Starting Gate: Doing It The Old Fashioned Way
John McCain did win Florida – along with every single one of the state's 57 delegates – and is in the pole position as the race heads into what could be the final turn. Should he turn Giuliani's prediction into reality and win the GOP nomination, he will have done it the old-fashioned way, the way Republican candidates have long done it, he will have earned it -- and, because it's his turn.
The GOP has a habit of passing over those rhetorical sparkplugs who, though touch a cord with a key part of their party, end up marginalized or deemed unfitting for the nomination. The party has a tendency of turning back wealthy newcomers who flash their cash, not because it's a party distrustful of those who succeed in that way but because they are not the party of upstarts. The GOP usually nominates those who have waited their turn. And, even in this topsy-turvy campaign season, it's McCain's turn.
Should the Arizona senator, as reported by CBS News among others, get the endorsement of Rudy Giuliani today – and perhaps the public support of his close friend and former candidate Fred Thompson before Super Tuesday – it will be a visible signal of a coming together of the party around McCain.
Alongside of his failure to win one of the four major primary contests, such images will put Romney on the outside looking in – rarely a good position in the GOP.
To be sure, there are plenty of informal allies for Romney to band together with – conservative power brokers in Washington, radio talk-show hosts and rank-and-file believers across the country who remain distrustful, in some cases flat-out antagonistic about McCain. And Romney has deep pockets to dig into for a Super Tuesday ad blast.
But it says much about how Romney is perceived by those who shared the campaign trail and debate stages with him over the past year that they would begin to coalesce around McCain. It's no secret that the former Massachusetts governor would not win a popularity contest amongst the once-large field. Some of that may be because McCain and Mike Huckabee recall all-too clearly the millions of dollars in attack ads Romney ran against them in Iowa and New Hampshire. Some of it may be a feeling among the group that Romney simply has tried to buy this nomination – and has been rather blatant in shifting his positions to do it.
But mostly, it's McCain's turn – we may know a week from now if Republican voters agree.
"The Snub": What starting out as a tittering observation of the chilliness between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has blossomed into a full-fledged metaphor for the race, called "The Snub" by a variety of commentators. What spurred all this psychological examination was a series of pictures taken at Monday night's State of the Union address which showed Obama first glaring at Clinton with his new best-buddy Ted Kennedy, and another in which he appeared to turn his back on her when she reached over to shake Kennedy's hand.
Obama insisted yesterday that there was no message in any of it, that his attention was diverted by another senator who asked him a question. But that, of course, isn't stopping anyone from either reading their own thoughts into it – or using the pictures to try and gain some advantage.
Case in point – the New York chapter of the National Organization of Women, whose head Marsha Pappas said the photos showed "passive-aggressive behavior" and claimed, "in general, they've been disrespectful, and I think that women voters are going to get very tired of seeing that."
It wasn't tears on the eve of the New Hampshire primary but will it do the trick?
Oh-Oh, Rezko: The Obama campaign has decided to give $70,000 in donations linked to indicted Chicago developer Tony Rezko to charity, according to the AP. That brings the total amount of Rezko-related donations given up by the campaign overall to almost $150,000.
Per the AP: "The campaign's timing for its announcement seemed designed to avoid major news coverage. It came as political attention was focused on Tuesday's Republican presidential contest in Florida. Earlier this month, the campaign announced it would give more than
$40,000 to charity on the same day as the Republican primary in South Carolina and the Nevada caucuses."
Around The Track