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- Many of us have been saying Rudy Giuliani's "29-inning" strategy was about seven kinds of wacky for a long time now, but Rudy himself finally seems to agree with us a bit as his poll numbers continue to sink and he loses his national poll lead. His campaign is sending him on more trips to New Hampshire, though it did pull it's advertising from several Boston television stations after seeing no results. But wait, there's more! Rudy is also trying to "shed his belligerent image" and embrace his "sunnier side." Which side is that exactly? As far as I can tell the man is about as sunny as Pluto.
- Mitt Romney probably lied (shocking I know) when he said he "saw his father march with" Martin Luther King. His defense is especially funny. Y'see, when he said "march with" he was speaking... "figuratively."
- In many ways though, this obscures a more important point. Romney uses this story to defend himself when asked why he stayed in a church that did not ordain black people until 1978, when he was 31. Why is that OK whereas, say, belonging to a segregated country club would be a big deal? His MLK response was a non-sequitur, sure, but it was an effective one. What will he say now? (after writing this I googled it and found that Lawrence O'Donnell made a similar point last week).
- After news that Tom Tancredo is dropping out of the race. Marc Ambinder makes the case that he's succeeded in driving several fellow candidates far to the right on immigration. That was his goal and if he's responsible for that shift he's succeeded. But I wonder if he can really take credit. He didn't create the virulent hatred of illegal immigrants that makes xenophobia such a successful basis for policy and even without him there would have been a lot of pressure on the candidates. Also, he never moved in the polls at all, so it's hard to see how he personally scared any other candidate.
- Tancredo also endorsed Mitt "sanctuary mansion" Romney, further convincing me he will become the establishment stop-Huckabee candidate.
- Noam Scheiber points out in the Plank that the GOP might be damned if does and damned if it doesn't when it comes to Mike Huckabee. We can only hope. Also, the Huckamuckraking for the day is outsourced to Sarah Posner.
- On the Democratic side we now have a circular criticism cycle. Edwards is condemning an AFSCME pro-Clinton mailer that attacked Obama and kinda appeared to be from Edwards. In case that wasn't complicated enough, Obama is now going after AFSCME because it's leader criticized the Massachusetts plan which did have a mandate. I'll just be happy when this is all over.
- Meanwhile the New York Times inexplicably fronts a story about Obama's "present" votes in the Illinois legislature even though those votes were normal and endorsed by liberal groups. "A rival campaign sent me oppo research on this topic" does not make the topic newsworthy. Dana had a longer take on this earlier, and the Chicago Tribune's top political columnist Eric Zorn, no Obama apologist, explained why Obama's votes were good strategy all the way back in 2004 (via Steve Benen).
- Going from questionable attacks to ugly smears, Bob Kerrey sorta apologized for his comments about Obama's Muslim heritage today. Also, when I wrote about that comment last week I was wrong about the definition of a madrassa. It literally means school in Arabic, though it has taken on a different meaning in contemporary English usage. Somehow I doubt Kerrey was using the Arabic meaning.
- In yet more news about attacks on Obama, Jonathan Alter goes after Paul Krugman for his criticisms of Obama. I smell a bloggingheads cage-match coming on.
