The GOP horse race

By Richard Baehr

Fred Siegel, writing in Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog, argues that Rudy Giuliani's response to the MoveOn ad and his attack on Hillary Clinton, may have helped both him and Hillary Clinton.

For months Mitt Romney was the only one focusing on and spending serious money in Iowa and New Hampshire, and built up big leads in both states. That has changed, and Rudy is now within a few points of Romney in the Granite State in the last four polls taken there.

A victory for Rudy in New Hampshire would likely mean an end for the Romney campaign, which is built on a sweep of the early races in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and Michigan catapulting him into he national lead.

Some folks are getting excited about Fred Thompson closing the national gap with Giuliani, but I don't see it, except in the Rasmussen survey, which may be an outlier and a very temporary read on the race. Thompson's support is largely regional, concentrated in the South. Thompson runs far behind elsewhere, and I don't think he can win a national race against the Democrats due to regional prejudices against southerners elsewhere among swing voters.

And one final political note: whoever is advising Barack Obama needs to raise their game. Zbigniew Brezinski is a longtime Israel-hater, a supporter and national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, and a defender of the Walt & Mearsheimer book. Having him as a key foreign policy advisor for Obama makes it hard to argue his pro-Israel credentials.