The question is who the white evangelicals would hate more: Rudy or Hillary? Hillary Hatred will likely get out the GOP vote in a big way, which might lead them to hold their nose and vote for Giuliani "on principle" (what principle that is, exactly, is unclear, perhaps even to them -- pure misogyny, I suppose, or else irrational hatred of Bill Clinton).

It's going to be kind of weird -- Clinton runs a Republicratic campaign that will, nonetheless, fail to win over conservatives in the GOP, no matter what she does. And Giuliani runs a campaign that doesn't kiss the sandals of the Religious Right enough for their liking.

Which competing hatred will carry the election day, I wonder? Somehow, I think Hillary Hatred will win out over Giulianophobia.

Is copy and paste what I said yesterday. The very idea that H. Clinton stands a chance in 2008 is absurd. That the most right wing elements of our society would consicously allow it to happen is just ridiculous.

Richard Land basically suggested that he, and presumably others, would be unable to vote for Giulliani under any circumstance. I am willing to bet that as those words came out of his mouth, his mind was marking the statement with a mental asterik noting the one circumstance that would trigger his unwavering support for Rudy. That is, of course, the nomination of Hillary Clinton. No other realistic scenario has the potential to so immediately galvanize all elements of the modern Republican party and a very healthy dose of independents into near hero worship of whoever emerges from the sad lot of GOP contenders. As much as I try to resist looking at polling numbers with anything other than deep skepticism, I can't help but be distressed by what appears to be a Clinton nomination slouching toward 2008. We are watching a train wreck in excruciatingly slow motion. If Clinton is the Democratic nominee for 2008, game over. Whoever gets the GOP nomination might as well start putting together his transition team while she makes her acceptance speech at the convention. The scariest part for me is that the Republican nominee will have absolutely no reason to do anything resembling a move toward the center during the general election. Whoever that is, Rudy, Mitt, Ted Nugent, could run on a platform of invading Iran (and maybe Russia), mandatory minimum carbon emissions, prison for advocates of choice, guns in schools, martial law, and abolition of Congress in favor of a president for life. The Chris Matthews of the world will hail that platform as the true expression of American hopes and dreams as Rudy/Mitt/Ted/whoever walks into the White hOuse on a landslide that leaves us dreaming of Mondale.

This is more fun than watching a train wreck! From Foley & Craig wanting to fondle teen boys/seeking hot 'n nasty public restroom liasions, from W being seen as the ignorant, useless pile of shit that intelligent people always knew he was, from Rove & the rest of the rats deserting a sinking ship, to the evangelical whack jobs sputtering in outrage as the leading Republican candidate proves he doesn't want to be affilated with them, & all their "chosen" candidates, (Brownback, Thompson, et al), either flame out early or land on the scene with a resounding thud, (do tell, were these candidates chosen by Jesus?), the collapse of the GOP & it's useless scum finding out they aren't liked, you know I'm loving it!!!

Oooooo, add in Rush becoming more & more of a bloated gasbag joke than he already was, O'Reilly, Hannity & Coulter being exposed as the arrogant assholes they've always been, & we're near a trifecta!!!

Now if the rest of the Nazi garbage such as Dobson, Nugent, (Ted, stick to playing guitar, it's about all you're good at, & that ain't saying much), & the rest will follow them into the march to oblivion, I'll do the happy dance!!!!

OK, everything I say here needs to be taken with a pound or ten of salt, because I'm a New Yorker and so I probably have an inherently distorted view of the rest of the country (just as the rest of the country seems to have a distorted view of New York).

So, having made full disclosure, here are my thoughts about Hillary v. Giuliani:

1. I always find it funny that Giuliani boasts that he knows how to take on Hillary. He certainly didn't in 2000. This is a man who ran with his tail between his legs when it became clear that Hillary was likely to beat him for the Senate seat. It's strange that nobody is talking about the prostate cancer which he cited as the reason for leaving the race. I guess 9/11 cured that.

2. The Republicans are so steadfast in their hatred of Hillary that they seem to project it onto the rest of the population - just as they did with her husband. But in 1998 they thought they were going to make hay over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, because they assumed that the country as a whole despised him as much as they did (and everyone knows how that worked out). I imagine that the great middle is a lot more ambivalent than the Republicans give them credit for. And Hillary is a good campaigner. She basically won upstate New York through sheer force of will - by kissing one baby at a time. I was living upstate for a couple of months in 1999, and I remember anti-Hillary sentiment running pretty high. Now, for better or for worse, Hillary pretty much owns that Senate seat - the Republicans have a hard time even finding a candidate to run against her (I literally can't remember who eventually went against her in 2006).

3. Whereas all of Hillary's "dirt" is out in the open from a decade of national exposure and vilification, Giuliani has massive negatives that are barely known of nationally. Giuliani is still running on the fumes of 9/11, but he is very vulnerable to all matter of Swiftboating. Because Hillary is already perceived as a demon from hell by many people, she has nowhere to go in their estimation except up; since Giuliani is viewed as a heroic figure, he has a lot to lose from further scrutiny.

4. I do agree with many of the others that the Salon projections of the electoral map are wildly unrealistic. The South will remain the South. But Hillary doesn't need to completely redraw the electoral map - all she has to do is win what Kerry and Gore won, plus one or two additional states. And in some of these states, a third party could make a difference, because some of those swing states are just so damn close. Remember that Bill's winning map in 1992 was only a shade bluer than Kerry and Gore's losing maps in 2000 and 2004 - and Bill partly has Ross Perot to thank for that, I think.

I'm saying all this as a hopeful Democrat, but not necessarily a Hillary supporter. In many ways, I would prefer Obama to be the candidate, especially since if Hillary became president, we could look forward to four to eight more years of Clinton-hating. It's possible - but not likely - that Obama might be more successful in bridging some of the partisan divides, which I generally think would be a good thing.