The Florida Primary and the End of the Road for Rudy

There's a couple of ways to look at the results so far. Mike Huckabee is toast - and I don't see anyone going to him for advice. Ditto Ron Paul, although he's hanging around like a roach after the nuclear holocaust.

It is a two-person race for the GOP as Mitt Romney and John McCain are pretty close in the tally, but McCain has a small but sizable lead at the moment. Even if he wins, he'd still be behind Romney in the overall number of delegates because the Florida GOP got docked for jumping ahead on the primary order.

Rudy Giuliani is toast. The writing has been on the wall for the past several weeks as pretty much everyone has written him off and voters have looked elsewhere as the media pounded on his campaign (or lack thereof).

For Rudy, it's all a matter of what his intentions are going forward. Does he want to be VP or AG in someone else's backyard and what does he bring to the table for the other candidates?

I know some think that McCain and Rudy are chummy, but I just don't see that. Rudy and McCain are far too strong personalities to mesh very well, and McCain would bristle at the idea that Rudy is around, even if he's given the VP slot.

A better choice for Rudy would be to throw support behind Mitt. They are a better fit ideologically and on the judges. They're both similar on social policy and the best fit would be Rudy going for AG.

From a geographic perspective, Rudy would benefit Mitt because of the NYC area ties, but even that has its limits (see FL). Fred Thompson might be a better fit for Mitt as VP if only b/c he's from the South and that would be prudent to take up a geographic bloc.

I'm pretty disappointed with Rudy's run. I thought the possibility of leaving the early races to stake it on FL was sound if only because everyone else would beat up on each other, but the downside was that such infighting kept your name in the paper and it gave Rudy the rep that he wasn't really fighting hard for the nomination.

Oh well.

For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton ran unopposed as John Edwards and Barack Obama both listened to the DNC and did not campaign in the state. Too bad for them, because Hillary did. And now, she's busy claiming that she'll enfranchise the voters by getting their delegates seated. How nice of her to get a cheap win.

The big winner thus far looks like it's John McCain, who's kicked Huckabee and Rudy to the curb. Hillary is a close second.

It's shaping up to be one ugly set of choices when New Jersey voters get their chance.

UPDATE:
So much for predicting this one. Time is reporting that Rudy will be endorsing McCain. We'll see how much that's worth to McCain.