Mittens for Giuliani

Joining the ranks of Trotskyites for John McCain, we have Mitt Romney for Rudy Giuliani. Rudy's put out a new ad in Florida, interrupting naps across the state with faux-momentous music over a slew of quotes from various conservatives (Norquist, Forbes, Will) about Rudy's reputation as a fiscally conservative tax-cutter. It closes with a quote from... well, you'll have to watch.

Needless to say, Mittens for America is none too happy about this move, as the quote was, predictably, taken somewhat out of context. Commenting in an interview after a Michigan debate, Romney said:

The line-item veto is the best tool the president has to reign in excessive spending, and Mayor Giuliani has a great record of cutting taxes and cutting spending, although, according to the Mayor, Mayor Bloomberg, that followed him, he said that he left excessive deficits for him. But he’s cut spending, he cut taxes, I cut spending, I cut taxes. But the real difference between us is that when it came to the line-item veto, I’m in favor of it.

Personally, I think the line-item veto is pretty awesome, since it can be used (and has been, in my home state) to make legislation absolutely unrecognizable, through the technique of amending budget numbers from "$250,000,000" to "$2" or striking out little words like "not." Sadly for the creative writers among us, though, after two years of Bill Clinton enjoying that particular power, the line-item veto was ruled unconstitutional - in a case brought by the City of New York under the authority of none other than Mayor Rudy Giuliani. So there you have it, kids: Mittens is for the line-item veto, but also for Rudy, who's against the line-item veto, or at any rate was against the line-item veto back in the late 90's, but by Romney standards that by no means equates to opposing it now. (No word yet on how left-handed leprechauns feel about the line-item veto.) I fully expect his hair to explode early next week.

And that's not even negative campaigning by Republican standards

Apparently when Willard "Mitten" Romney won the Michigan primary earlier this week, his victory speech cut into John McCain's concession speech, in a violation of traditional campaign protocol. Apparently the McCain campaign was pissed. Apparently this developed before the talking-over-one another began. Here's the Times on what one of the McCain people had to say:

Before the race was called, Steve Schmidt, an adviser to the McCain campaign, told reporters gathered here that, “Mitt Romney has an amazing capacity that many of us hold in awe to be able to look anyone in the eye and tell them that the blue sky is red, that the yellow sun is pink, but at the end of the day, in a presidential contest, voters want someone who will tell them the truth.’’

“Mitt Romney has proven over the last year a truly amazing capacity to pander, to mislead, to engage in cynical, negative politics,’’ he said. “But at the end of the day, I don’t think that any of that accounts for his win, if he holds it tonight, if he holds onto that win. What will account for it is that he is a Michigander who won the Michigan primary. ‘’

“The American people will have a choice between a leader who leads, and somebody who goes out and puts their finger in the air, and says my pollster just told me that resonates with left-handed leprechauns, so this is what I ought to say.’’’

All this time I've overlooked the crucial left-handed leprechaun vote. Quick, someone smarter than me should extrapolate an anti-Mormon slur from that reference and create a twelve-hour media storm!