Sen. John McCain won Florida’s Republican primary on Tuesday, driving Rudy Giuliani from the race and taking a critical victory over Mitt Romney in the battle for momentum before the race for the GOP presidential nomination turns to Super Tuesday.
Giuliani will end his campaign and endorse McCain on Wednesday at the Reagan library in Simi Valley, Calif., a senior member of his campaign told NBC News late Tuesday.
The terrorists’ was against us, as Rudy likes to call it, just took its latest victim. Never forget ... the laughter.
Then he leans in to listen to a question from a television reporter: “Mayor, you’ve had the state to yourself here in Florida for so long, for weeks,” she says. “Why is it that you seem to be losing support, not gaining support?”
The eyes of Rudolph W. Giuliani pop wide. He tosses back his head and cackles in a manner not even vaguely suggestive of humor. What a crazy idea!
“I think the reality is that we are gaining support,” he said. “Our campaign is now in high gear.”
Before another question can be asked, Mr. Giuliani says thank you, waves, pivots, kisses a startled baby and walks out a side door.
The Associated (With Terrorists) Press filed this story re: today’s event, and included 4 photos. 3 were of the Ron Paulians, 1 was of Rudy (with signs behind him) and 1 was of a DOG. The reporting on this is a scandal. Not 1 pic from inside the place—- PACKED TO THE GILLS with supporters.
The story she’s referring to is this one. As it turns out, the “Associated (With Terrorists) Press” did take a few photos inside of the restaurant. Want to see what “PACKED TO THE GILLS” looks like?
This is what it looks like:
That’s Molly and Matilda Gills on the left, waiting for their check.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani trails Senator John McCain by 12 points among Republicans in the upcoming New York presidential primary and Senator Hillary Clinton continues to have a commanding lead over Senator Barack Obama in the Democratic primary, according to a new Siena (College) Research Institute poll of registered voters released today. [...]
“In a stunning turnaround, John McCain has turned a 33-point deficit with Republican voters in December into a 12-point lead over Rudy Giuliani today,” said Steven Greenberg, Siena New York Poll spokesman. “While America’s mayor still has strong support among New York City Republicans, he is getting beat by McCain in the suburbs and trounced upstate. Republican women give Rudy a small edge, however, Republican men are behind McCain nearly three-to-one.”
McCain has the support of 36 percent of Republicans, followed by Giuliani at 24 percent, former Governor Mitt Romney at 10 percent, Governor Mike Huckabee at 7 percent, and former Senator Fred Thompson at 6 percent. Seventeen percent of Republicans remain undecided. Giuliani led McCain 48-15 percent on December 10.
But don’t you worry about Rudy. This is all part of his excefuckallent super smart 50-state strategy!! And besides, today he got an endorsement from Johnny Damon, who many of you may remember as Yitzhak from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Rudy’s got this bitch all sewed up!
DON’T MAKE ME KILL THIS KITTEN: TS from Instaputz, who has been a good friend of Rumproast, is entering sponsoring a team entered in a local Scrabble tournament to benefit Dave Eggers’ wonderful 826NYC nonprofit org. I donated some scratch to the organization last year and now I’m doing it again to back up my pal TS. It’s a great cause, so if you have enjoyed Rumproast (and/or Instaputz), why don’t you do me a favor and throw some cash 826NYC’s way via TS.
JAMES BROWN—LIVE IN ZAIRE: I break out in a hot sweat just thinking about this boot. Recorded in ‘74 prior to the Ali vs. Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle,” Live in Zaire sounds amazing and captures the spirit of the moment like few other live recordings do. If you’ve got an ass, you need this.
THINGS DO LOOK AWFUL COLD: Digby takes a quick gander at the political leanings of the 18-25 year-old group in a resent Pew study and it’s good news for the Democrats.
FLY OCEANIC AIR: ABC’s new online viral campaign to promote the 4th season of Lost is, well, pretty damn impressive. If you’re a fan of the show (I’m a late-bloomer) and haven’t booked your flight yet, get on board.
Dems:
56% Hillary Clinton
29% Barack Obama
8% John Edwards
Repubs:
32% Rudy Giuliani
29% John McCain
12% Mike Huckabee
7% Mitt Romney
6% Fred Thompson
3% Ron Paul
Quick thoughts: Unless Hillary stumbles horribly, she is unstoppable here (but I guess we all knew that). Obama’s only real play is to go for picking up as many delegates as he can. McCain probably got a good bounce out of New Hampshire in this poll, but if Giuliani doesn’t perform well in Florida, don’t be surprised if McCain pulls off an upset in New York. I’m kind of surprised Huckabee polled as well as he did and somewhat less surprised at how poorly Romney polled. And, hey, we don’t have enough nutjobs in NY to boost Ron Paul’s numbers? I figured he would have finished above Thompson at the very least.
Snow fell on Baghdad on Friday for the first time in memory, and delighted residents declared it an omen of peace.
“It is the first time we’ve seen snow in Baghdad,” said 60-year-old Hassan Zahar. “We’ve seen sleet before, but never snow. I looked at the faces of all the people, they were astonished,” he said.
“A few minutes ago, I was covered with snowflakes. In my hair, on my shoulders. I invite all the people to enjoy peace, because the snow means peace,” he said.
Traffic policeman Murtadha Fadhil, huddling under a balcony to keep dry, declared the snow “a new sign of the new Iraq.”
“It’s a sign of hope. We hope Iraqis will purify their hearts and politicians will work for the prosperity of all Iraqis.”
The streets of the capital were largely empty as big, thick, wet flakes fell on Friday morning, a weekend day in Iraq. The temperature hovered around freezing and the snow mostly melted into grey puddles when it hit the ground.
But it was still lovely, said Mohanned Rahim, a baker: “This snow will bring pleasure to the people of Iraq. It’s beautiful!”
Geez, if it’s that simple to achieve peace in Iraq, shouldn’t we start shoveling some of that cold hard cash that’s been going to Halliburton over to the fine folks at Snow Makers? Someone get Gates on the phone. Our new slogan should be: “As the Iraqis make snow angels, we will stand down.”
Republican Rudy Giuliani’s speech on taxes got sidetracked Wednesday after a bomb threat forced organizers to move to another location.
The former New York mayor planned to address a town hall meeting with 200 Harris Corp., employees and Giuliani supporters. The event was scuttled when six of the company’s buildings were evacuated. Instead, Giuliani began his speech an hour later in a nearby airport hanger, where campaign workers handed out water to supporters waiting in the sun as bomb sniffing dogs checked reporters’ equipment and airport security workers screened attendees.
Some 50 supporters heard the speech and there was no time for questions.
[...]
Despite the turn of events Wednesday, Giuliani said the tax speech was a success.
“We got a lot of attention for it. We showed that we can go with the punches,” he said afterward, noting that at least one national television network covered it live. “Maybe if there wasn’t the threat, we wouldn’t have gotten the live coverage.”
Hmmmm, maybe they wouldn’t have. (Kevin rubs chin.)
How convenient to have this happen to the “war on terror” candidate after he bombed (excuse the pun) in the New Hampshire primaries and is dropping like a rock in the Florida polls.
MORE: This local news report from Florida is pretty funny. Check out the video (IE works better than Firefox). Here’s an excerpt of the transcript:
And what happened next was very interesting and we have video tape of that as well. Instead, very interestingly enough, the mood changed. We got law enforcement officers galore. We got bomb-sniffing dogs. We had the media going through security checks, which is highly unusual at this stage of the game.
Residents of two tiny towns stayed up late to give Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain early victories in the New Hampshire presidential primary.
In Hart’s Location, Obama received 9 votes, Hillary Rodham Clinton 3 and John Edwards 1. On the Republican side, McCain received 6 votes, Mike Huckabee 5, Ron Paul 4 and Mitt Romney 1.
In Dixville Notch, Obama got 7 votes, Edwards 2 and Bill Richardson 1. Among Republicans, McCain got 4 votes, Romney 2 and Rudy Giuliani 1. [...]
Long-shot GOP hopeful Rep. Duncan Hunter attended the vote in Dixville Notch, where results were announced before 12:06 a.m.
“It epitomizes people-to-people politicking,” Hunter said minutes before the votes were cast.
Hunter received no votes in either town.
Poor Dunky.
MORE: It may not mean much, but Dixville Notch has voted overwhelmingly Republican in primaries since their midnight voting began in 1960 and this year more people showed up to vote for Dems than Repubs for the first-time ever in mutually contested races. The only other time people voting for Dems outnumbered Repubs was in 2004, but Bush, as you know, was running uncontested then.
He flatlined in Iowa and he’s struggling in New Hampshire, but Rudy Giuliani shook off the early-state blues Thursday as only he can.
“None of this worries me - Sept. 11, there were times I was worried,” Giuliani said.
What a dope. I’m beginning to become convinced that the ghost of Andy Kauffman is one of his advisers and this is just some kind of bizarre performance art shtick.
“Frosty the Snowman”—Leon Redbone & Dr. John (from my favorite Christmas album of all-time, Christmas Island)
THE MOM AND POP CULTURE SHOP: My old pal Anna, who I haven’t seen in ages, is running a great lil’ blog that spotlights her thrift store finds (outsider art, weird vinyl, etc.). It’s a fun place to visit, her blurbs are a hoot, and it shoehorns nicely into the holidays.
MATT BURLINGAME: Burlingame’s oddball sculptures and dioramas don’t shoehorn quite as nicely into the holidays (unless Christmas makes you think about zombies and robots), but if any of you would like to buy me some of his artwork I’d consider it to be THE.BEST.XMAS.PRESENT.EVER.
BUZZWORDS OF 2007: The New York Times says, “You didn’t hear them here first. But chances are that in 2007 you caught these phrases somewhere.” Ummm, actually, no, I hadn’t heard about a lot of these. I would have thought “Nose bidet” was a really bad band name.
IT’S THE MANDATE, STUPID: The New Republic‘s Noam Scheiber posted a good analysis of why Barack’s been creeping up on Hillary
I was going to move away from Francisco Nava and Oranginagate, but this quote from Timecracked me up:
Says Sherif Gergis, a senior and former Anscome president: “We saw conservative bloggers start to capitalize on this, saying, ‘Look at the politically-motivated indifference.’”
Gergis, who was also one of the e-mail recipients, says he had brushed off the threat until he got a call on Dec. 14 from Prof. George: [Francisco] Nava had been assaulted and was at the University Medical Center. At the hospital, Nava explained his story. “He described to us, in really creepy detail in retrospect, how it supposedly happened,” Gergis recalled. “He said, ‘Their breath was so distinctive; if I could only smell everybody’s breath, I would be able to pick them out.’”
