Rudy! A Prospective Retrospective

To be honest, we always knew that Rudy was a non-serious candidate for the GOP nomination. Didn't we? I mean, as TMcD once described him, he is and has always been "a pro-choice, pro-gay, cousin-marrying, serial adulterer." Link Not that there's anything wrong with that (except for the adultery part, honey!). Rudy had the support of the NYC-DC right-wing pundit class, but that support was always based on the idea that he was the best bet to hold onto the White House. I think that was it, anyway--next time I see George Will on the street, I'll have to ask him.

In contact with actual voters, and here I mean actual GOP primary voters, Rudy fared very poorly--as we always knew he would, right? I mean, it seems so obvious now.

Rudy crashed and burned in New Hampshire, and then conveniently decided that he hadn't actually tried there anyway. Then came the bizarre (one hesitates to call it) "strategic" decision to pour all his resources into Florida, because . . . what was the idea again? That Florida is really a northeastern state? That Florida is like the sixth burrough?

Some bloggers have attributed Rudy's fall to "ShagGate." Others, I hear, think his biggest problem with primary voters is that his own kids don't like him. (This one gives too much credit to primary voters, I think.)

No one, at least no one I've ever read, has suggested that Rudy's fall was precipitated by that weird eye-popping thing he does on the teevee. Oh, yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Some television consultant, at some point, told Rudy that he should avoid blinking on camera. (My guess is that Rudy has a natural tendency to Nixonesque eye-darting, which is correctable.) To counteract the tendency to blink, when Rudy wants to emphasize a point, he bulges his eyes, showing as much of the whites of his eyes as possible. You've noticed. Admit it.

But we don't need an elaborate theory to explain why a candidate with socially liberal views (on abortion, guns, and gay rights at least), from NYC, without foreign policy experience, and with, to be kind, a "colorful" personal history, didn't make the cut when actual voters started paying attention, do we?

Rudy, we barely knew thee. By which I mean, we knew you too, too well.