[Mr. Silverback]

GB, I'm with you, the problem is that there are people who are saying, twenty months out from the general election, that this statement...

I almost certainly will support another candidate in the primaries.

...makes you a drooling idiot. They act as if Ronald Reagan has risen from the dead and endorsed Rudy. They act as if no one has ever won the presidency without having fantastic name recognition two years before the election. They act as if everyone who doesn't like Rudy is a single issue voter, even though everyone who objects to him has about three or four ideological problems with him minimum.

We sure as heck can do better than that.

[GB]

I'm pretty much in line with what you've said here, too. In my heart of hearts, I'm in Duncan Hunter's corner. He has about as much chance of winning the nomination, though, as I do of being crowned the next czar of Russia in a revived Romanov dynasty, and I've never been one to play Quixote jousting with windmills. Choice No. 2 would be Newt, but I fear all the baggage surrounding him puts him in just about the same boat as Hunter and I don't think he's going to run. If I had to do it right now, I would probably go with either Romney or McCain in the primaries, probably in that order of preference ... and God knows, they each have their own respective baggage, especially McCain, so I'm donning my asbestos underwear again after saying that ... because I find them preferable to Giuliani.

If, however, at the end of the 2008 Republican National Convention, this party has chosen Rudolph Giuliani as its nominee, I absolutely will campaign for him and vote for him. And I make no apologies for that and if some consider me a drooling idiot for this mindset, bully for them, I really only have to please one person on this earth politically (the Mrs. could care less about politics although her heart and vote is in the right place), and that's me. :)