The Miami Herald reports that Giuliani has imploded in Florida. Polling courtesy of our own Kellyanne Conway, who has some serious money quotes in the story.

Not meaning to laugh or anything, especially prematurely, but wasn’t it just the other day that we were reading this in the Drudge Report:

“The field is still wide open, which is what we wanted,” said campaign manager Michael DuHaime, the man behind what the team calls its “late-state” strategy to win the Republican nomination. “You want to avoid a whole lot of momentum for one candidate. The further we get into the calendar, the better it is for us.”

So there you have it. As things stand today, Michael DuHaime is on track to be the Bob Shrum of the Republican Party. Well, assuming anyone ever hires him again anyway.

UPDATE, March 8, 2008: As I should have expected, given the clubby nature of the political consulting business, I definitely spoke too soon about Mike DuHaime’s job prospects. Immediately following what even wealthy Giuliani supporters call the worst-run campaign in American history, he was actually picked up by the RNC as senior advisor for Political Operations, which means that he will be running McCain’s state-by-state get-out-the-vote operation. To be fair, as a Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman deputy, DuHaime actually did a tremendous job with this for George Bush in 2004, so the hire probably shows McCain as a good manager who can get the most out of his available assets. But you have to be glad that this kind of inside-baseball stuff doesn’t get much play, because without all that detail, this is the sort of thing that just makes everyday Republicans crazy.

Tags: Rudy Giuliani, Election 2008, Rod D. Martin, TheVanguard.Org

1. Fred Thompson’s withdrawal from the race only compounds Giuliani’s electoral troubles.

   Comment by Charles Gordon — January 23, 2008 @ 10:56 pm

2. Unquestionably true. Rudy was only ever viable if the conservative vote was hopelessly split. That obviously wasn’t clear to a lot of neophytes (and wishful thinking RINOs) back when he had national polling numbers in the 40s (a year ago), but he was only able to muster such apparent strength due to a badly divided field with no clear conservative frontrunner plus the fact that hardly any of the people being polled realized he was pro-abortion, anti-gun, etc. The more that last bit has outed, the farther he’s fallen, as was inevitable from the beginning.

   Comment by Rod D. Martin — January 26, 2008 @ 9:54 am

3. I cannot express how happy I am that y’all are blogging again.

   I’m not heartbroken at Giuliani’s collapse, but there’s only one Republican candidate for whom I absolutely will not vote in November, and that ain’t Giuliani.

   Comment by TheCalvinator — January 26, 2008 @ 3:47 pm

4. Will we see the same happening to Romney in the aftermath of Florida. He has the money but the longer he stays in the race the more he gets disconnected with the grassroot supporters. Romney has avoided a fight with McCain in South Carolina for obvious reasons. The same reasons Giuliani avoided the fight up till now. The reason being very clear, Romney can’t beat McCain. That means he is the best thing happening to the McCain campaign.

   Comment by ontheMoney — January 30, 2008 @ 5:37 am