Rav Casley Gera

The Republican presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, today told his supporters he was abandoning his bid for the White House and backing his long-time friend John McCain. “I spoke with Rudy Giuliani this morning and he confirmed that he is dropping out of the race and will endorse Senator John McCain for president,” the New York senate majority leader, Joe Bruno, said in a statement. -Guardian

This is great! Right? McCain’s in the lead! Great, right? The smug idiot, the guy who took the fun out of New York; the guy who fired the police chief who reduced crime, and took all the credit himself; the guy who slashed firefighters’ funding, then gleefully took all the credit for the heroism of 9/11 (see a pattern here?), falls flat on his face. Great great great. Except, it’s not. For while no-one sane can have wanted him to win, Guliani’s loss has some pretty depressing implications:

1. Conservatives would rather vote for someone who disagrees with all their positions on policy than someone who once lived with gays; and
2. It’s now impossible to win a nomination just by targeting the largest, most-representative states. Far from reducing the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire, the compression of the primary process has increased it and the media focus on Guliani’s “Florida gamble” made it too transparent to pull off.