Nation-Building

What we don’t see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do. George Orwell? Or Rudy Giuliani? Yup . We really, really, REALLY dodged a bullet when Rudy! dropped out of the race.

Mick Huckabee doesn't have enough money to play in Florida: "The money simply hasn't come in at the rate that we expected," says the [Huckabee Campaign] aide. "Florida is a $7 million commitment that we can't meet, and if we did, that leaves us exposed for Super Tuesday, where we have a lot of states and a lot media buys. We had to make tough decisions." With Fred! out of the campaign today , that leaves Florida as a three-way race between McCain, Rudy, and Romney. No matter how the votes break, this doesn't look good for Rudy. Huckabee's socon support is going to switch to either Romney or McCain, deprived of the Fred option as they are. And it's doubtful that everyone supporting Fred is going to go the Rudy route. It's much more likely now that McCain takes Florida and that Rudy drops out before MegaTuesday. I think that by the time we hit February the GOP nomination will be a two-person race between Romney and McCain, and I'm pret...

Rudy Giuliani is running for President in 2008 - but maybe not as a Republican : Republicans looking at Rudolph Giuliani's campaign for president always ask two questions - is he really running, and is he a "real Republican?" They're probably not going to like the answers found by Newsday in Giuliani's government filings. The ex-mayor still is holding back from submitting the simple one-page form declaring himself a possible candidate, despite raising $1.4 million to run. And asked what party he belongs to on a different form, Giuliani didn't say - he left the answer blank. Not so for chief rivals John McCain and Mitt Romney. Both have filed the candidacy paperwork, and both gave a straightforward answer when asked their party affiliation: "Rep," or Republican.(...) Giuliani's campaign confirmed that leaving off the Republican designation wasn't a typo. It was the campaign's "judgment that we didn't have to fill in that box,...