Well, it appears our choice will be between the favored candidate of Democrats, and a transparent and robotic candidate of convenience.

It is time for the GOP to enjoy the cleansing fires of political irrelevance.  In the interim, I recommend everyone find some state legislators with their heart in the right place, and support him or her.

Also, after a few post-mortem posts, my site “PA for Hizzoner” will become “PA for Uncommitted”.  Feel free to stop by!  My humble Commonwealth always had a few supporters for McCain, but the vast majority of us preferred other candidates, and not Mitt Romney.

It is my opinion that the national party’s insincere and marginally corrupt desire for unity should be spat out like sour milk by the voters.

On the eve of the Florida primary, I leave you with a brief thought that’s been with me for some time.

If our party does not give Rudy Giuliani the chance to lead our nation, it will do itself, our country, and our world a great disservice.

Go Rudy.

Rudy should have been openly ’distinguishing’ himself from Senator McCain before today.  He had every right to.

There are certainly plenty of polls out suggesting Hizzoner is slipping in FL.  Others have more positive news.

One thing these polls do not take into account is absentee balloting.  There are a LOT of those ballots in FL.  Down there, these aren’t just for people out of town.  In Florida, they are also for people who have trouble getting to a polling place, and I don’t mean any disrespect when I point out there are a bunch of oldsters in the Sunshine State for whom movement is less than ideal.

Back when most of these votes were cast Mayor Giuliani had a dominating lead in the polls.  So in any close result in FL next week with election day voting, the Mayor will have a huge edge.

Sure, we were all hoping the Mayor’s flag in Florida would be more firmly planted.  This strategy was always a gamble.  But the MSM is acting like his candidacy is dead in the water, which is absolutely not the case. 

Fred Thompson bowed out today, a week before the Florida primary.  We’ve seen signs in Florida of a sharpened race, a race that appeared to be between three men - Rudy, Romney, and McCain.

Conspicuously absent from that list is Mike Huckabee, still considered by many to be a force, if not a contender, in the GOP race.  Huckabee is also a man that shared many traits with Thompson, and for that reason, some feel that Thompson’s departure will benefit the man from Hope (see here, for example).

Going on that assumption, Mike Huckabee is once again a contender in the Sunshine State.  And how exactly is that good for the Mayor?  It seems a safe assumption that there isn’t much cross-over between the Thompson camp or the Huckabee camp and the Giuliani camp - that is, folks left out in the cold by Fred aren’t likely to flock to Rudy, and Giuliani backers aren’t likely to be swayed a rising Huckabee.  So Rudy’s numbers probably won’t change much.

Those who could be swayed by a rising Huckabee, it seems to me, are social conservatives who like Huckabee but have felt that McCain is a safer bet.  Were Huckabee to start moving in the right direction, if it seemed like he might have a shot, those on-the-fencers currently standing by the Senator might jump ship for Huckabee.  Recall from an earlier post (”Florida Polling”) that of the three current front-runners, McCain’s supporters were the least committed, with 22% going so far as to say that they very well could change their minds.

The final piece of this puzzle is that with Huckabee rising at McCain’s expense, the net effect is a McCain-Huckabee battle over a subsection of the GOP primary voters which ends up in a stalemate.  That is, they more or less split a small subset of the votes needed to carry Florida next Tuesday.  With the attention of McCain diverted, Huckabee working simply for a solid showing, and the two splitting a group of voters, the door is open for Rudy (appealing to a rather different constituency) to claim a strong plurality on the 29th.

This is admittedly very hypothetical and conclusory.  And much could happen that would totally change the calculus - Fred could endorse (gasp) McCain.  But barring some such major event, the scenario painted above is not implausible.  The general ideas - a rising Huckabee collides with an unsteady McCain, taking both out of contention and leaving Rudy standing on top of the pile - seem reasonable enough.  Any thoughts?

Rudy Giuliani is beating John McCain in Florida.

A Rasmussen poll out today has Romney at 25%, McCain at 20%, and Rudy at 19%.  Yes, I know that 20 is more than 19.  I also know that statistically, this is a tie.  And the kicker is 67% of Rudy’s supporters are “certain” they will vote for him.  Only 55% of Romney’s are certain, and a meager 48% of McCain’s supporters are certain they will vote for the Senator.  (read more here)

And get this: 22% of those who supported McCain in the poll say there is a good chance they could change their mind.

It turns out that Floridians appreciate the attention Rudy has given them and are rewarding him with their loyalty.

With a week to go, it goes without saying that Florida is entirely up for grabs.  But Rudy has here what the others don’t - a loyal base, a solid foundation.

OK.  I guess it was too much to hope for a Thompson win in SC.  A McCain win is almost as good, though.

The GOP electorate has been experimenting with their non-McCain options since voting has started.  Everyone has been auditioned except our man.  Hizzoner remains only two points off the lead in the most recent Quinnipiac poll in FL, though, and as the results from everything post-Florida begin to sink in, the Huckster’s numbers should surely decline.

Thus the Mayor has a very real chance of winning FL, which was the plan all along.  Of course, I don’t think anyone imagined the average GOP voter would be so eager to give McCain a pass on the summer immigration flap.  Apparently it is so.  Remember those halcyon days when we all wrote off his campaign?  Would that it were so.

Again, the “surge” strategy has been set up about as well as it could have been.  For Team Rudy, I mean, not Iraq.  A week from tomorrow, we’ll know for sure if DuHaime will be writing a book, or looking for a job running a town supervisor campaign in Long Island.

I am biased, of course, but I still expect all of us to wake up on Feb. 5 with Mayor Giuliani in possession of a delegate lead, or at least very near the lead.  Then things are going to get interesting…

Well, it’s finally crunch time.  For Hizzoner to win the nomination, he has to win NJ, CT, and NY on super-Tuesday.  That’s going to take some real money, of course, so whatever you have to spare for this sort of thing, now is the time to spare it.

Here’s the campaign’s donation link.

Give early, and give often!  With a little more help, Giuliani will make the pundits looks stupid– again– and find himself with a delegate lead in mid-February.

Another day, another ad touting Rudy’s previous and promised tax cuts…

Apparently even Mitt Romney thinks Rudy’s a great tax cutter.

Go Rudy.  Win Florida.

Ain’t that the truth.  There’s been talk recently of the campaign being a little low on ducats– and can you imagine how low they’d be on money if they pissed away seven million dollars on five delegates in IA?.