wait until the national media starts to really cover Giuliani's personal life. It's not just the three marriages, it's so much ugliness and nastiness, including to his own kids.

This guy will never make it out of the GOP primaries. Though I agree that moving up CA would benefit him tremendously.

What I love about the GOP this year is that they need to be crazy to win the primary, then try to change to sane to win the general.  Thats what killed Chafee, and I don't see it working for Guiliani either.  But kinda interesting that he's far ahead in a lot of polls, and just moved up to the secondary position in the primary.

Maybe someone else can jump in and help, but the Republicans award most of their delegates on a "Winner Take All, By Congressional District" means.

The statewide winner gathers up the much smaller stash of "Bonus Delegates," but most delegates get handed out one CD at a time.

California Republican staple The Flash Report has a good piece on this from a GOP election lawyer.

Anybody out there know more about this that I care to weigh in?

There was an interesting article in one of the state's papers about the strategy of playing this system, namely do you compete in bigger or smaller counties?  More or less GOP-controlled Districts?

I'll look for it and post a link for anyone who cares...

I think the California GOP primary is going to be by district, with candidates winning individual districts, and getting delegates. I can't remember if it's Congressional districts, assembly, or Senate, but I think the Republican vote can be split.

Don't trust Datamar.  They are quite possibly the worst polling outfit in CA.

Republicans salivate over the prospect of fighting Hillary Clinton, but that is by no means a sealed deal.  I would really hate to be a Republican presidential candidate in '08.

Boy, Giuliani may be a map-changer, but not in the way they think. Imagine if he's running against anyone other than Hillary ... whew. He couldn't even contest the West against Richardson (I'd call AZ, NM, and CO for Richardson already), Edwards would cruise in OH and at the very least contest border states like VA with social conservatives disheartened, Obama ... who knows what Obama would do against him?

It's not just abortion, but guns, civil unions ... absolutely everything the GOP uses to turn out their troops would be gone. If Giuliani runs against Richardson, the NRA would be in a very awkward position. And that leaves aside any actual campaign pointing out all his weirdness and general distastefulness.

I suppose maybe he could contest California in some GOP fever dream, but I still just don't see it (he doesn't touch any Democrat in NY ... Hillary crushes him). If Arnold runs in an open election for his first race, I don't think he wins. And Arnold had all sorts of advantages over Rudy ...

If Rudy runs and Iraq is still raging (and it will be), the Democrats win running away, I think.

If the GOP chooses Rudy, they're basically giving up and saying that being tough-sounding is their one and only electoral strategy.

Generally the threshold for winning delegates in a Democratic primary or caucus is 15%.  I know that in WA if a candidate fails to receive 15% in the first round of voting they will receive no delegates.  People may then choose to change their vote and if no one does delegates are awarded proportionally to those candidates receiving 15% or more of the vote.  For example, in 1992 seven people showed up at my precinct.  Four people voted for Tsongas, two of us voted for Harkin and one for Kerry.  There were four delegates to award.  Had everyone stuck to their guns Tsongas would have gotten three delegates, Harkin one, and Kerry none since he was below 15%.  The Kerry person was convinced to join the Harkin people which meant that Harkin received two delegates and Tsongas received two.

Two things.....

Hillary is peaking...very good thing for us progressives

Richardson maybe able to garner a large enough voting bloc in California that makes it merely impossible for anybody to win by more than 5%.

According to Fox News the California Gop primary is winner take all, but if they move up to FEb 5th, that may change to level out the playing field.

does anyone have a plausable way for one/both parties ending up without a nominee going into the conventions?  its starting to look that way.  i am not saying its 50/50 or even 25/75,  but it is becoming more believable in my view.  anyone know of where to look for how things would play out if it does.

im going on record here,  whichever party has a contested convention will have a MAJOR bump in the ratings afterwards.  instead of 3 to 4 hours coverage the entire week,  i am positive that the major networks would have wall to wall coverage.  tv time that you just cant buy these days,  completely free!

the conservatives, who loathe McCain, are starting to talk mapchanger-like about Rudy up against Hillary:
It's hard to see a state that George Bush won in which Rudy Giuliani will not beat Hillary Clinton. And he will put a whole slew of new blue states into play: Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, to name just three. (The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Giuliani in a dead heat with Clinton in Connecticut.) Which puts people like me, who care very deeply about marriage and life issues, in the position of thinking hard about Rudy.

Oh My Goodness, You're Quoting Republicans!But then if you DIDN'T quote Republicans, how would we ever know what they were thinking? It shows how ridiculous is this blogosphere social custom of not quoting Republicans!

I've been terribly vexed to see people in the blogosphere using the fact of Republican SOURCE of information to discredit others.  How in the world can we report what Republicans do without sometimes reporting on what Republican sources say?  

It's an absurd proposition to NEVER QUOTE REPUBLICAN SOURCES!  It's just like reporting on the Black Panthers while strictly observing a rule to NEVER QUOTE THE PANTHERS.  What you would end up with in that case is CONJECTURE, opinion, propanganda and BULLSHIT.

So, I support you, Jerome, in quoting Republican sources as a way of telling the rest of us what Republican sources have said.  No matter how much we disagree with people, we still need to know what they're thinking and saying if we're going to defeat them politically.

And there's something else to consider:  Even a Republican clock is right twice a day.  Once in a long while their assertions are actually true and their criticism are actually valid.  And sometimes they have their fingers on the pulse of American and are perceiving a trend that we cannot afford to ignore.

For example, I believe the Republicans spoke for many religious people in the Democratic Party when they took issue with John Edwards' bloggers' religious statements.  Even though it was the Republicans who had the greatest political observation to bring this to Democrats' attention early, it's something that inevitably would probably have offended most religious and tolerant voters of any Party, if brought to their attention.

Looks like it's time for the Netroots to start working the body on Rudy.

As to map changer, that is overblown, once he takes on the Repub brand, his cross over appeal will diminish.  

Though I fear, against Hillary, there may be some validity to it.  Edwards, with his Southern and Midwestern appeal would be the best match up against Giuliani, because he's a potential map changer the other way.  Obama, is harder to figure either way at this point.

I concur with most of the bloggers here--Giuliani may now be ahead, but all of that assumes an image based on 9/11.  He can go nowhere else but downward when his bizarre (by anybody's standards) personal life and money ties become fodder for the political pundits.  

If he can only best Senator Clinton (in this particular poll; others have them at a dead heat) at this point, one can rest assured he will soon enough wax nostalgically when such a match-up showed him competitive.

Contrary to the Republican post that would have one believe that the former NYC Mayor would best Senator Clinton (the GOP Public Enemy #1, whose successful White House run would also return to real power their former Public Enemy #1, Bill Clinton) in key areas of the country, in fact, just the opposite is true.  

As I have argued time and again, her universal recognition and high negatives are also her strength.  Everything that could have been, or possibly can be said, of Senator Clinton is already old news.  She's been accused of it all--concealed homosexuality, blind ambition, cold calculation, theft, grand avarice, even murder--it's all now a very, very, old story.  No other candidate on either side has been remotely so intensely scrutinized.  

She is, indeed, battle-scarred, and all of Rudy's 9/11 patina cannot shield him from the rigors of a national campaign, concerning which both Clintons are not only masters of that process, but seasoned in a manner that no other politican in the past fifty years can comprehend.

But for the purist bloggers--the same element that formerly trumpeted Ralph Nader over Al Gore, who now trumpet Gore, Edwards, and Obama over Clinton; who never have, and never will, understand any of the attributes of the Clintons, HRC would already be thinking past the reactionary element coming her way in the national campaign.

My own belief is that the David Geffen remarks were, as one prescient blogger pointed out, less to advance Senator Obama, than to colorfully jab at Senator Clinton, in response to her husband's failing to pardon a good friend.  

And while I would be most content with a presidency led by any of the current crop of Democratic contenders, it is a measure of just how green the Obama camp is that they cannot understand what truly occurred.  Truth be told, Mr. Geffen has no more affection for Senator Obama.  Here, the Senator was merely an instrument in the Geffen wrath for that Clinton "failure to pardon."

Regarding Senator McCain and former Governor Romney, neither is any longer a viable candidate. Senator McCain looks utterly pathetic, dazed and confused, even addlepated, absolutely lethal attributes in a septuagenerian running for United States President.  Former Governor Romney has many more hurdles than national confusion over the reality of Mormonism.

Thus, I fully expect Republican-leaning pollsters to advance former Mayor Giuliani.  They need some assurance that their Public Enemy #1, HRC, can be overcome.  But that assurance will never go beyond these early opinion polls.  The former NYC Mayor will self-implode; he has neither the self-discipline nor the political weathering skills of Senator Clinton.

I also believe that former Senator Edwards is most attractive and competitive.  He is, however, a political lightweight when measured against either of the Clintons.  

And again, I submit that for all the impressive qualities of Senator Obama, he is far, far, too green.  From the outset, the established media has sung his praises.  He was goaded into running for the Presidency in the hope that a rift within the Democratic Party would develop, not because any in the Fourth Estate truly believed he would become the forty-fourth President.

And as to the remaining Democratic and Republican current field of presidential contenders, it is best to regard them all as more seeking after a potential vice-presidential slot or future ambassadorship, than as viable candidates.

Thus, with all those opposed to her so long ingrained, I submit that Senator Clinton, aided by the matchless political skills of her husband, remains not only a likely nominee for her party, but a favorite in the national election as well.  

Of course, the return of a Clinton White House is the anathema of much of the Fourth Estate.  This includes its pundits and commentators, from Maureen Dowd to Chris Matthews to Brian Williams, and most of their circle.

Such a prospect is naturally even more anathema  to the well-ingrained reactionaries from Newt Gingrich to Ken Starr.  

But preventing a return to a Clinton White House will take much more than a disparaging punditocracy and the candidacies of Senator Obama and former Mayore Giuliani to achieve.

Whether hated or loved (there are few who can be said to fall in-between), the Clintons are, hands-down, quite probably the most formidable political couple since the dawn of the United States.

Don't underestimate Giuliani.  His appeal to Republicans is not just 9/11 mythology -- he is seen as tough on crime, and tough on terror.  He will appeal to social conservatives by promising to appoint "strict constructionist" justices like Scalia, and by promising a better chance of winning  in the general election.

As long as there are so many conservatives splitting the primary vote, he has a solid chance of wining the nomination, particularly if CA, IL, NJ, and FL hold early primaries.  If Giuliani wins it will fuel a right-wing third-party challenge, but don't count on that drawing more than 1-2% of the vote.

The way to go after him isn't with personal attacks, it's by reminding voters as often as possible that Giuliani has backed every move by Bush in Iraq, all the way, up to and including the surge, just like McCain has.