Oh man. We now have another Republican voicing the silly myth that China is drilling for oil off of American shores -- and not just any Republican, but Rudy Giuliani himself!

As noted by Think Progress, Rudy appeared last night on Glenn Beck's TV show and made the claim.

"You look at Cuba," Rudy said. "Cuba is going to allow China to drill for oil within 80 miles of Florida. And Florida had a 300-mile limit. So in essence, we have China drilling for American oil."

Um, no. China's agreements with Cuba extend only to shoreline areas. Some exploration contracts for deep sea areas have been sold to firms from other countries, but no active drilling is happening as of yet.

Maybe Rudy hasn't heard that the GOP's heavy-hitters have already retired this line -- Dick Cheney himself retracted it three weeks ago, though a few GOP stragglers here and there continue to repeat it.

The McCain campaign has enlisted Rudy Giuliani as the leading communicator of the message that Barack Obama can't be trusted to defend us against terrorism.

But even one of McCain's own foreign policy advisers said that Rudy scandalously screwed up the task of preparing his own city for disasters and terror attacks.

Former Navy secretary John Lehman is a leading McCain adviser and surrogate, but here's what Lehman had to say to the 9/11 Commission about Rudy's performance in defending New York as Mayor:

It was Lehman who, during a Sept. 11 Commission hearing in NY City, took the Giuliani administration to task for the failure to have effective radio communications in place on Sept. 11, leading to chaos.

''I think the command and control and communications of this city's public service is a scandal,'' Lehman said at the time. In his most memorable quip, he said the city's disaster-response plans were ''not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city.''

If even the McCain campaign's national security expert says that Rudy failed to defend his constituents adequately, why is the McCain campaign enlisting Rudy as a voice of authority on the question of who is best qualified to defend America?

Last fall, Joe Biden famously dismissed Rudy Giuliani's campaign rhetoric as little more than "a noun, a verb, and 9/11."

So I thought it would be a good idea to check in with Biden again, now that Rudy's emerged as John McCain's lead attack dog against Obama's alleged weakness on terror.

Here's the best part of what Biden's office sent me, from Biden himself:

"It's no surprise that it takes a man with zero national security and foreign policy experience to defend the policies of John McCain and President Bush," Biden said.

"Sen. McCain insists that Americans must choose between our values and our security. That's exactly wrong. Our values reinforce our security. Our failure to live up to them has been Al Qaeda's biggest recruiting tool."

That first line is a good one that pithily gets at the heart of the matter here. To restate the obvious, the McCain campaign has made Rudy their lead communicator on matters relating to terrorism, but Rudy has no authority whatsoever on this topic.

Rudy has no foreign policy experience. His aura of national security experience comes solely from the fact that he hit the political jackpot by being mayor of New York on 9/11. The notion that he has any kind of counter-terrorism expertise is an illusion that flows from the countless pictures and video clips of him striding through the smoke and dust after the attacks.

Biden's full quote after the jump.

Late Update: Biden's statement was sent to others, too, it turns out. I wasn't the only person who came up with the idea of contacting Biden for comment, apparently.

Read more »

For two days running now, Rudy Giuliani has been bashing Barack Obama because the Illinois Senator suggested in an interview that the convictions and imprisonment of the 1993 World Trade Center attackers showed that we can fight terrorism within the constraints of the Constitution.

Rudy has been pointing to Obama's quotes as proof that he's weak on terrorism, etc., etc., etc.

But when the convictions happened, back in 1994, here's what Rudy himself had to say:

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani declared that the verdict "demonstrates that New Yorkers won't meet violence with violence, but with a far greater weapon -- the law."

Seemed worth putting out there right about now.

Late Update: Here's Rudy this morning on CNN, lambasting the way in which the 1993 attack was dealt with:

Rudy is now officially John McCain's lead crooner when it comes to singing the GOP's Dems-are-weak-on-terror golden oldie.

On a conference call with reporters just now, Rudy bashed Obama and Dems as weak and "defensive" and unleashed a whole bunch of boilerplate that we've been hearing for many years and will hear for many, many more.

"The reality is there seems to be more concern about the rights of terrorists, or alleged terrorists, than the rights that the American people have to safety and security," Rudy said. "I do not understand why, at a time we're facing this terrorist threat, we want to create new rights that didn't exist before for people alleged to be involved in terrorist activities or alleged to be enemy combatants."

"It is fair to say that Osama Bin Laden would be given new rights that nobody ever had before," Rudy continued.

You don't need to know the rest, because it's just Rudy singing from the same sheet music the Republicans have been using since 2002.

But Rudy's emergence begs a serious question: How much authority will the national press accord Rudy as a voice on terrorism during the general election? Rudy has no foreign policy experience whatsoever. His aura of national security experience comes solely from having been photographed walking through the smoke and dust on 9/11.

When Rudy ran for president it took the press corps many months to realize that Rudy has absolutely no authority to speak on this topic. Now that he's popped up again as McCain's front man it may take the press many more months to awaken to this reality again -- unless perhaps Team Obama makes sure to stress this obvious point as often as possible.

Late Update: Here's the audio from the call:

Click To Play

The new ABC/Washington Post national poll shows a tight race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Here are the numbers, compared to the previous poll from three weeks ago:

Clinton 47% (+5)
Obama 43% (+6)

John Edwards was at 11% in the last poll, an indication that his support may be breaking fairly even between two remaining candidates in the country as a whole — though the breakdowns have also seemed to vary from state to state in other polls.

On the Republican side, it's a different story. John McCain is way ahead, and appears to have picked up virtually all of Rudy Giuliani's past support:

McCain 48% (+20)
Romney 24% (+5)
Huckabee 20% (-4)
Paul 7% (+4)

As expected, Rudy Giuliani just held a press conference with John McCain at the Reagan Library, in which Rudy dropped out of the race and endorsed McCain.

Rudy said that his decision to back McCain wasn't difficult, after he'd said last year that he would have supported McCain if he hadn't been running himself. "If I'd endorsed anyone else, you would say I was flip-flopping," Rudy joked.

We'll have video posted in a little while.

Late Update: Here's that video:

A new poll from Public Policy Polling (D) shows that Barack Obama might be sneaking up on Hillary Clinton in her home state of New York. Hillary leads with 45% of the vote, followed by Obama at 33% and John Edwards with 10%. In the demographic breakdown, Hillary leads 44%-29% among whites, Obama 44%-32% among African-Americans, and Hillary 64%-31% among Hispanics.

Bear in mind that all Democratic primaries use a form of proportional representation — so Obama could walk away with a decent chunk of delegates if he simply posts a respectable showing for an out-of-state challenger.

On the Republican side, it looks like John McCain will coast to a win in this winner-take-all contest. He leads with 34%, followed by the now-departed Rudy Giuliani at 20%, Mitt Romney with 19%, and Mike Huckabee with 10%.

Rudy's efforts to ride his 9/11 magic carpet all the way into the White House appear to have foundered for good. The Associated Press reports that Rudy will drop out and endorse John McCain tomorrow in California.

In honor of this moment, we thought it would be worthwhile to rerun the Rudy ad that amounted to the single most ridiculous and self-parodic effort on his part to exploit 9/11.

In this ad, Rudy's campaign said that his response to the terror attacks was literally stronger than that of anyone else in the world -- stronger than that of Bush, stronger than that of the rest of America, stronger even that that of the first responders who perished saving the lives of others in the aftermath of the disaster...

John McCain appears to have just barely edged out Mitt Romney in the all-important Florida GOP primary, according to projections from CNN and the Associated Press.

Right now, with just over half reporting, McCain has 36%, Romney has 31% and Rudy is bringing up third with 15%.

The scuttlebutt in GOP circles is that the McCain and Romney camps are both aggressively lobbying Rudy for his endorsement, in the expectation that Rudy will drop out soon, perhaps even tonight.

More soon.

Late Update: Rudy is speaking now. It sounds very much like a drop-out speech. Rudy is telling America what it needs to do in order to not succumb to the terrorists without him at the helm.

Late Update: Tomorrow the GOP is set to debate in California. Will Rudy show? ABC News reports that the Rudy and McCain camps are negotiating over ways to give Rudy a graceful exit.

Late Update: Romney just gave his concession speech. His message, in a nutshell: Unions and Hillary are bad, and we should thank George W. Bush for keeping us safe for the past six years.

Late Update: One thing worth noting: This is the first GOP primary that wasn't open to independents, and McCain won it. If you look at the exit polls, you can see that McCain won the broad middle of GOPers, winning over Romney among somewhat liberal, moderate, and somewhat conservative Repubicans, and only losing to Romney among very conservative voters.

Late Update: It's done -- Rudy will drop out and endorse McCain.

A Democratic source who tracks media buys tells me something interesting that reflects how bad the environment is for Repubs this year: He says that no GOP candidate has a single ad up on the air in any of the Feb. 5th states, even though Super Tuesday is a week away.

He also provides a good explanation for the Mittmentum we've been seeing. According to the source, Mitt spent roughly $1.5 million on TV ads during the week ending January 25, while both John McCain and Rudy spent roughly $800,000 apiece.

This suggests that Romney might be succeeding partly because he's doubled the ad spending of McCain.

Anyway, I've got calls into the campaigns to confirm this. We'll keep you posted.

The final Zogby poll of the Florida primary gives John McCain an apparent lead in the Republican race, though like practically all other polls the race is still too close to call. Here are the numbers, compared to yesterday's release:

McCain 35% (+2)
Romney 31% (+1)
Giuliani 13% (-1)
Huckabee 13% (+2)
Paul 2% (+0)

The final SurveyUSA poll in the Florida primary shows that the Republican race is simply too close to call between John McCain and Mitt Romney. Here are the numbers, compared to the poll released earlier today:

McCain 32% (+1)
Romney 31% (-1)
Giuliani 15% (-1)
Huckabee 13% (+0)
Paul 6% (+1)

Analysis from SurveyUSA: "We can reveal that in the final totals it is McCain 31.6%, Romney 31.2%, but we will caution that those numbers are not materially different than the Romney 31.9%, McCain 31.3% numbers that SurveyUSA reported this morning. The movement is too small to be judged significant, and the best interpretation of the data and the trendlines is that the contest could go either way."

The LA Times's political blog catches an odd moment in which Rudy seems to be laying the groundwork to exit the race if and when he loses tomorrow:

In a meeting in the back of his chartered plane en route to St. Petersburg, Fla., a short while ago, the onetime, longtime GOP front-runner told a small group of reporters, including The Times' Louise Roug: "The winner of Florida will win the nomination."

Rudy's spokesperson quickly noted that Rudy was expressing confidence about winning tomorrow. Still, Rudy's in third or fourth in Florida in most polls -- and Rudy himself thinks that whoever wins tomorrow will "win the nomination."

So, given his own remarks, if he loses tomorrow there will be no point in continuing, and he'll drop out, right?

A new survey from Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling gives Mitt Romney a big lead over John McCain, and clear momentum. Here are the numbers, compared to their last poll from five days ago:

Romney 35% (+7)
McCain 28% (+3)
Huckabee 13% (-2)
Giuliani 12% (-7)
Paul 5% (+0)

The new SurveyUSA poll in Florida shows a dead heat in the Republican primary. In a possible sign of momentum, Mitt Romney leads by one point, whereas he was down in their previous poll released Friday:

Romney 32% (+4)
McCain 31% (+1)
Giuliani 16% (-2)
Huckabee 13% (-1)
Paul 5% (-1)

The poll was conducted entirely yesterday, after Gov. Charlie Crist endorsed McCain.

This morning's Quinnipiac poll shows the Republican primary in Florida to be a statistical dead heat. Here are the numbers, compared to the last poll from two weeks ago:

McCain 32% (+10)
Romney 31% (+12)
Giuliani 14% (-6)
Huckabee 13% (-6)
Paul 3% (-2)

Two new polls show John McCain getting an increase in Florida in the wake of Gov. Charlie Crist's endorsement, taking the lead or tying Mitt Romney after one new day of polling.

From Zogby:

McCain 33% (+3)
Romney 30% (+0)
Giuliani 14% (+1)
Huckabee 11% (-3)
Paul 2% (-1)

Commentary from John Zogby: “It is important to note that popular Florida Gov. Charlie Crist endorsed McCain Saturday and campaigned with him Sunday. Sunday alone, McCain had another big day, winning 38% support to Romney’s 31%."

And from Rasmussen, which also credited Crist's endorsement as one of several factors:

Romney 31% (-2)
McCain 31% (+4)
Giuliani 16% (-2)
Huckabee 11% (-1)
Paul 4% (-2)

We'll all find out tomorrow whether McCain is able to sustain his boost, or whether MItt Romney can pull off the big win, after all.

A new Mason-Dixon poll of Colorado shows Mitt Romney with a huge lead over John McCain — probably due in no small part to the illegal immigration issue — and Barack Obama edging Hillary Clinton in a statistical dead heat:

Democrats:
Obama 34%
Clinton 32%
Edwards 17%

Republicans:
Romney 43%
McCain 24%
Huckabee 17%
Paul 5%
Giuliani 4%

Colorado is holding its caucuses on Super Tuesday.

The new Rasmussen poll in Florida shows Mitt Romney pulling ahead of John McCain. Here are the numbers, compared to the last poll from three days ago:

Romney 33% (+6)
McCain 27% (+4)
Giuliani 18% (-2)
Huckabee 12% (-3)
Paul 2% (-2)

Today's Zogby tracking poll in Florida shows John McCain and Mitt Romney in a tie — a slight gain for Romney from yesterday. Here are the numbers, compared to yesterday's release:

McCain 30% (-1)
Romney 30% (+2)
Huckabee 14% (+4)
Giuliani 13% (-2)
Paul 3% (-2)

Romney wins among self-identified conservatives, while McCain wins among moderates. Interestingly, Romney wins voters over the age of 65 and under the age of 30, with McCain winning those in the middle range.

The new SurveyUSA poll in Florida gives John McCain a very narrow lead over Mitt Romney, who is himself catching up very quickly. Here are the results, compared to the numbers from four days ago:

McCain 30% (+5)
Romney 28% (+9)
Giuliani 18% (-2)
Huckabee 14% (+0)
Paul 6% (-1)

It really does seem like Fred Thompson's exit from the race was a boon for Romney. Fred had 7% support in the previous poll, and it looks like Mitt got the lion's share of it.

Rudy Giuliani has two new ads up in Florida, the state where he's making an all-out effort to actually win something.

The first one plays up his links to Reagan, his commitment to lowering taxes, and his proposal for a national catastrophe insurance program:

The second one we actually posted on yesterday. It was originally a Web ad pushing Rudy's call for a national catastrophe fund, but was clearly destined to make it to TV with its catchy music and Southern-accented announcer.