at best, the former New York mayor will drop out of the race.

While Giuliani will be criticized for his plan to forgo the early primaries and begin his campaign in Florida, this radical strategy was not what did him in. In fact, with the way the early states shook out, the plan could have very well worked.

Giuliani trails in Florida not because he didn't compete in South Carolina, but because instead of being the firebrand people expected -- the one who would either rip the heart out Islamic terrorism or trample the Constitution while wearing a dress -- Rudy turned out to be unenthusiastic and ineffective campaigner.

Without the entourage of cops and officials who usually stood behind him during his days of running New York city from behind a lectern, Giuliani looked meek and small. His campaign speeches and debate performances were thoughtful -- almost wonkish -- but way too low key. Not just for a guy who had reputation for having and conjuring such strong opinions, but for anyone running for an office higher than president of the 4-H club.

As Giuliani returns to his life of consulting fees and social climbing cougars, the campaign loses what was once projected to have been its primary source of polarizing crazy. Luckily for media outlets across the spectrum Bill Clinton has jumped in to fill that vital role, and the man who never really showed up will barely be missed.

Iowans get the best swag

In an effort to get out the vote in Iowa, Hillary Clinton's campaign will be offering free babysitters for caucus-going families with young children. With the first true test of the 2008 political season less than a day away, what will the other contenders be offering their supporters as an incentive to brave the crisp Midwestern cold and do their civic duty?

John Edwards: A hairstylist.

As a former trial lawyer, John Edwards knows great hair goes a long way towards influencing people. Which is why the Edwards' campaign doesn't want a hair out of place when it comes time for its supporters to win over any caucus goer whose preferred candidate wasn't able to reach the "viability threshold." Edwards was going to provide his own personal stylist for the mass grooming, but couldn't make the numbers work when he learned campaigns are only spending about 200 dollars per caucus vote this year.

Barack Obama: An audacious bag of hope.

The brilliance of this particular get-out-vote giveaway is that nobody has the foggiest idea what a bag of hope -- and especially an audacious bag of hope -- looks like. This makes it that much easier for the Obama campaign to give the mysterious gift to every man, woman and caucus-eligible 17-year old in the state of Iowa.

Mike Huckebee: A twelve-gauge shotgun.

Huckebee was seriously considering giving his supporters shotguns as a reminder that the Arkansas Governor is the only avid hunter and authentic Republican in the race. But instead he held a press conference to announce he had decided not to give away the guns because he isn't the type to run a campaign that distributes firearms. He probably still will. So if by any chance Cheney makes a surprise appearance, watch out.

Mitt Romney: One of his boys.

Not only will a Romney son babysit your kids on caucus night, but, after that, you can just keep him! With their aversions to any job a member of the working class might be forced to take, good luck getting a Romney boy to help out on the family farm. Still, a junior Romney won't steal your liquor and will meticulously explain to you and all your neighbors the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Mitt knows what the meaning of the word "saw" is

While attempting to explain why he had claimed he "saw" his father march with Martin Luther King -- when no such event ever took place -- Mitt Romney pulls a Slick Willie but forgets the slick.

Hillary Campaign Hostage Crisis: Hour Two

Remember a couple weeks ago when there were reports of anti-Mormon "push poll" calls in New Hampshire? It's OK if you don't, but what happened was it was quickly discovered the firm that made the calls had ties to the Romney campaign. Raising the the possibility that, to garner sympathy, the Mormon had push polled himself. Just saying . . .

Republican debate in New Hampshire

Due to a forward shift in the electoral calender, the New Hampshire primary isn't as important as it once was. At tonight's Republican debate the skies over the Granite State responded to this demotion by erupting in bolts of lighting, which interfered with the auditorium's PA system and resulted in breaks in the sound and random buzzing noises.

The angry sky led to the evening's best moment, when a particularly jarring bolt cut off Rudy Giuliani's mic just as he began to respond to a question involving a Catholic leader who had declared Rudy a traitor to his religion for his pro-choice stance.

The former New York mayor handled the situation with the easy humor required, and handled all of the other questions he received with quick thinking, attention to detail and superior preparation. (The latter a quality he shares with Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton.)

This wasn't always the case, as Giuliani made an absolute mess out of the obligatory abortion question in the first debate -- and didn't even have the excuse of a spookily timed lightning strike. But now that he has, like it or not, established his position on abortion, Giuliani is free to focus on the two main themes of his campaign -- freedom and security.

Spinning, but always in an open and logical way, every question back to these two pillars, Giuliani was able to make a plausible argument that, on the strength of his biography and his ideas, he is in a unique position to lead the nation and the world towards a safer and more free future.

Giuliani was also successful in making sure everyone knew he was the front runner by attacking the positions of the Democrats he would face in the general election, and mostly ignoring the Republican primary wannabees stuck staring at his back.

John McCain too was sharp tonight, and scored points during an emotional exchange with a woman whose brother had been killed Iraq. Rising from his seat, McCain looked the woman in the eyes and admitted mistakes had been made in the execution of the war that took her brother's life. This candor was in keeping with one of the major themes of the evening: The failures of the Bush administration are now fair game.

McCain is at his best when he is swimming against the tide, and the dominant current on the stage was that his immigration bill was a washout. McCain responded with a passionate and effective defense of his views on immigration, if not the exact details of the heavily compromised bill he put his name to.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, was not at all sharp. He has developed a really unfortunate habit of going off on esoteric tangents when he gets a question he doesn't like. In an earlier debate he evoked some sort of weird nuclear technique when confronted with his ever-evolving views on stem cells, and tonight he bizarrely dismissed a question about whether he would have supported the war in Iraq if he "knew then what he knew today" as a null set and an empty set.

While I could see the point Romney was trying to make -- the question was invalid because little things such as time and space always prevent you from knowing then what you know now -- evoking an obscure mathematical theory to bully out of an otherwise fair question does not a president make.

As for the rest, I found ordained minister Mike Huckabee's explanation of his religious views articulate and interesting -- although not particularly convincing, and I thought Duncan Hunter probably does possess the presence and gravitas that would compel a relatively unknown congressmen to run for president. Other than that, there wasn't much coming from the one percenters besides Ron Paul's cheering section.

After the first two debates, there was talk that the undeclared Fred Thompson was the big winner. Tonight, with Thompson all but in, the strong performances of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani -- the two favorites since day one -- take much of the wind out of that argument's sails.

Paris finds religions

Lately, it's been a tough go for the Christian Right. They lost founding father Jerry Falwell and their standing in the Republican party has become so diminished that they have been forced to consort with a bible-updating Mormon. Pundits have began speculating that the days of their political and social influence (which were greatly exaggerated to begin with) have come and gone.

But on Monday they got a brief reprieve from their demise: Paris Hilton was spotted accessorizing her blue dress with a gold hued Holy Bible. Could this high profile product placement be the start of something? Would Americans now flock to the True Word like tabloids to Paris's fleshy exploits, or the Japanese to Paris's signature brand of Hello Kitty dolls?

And does this now mean when celebrities sin and seek public absolution they shun worldly rehab and head straight for the unadulterated bosom of the original forgiver?

Sadly no, on both counts. For yesterday the fast-reading Hilton was already done with the Bible and had moved on to Buddha to help deal with her impending incarceration. Scientology and Kabbalah await.

As for the Christian Right . . . Mitt is a really cool name.

Snap Judgement: Republicans in California

As if to outdo the eight-pack their donkey rivals presented last week, the Republicans trotted out a ten-spot of candidates for their first primary debate. Chris Matthews moderated and early on the participants came to the wise decision that they would turn the tables on the talk show host and basically do to him what he's been doing to his guests on Hardball for eleven years: They ignored what he said, and said what they wanted.

Matthews proved a good sport, and went along with the unorthodox arrangement. It made for a slightly more lively debate than we had last week. Although it was still not particularly informative, with so many mouths needing to be feed.

The other elephants in the room were the flailing Iraq war and the unpopularity of George W. Bush. On those issues the candidates came to an easy consensus that there were serious flaws in the execution of the war, but its heart was in the right place, and there was no Bush bashing by name.

Here is how I thought each candidate performed:

Rudy Giuliani: Started out very strong and on point, but got stuck in the abortion muck towards the middle. After trying the federalism angle, he finally came out with a surprisingly strong defense of a woman's right to choose. As if to shut up everyone up about the issue, it seemed. After this admission, Rudy lost his spirit and focus leading to a lackluster second half. Although, for the man who has been accused of running for the "president of 9/11," 9/11 talk was conspicuously absent from tonight's pitch.

John McCain: Over the last couple months McCain has been shifting between crazy McCain and grumpy McCain. Crazy McCain is superior to grumpy McCain, and crazy McCain was what we got tonight. But he wasn't that crazy. In fact, his level of sanity was such that it threatened to encroach upon crazy's more palatable cousin -- maverick. And if maverick McCain resurfaces all bets are off. It was a good night for McCain.

Mitt Romney: Most analyst will say Romney, who comes off as articulate, competent, thoughtful, focused, polite, patriotic, humorous and humble, won this debate. I wasn't convinced. Here is the thing about Romney: One day, many years ago, Mitt Romney read a book titled "How To Be The Perfect Man." Romney followed this book, to the letter, and became more perfect than almost everyone else, and certainly more perfect than anyone currently running for president in either party. The only problem is this perfection is clearly rote learned. In a way, that should be a positive trait for a presidential candidate -- if he can learn how to be perfect, he might be able to learn to be a great president. But in another way it's creepy. Learning perfect from a book. And people don't like creepy.

Tommy Thompson: As governor of Wisconsin, Thompson vetoed 1900 spending bills. During his first televised debate for national office he mentioned these 1900 vetoes three times. So it's almost like he vetoed 5700 spending bills during his time as Wisconsin Governor.

Mike Huckabee: Chris Matthews's shocking attempt to lather him into an anti-Mormon rage and smack Romney with the real Jesus failed. Huckabee's highlight was when he claimed his Arkansas residency allowed him a leg up on the others when it came to knowing what awful people Bill and Hillary are.

Jim Gilmore: Overall, very solid. Vice presidential material. Although he did became way too angry when Matthews implied he was Karl Rove's boy. (And didn't deny it)

Sam Brownback: More interested in promoting the "culture of life" than winning the nomination. A good communicator.

Duncan Hunter: In this day and age it's nice to know someone is in it for big business and is not afraid to admit it.

Tom Tancredo: Kept getting stupid question about Israel and organ thieves when he just wanted to talk shooting Mexicans.

Ron Paul: He showed every slightly unhinged crackling voiced anti-war candidate that, during a televised debate, you can still be classy and not make yourself a nuisance. Mix that with his unabashed libertarianism and a dogmatic view of the constitution, and I can't see a national election scenario where Paul gets less than .25 percent of the vote. (But hey, Ron Paul did let the world know he loves the Internet, and this stop on the Internet sort of loves him back.)

No one outside of the Republican big three jumped up because of tonight. Of the big three, Romney and McCain were sharper than the front-running Giuliani. Will this matter? Probably not. But Giuliani does need to get to a more comfortable place with his abortion position next time out.