GOP blowing it?

It is time to face facts:

If the Democratic New Hampshire primary were held today, Hillary would win.

If Democratic Super-Duper Tuesday were held today, Hillary would win 75% of the states.

If the general election were held today, Hillary would beat anyone on the GOP side.

In part, this is a matter of external events. Neither Rudy nor Romney nor Thompson (nor, really, McCain) should have to answer for Bush's missteps in Iraq. But Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (for all the ridicule directed at them) are not stupid people, have--for all their overreaching--framed Iraq as the GOP's war, seperate and distinct from Afghanistan, Iran or anything else in the world.

Their characterization of "The War in Iraq" as a stand-alone enterprise happens to be wrong, of course. But politics is the art of persuasion, and right now the Republicans are having a hard time persuading 60% of the electorate.

Just to turn on the news is depressing. John McCain has inserted himself, foolishly and unnecessarily, into the Imus kerfuffle. And what plagues Giuliani has, until this morning, something I couldn't quite fathom.

Now I get it. What plagues Rudy is a kind of intellectual laziness that is, first, uncharacteristic of the man, and second, deadly to a Presidential candidate.

Rudy is travelling down the same road as George Romney (as in "Romney later explained") in 1968 and Ted Kennedy (last seen looking for his verb) in 1980.

John Podoretz has more.