Down To The Wire!

So Iowa is encased in ice and howling with wind. One of the Republicans should take out ads with lots of palm trees promising the freezing residents of Iowa that he'll build more coal-fired power plants so that Global Warming will make that frozen chunk of prairie habitable in the winter. If the blizzardly conditions exist on the evening of the Hawk-Eye Caucii that will make all of these months of polling and solemn wisdom from the media mean nothing. The only people looney enough to go out in weather like that will be Kook-Sin-Itch and Fascist Paul supporters, giving a result that will make the media go bananas. Most likely nothing even remotely that cool is going to happen. But it does leave us to analyze, with what we know, who has the best shot of the people considered 'serious' candidates.

McLame will NEVER be the Republican nominee. He might save face with a miracle 30% in a New Hampshire Primary where Independents can cross the line ( way less likely if the Dem race is hot) but he betrayed the base too many times to ever be popular.

Huckster-Bee has a lot of baggage... not the least being that no one relishes voting for a Man From Hope, at least on the Rep side. He is also dogged by a liberal record of governance and an excessive reliance on religion, which makes a lot of people nervous and locks him out in every blue state. However, he does have that gift of the gab that former governors of Arkansas seem to be blessed with and has to be considered a player until he hits a reef, which I think he will do.

Mutt Romney suffers from that annoying, smug, pasted-on smile and a tendency to say really stupid things ("My son served his country by working on my campaign"...). His liberal past is a big drawback. He's now been hard at it for months and has very visibly NOT caught fire. Why would anyone vote for this guy? His fifteen minutes are just about up.

So if those three are peaking right now what is left? Rudy and Fred.

Rudy has a long record of conservative governance and standing up for conservative issues in the public arena but is distrusted and disliked by the flyover country red-staters as a fast-talking, pro-abortion New York City dude. He's rolled the dice that no one will emerge from the first bouts with any momentum and that big victories amongst blue-state Republicans can put him across. He has more appeal to swing voters than any other Republican and even a state like California could be in play in a Rudy candidacy.

Quiet Old Fred. A very likeable place for Stop Rudy votes later in the process...or stop whoever it is that's ahead. He's everybody's second choice. Can you win with that?

I think Giuliani has the winning strategy. Of course it goes without saying that I will support whichever of these guys gets the nomination. Even if Obama is not as much of an immediate menace as the Clinton Crime Family the results of either of their misguided policies would be national disaster.