Rudy's Uppercut and McCain's Glass Jaw

When this thing is over, Hizzoner will be either discarded as a loser or will be praised as a genius.

 

The Republican horse race for the White House is still in chaos and that helps Rudy. Let's look at what has happened around the track;

 

For the better part of 2007 Rudy Giuliani has dominated as the front runner in the bid for his party's nomination to the presidency. This was not just a glitch or a blip on the screen, but a consistent domination that continually confounded Rudy's critics. Repeatedly, they said that Rudy could never become the presidential nominee for the GOP because of his liberal social stand and past policies. But nevertheless, Rudy continued to dominate despite the naysayers.

 

This is really a two man race; Mitt and Rudy. But New Hampshire has created the possibility of John McCain's return from the dead. Fred and Huckabee can't really be taken seriously anymore as Huckabee is under withering scrutiny that the base will never allow and Fred just hasn't performed in a serious way that assures us he wants the job.

 

This year-long dominance in the polls is the reason that chaos helps Rudy. If no one is stealing the momentum and the party continues to be confused about who is the front runner, then we have to defer back to the fact that most Republicans for the past year have been consistently saying that Rudy would make our best nominee. It's just that the frenzied media has helped to suppress their memory of this reality.

 

I believe that Rudy is still in a position to win. He is now our stealth candidate for president. Rudy's plunge in the polls, rather than demonstrating to me that he's tanked and that he's blundered in choosing a failed strategy that foregoes the early primaries in favor of hitting it hard with Florida and Super Tuesday, I think that he's merely temporarily forgotten by a shamefully fickle media. As I said, let's look at what's transpired;

 

First in Iowa on January 3rd. Huckabee wins and Rudy's primary opponent up till then, Mitt Romney, was severely damaged. It should be noted that presumably, it could have been Rudy who might have been severely damaged in that fight, as well. But because he stayed out, he kept the damage to a minimum to fight another day.

 

Then came New Hampshire on January 8th. New Hampshire created two distinct narratives in the race; Number one, that chaos still rules the day and number two that Romney is a dead man walking. Chaos was further underlined because we've had one caucus and one primary and they each produced a different winner. That means that no one owns momentum. It would be a mistake to think that just because McCain won the latest primary that he owns the momentum. That won't be known until he can produce two wins back to back in Michigan this tomorrow. And look who's poised to win that one; Mitt Romney has roots there. A Romney victory in his secondary home state of Michigan would resuscitate his campaign from the graveyard, but it would further deepen the chaos narrative.

 

So where does this road bring us to today?

 

It brings us to a party that has the leading candidate of the moment being a man who is deeply mistrusted by his party. There's a reason that McCain has been politically dead since last spring. That's because John McCain has betrayed the base too many times and is a media darling and is defined as a maverick. New Hampshire seems to have forgotten McCain's maverick persona simply because he did a good job of selling his advocacy of the surge in Iraq, which is working now, thank heaven.

It is amazing to me and to many other observers that Mitt Romney has not been tracking well. With all the money he's been pumping into his campaign, and with all the hard work he's been doing shaking hands and kissing babies, the fact that he has not yet won a caucus or a primary spells his doom. He'll do well in Michigan, but apparently the electorate simply does not trust him enough to make him the one.

 

But Rudy has a tough record on national security, too. Rudy can be a very effective and ballsy campaigner with a swift uppercut. John McCain has, I believe, a glass jaw that is just waiting for Rudy to smash. And with the economy growing as a more important campaign issue, Rudy will be able to talk about his 23 tax cuts in New York City and his miraculous revitalization of that economy which most people had thought was going down the tubes until Hizzoner saved it with his focused executive powers.

 

Is Rudy as shoe-in? Of course not. Chaos has an element of  unpredictability built into it. But I like the fresh image Rudy will capture when he returns to the national stage in two weeks. I hope the electorate will be reminded of Rudy Giuliani's bid, will understand that they've by now given a serious look at the other candidates and understand why they don't want them,  and then pick the Giuliani miracle. Voters will be reminded of McCain's no votes on the tax cuts.

 

Incidentally, while actors and Hollywood personalities are not really important leading indicators for political questions, actor Jon Voight has today endorsed Rudy for president.