Funny, that’s my favorite Republican too!

Which candidate would you support in the 2008 presidential election?

(a) Mitt Romney
(b) Rudy Giuiliani
(c) John McCain
(d) Fred Thompson

According to the latest AP poll of Republican voters, the favorite candidate, leading with 23% of the vote is:

(e) None of the Above

For once, something the GOP and I can agree on!

The Bridal Shower Straw Poll

You may have been hearing all this stuff about how McCain and Rudy are opting out of the Iowa Straw Poll. What you may not have heard about is this new straw poll that has emerged in lower Manhattan on last Saturday afternoon.

I was at my friend’s bridal shower, eating tasty crustless finger sandwiches and raspberry champagne cocktails (no lie – we were all wearing cute sundresses too. This was for real.) The festivities culiminated in a rousing game of Who Knows Their Financee Best, in which both halves of the happy couple took a quiz about each other. One of the questions:

If the election were tomorrow, who would (bride/groom) vote for: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, or Bill Richardson?

I was super-psyched to see that my pal Bill had been upgraded by the Quizmaster to top tier candidate. And here’s the kicker: Bride said she thought groom would vote for Hillary. Groom said he thought bride would vote for Obama. But… wait for it… both said they would actually vote for Richardson. I know it’s a small sampling pool, but that’s a pretty serious landslide victory. (Also, this week on NPR’s It’s All Politics, Ken and Ron - who have some pretty substantial political street cred – said they liked Richardson’s chances in Iowa, even though he was not technically one of the “top three.”

So there you go. Bill Richardson rocks (and he’s funny). You heard it here first.

Actually, Giuliani Hates Ronald Reagan

This will come as a surprise to anyone who saw any segments of the first Republican presidential debate, or ReaganFest07 (summarized in the clip below),

but in this week’s third debate (GodFest07), four of the GOP candidates said that they would not rule out pardoning Scooter Libby, who was sentenced by Judge Reggie Walton on the day of the debate to 30 months in prison for lying to a grand jury and obstructing justice.

Rudy Guiliani, who apparently missed the memo about the theme of each debate (come on buddy, it was 1st Reagan, 2nd Torture, 3rd Jesus), tried to incorporate some Reagan-loving with his Walton-hating, saying:

“I recommended over a thousand pardons to President Reagan when I was associate attorney general…”

(For someone who wants to expand the national waterboarding and pulling-out-of-fingernails programs, that sounds a little soft on crime, Rudy, but whatever.)

“I think what the judge did today argues more in favor of a pardon.”

Little did Rudy know, the judge he was criticizing is (gasp!) an appointee of none other than He Who Can Do No Wrong and Whose Name We Invoke in Times of Trouble, Deity former President Ronald Reagan.

God, who is omniscient and loves Ronald Reagan, remembered that Walton was an appointee of Her favorite president and was so pissed at Rudy that she smote the debate venue with lightning while he was talking.

Some debate watchers thought that this was because RG was talking about abortion at the time, but God, who is actually pro-choice, later revealed that the smiting was just poorly timed. It was definitely really about Scooter Libby.