Rudy Giuliani Is So Toast

It turns out that dressing up like a woman, hanging with mobbed up business partners and recommending them as homeland security chiefs, having three wives, having a wife who's had three husbands and "omitted" one of them until recently, having no relationship with your kids, living with a gay couple, announcing your second divorce to the media before you tell your wife, making sad, half-assed overtures to the Right, supporting publicly-funded abortions, not knowing how much milk and bread cost, having no idea what the difference is between Sunni and Shiite, drinking the blood of small children and generally being an asshole doesn't play well with the GOP base (you would think the last two might make up for all the rest).

I am not one to say I told you so. But so many smart people have written McCain's obit and started buying into Rudy as GOP nominee. Ain't gonna happen. And as a new poll shows, with all the scrutiny now on Rudy's "alternative lifestyle," McCain is back within six points.

Very simply, McCain is their guy by default, unless a conservative savior gets in the race (that could be Newt, perhaps, or the crappy actor--although the latter has a lot of baggage waiting to be explored). Yet, as long as it's Romney vs. McCain vs. Giuliani, McCain wins by default, for simply being the most conservative of the three (particularly on Iraq, still popular among GOP crazies) and having Bush's South Carolina slime squad on board.

For more on this and other stories, go to cliffschecter.com.