In case you were wondering, the Republican field of candidates don't care about the wildfires raging in Southern California. (This is in, or around, Duncan Hunter's district, mind you.)

FOX News Debate

• TRF liveblogged the debate on FOX News and the candidates were taking some stinging potshots at each other. Conservative bloggers approvingly spoke of Mike Huckabee's car salesman-like qualities by "demonstrating same smooth, articulate, can-sell-snake-oil-to-a-merchant" and that he could "sell ice to Eskimos."


• John McCain released an ad that included footage from the FOX News debate, and FNC demanded McCain's campaign cancel the ad because of the logo. However, Rudy Giuliani's materials are covered in FOX News paraphernalia. McCain's people cut a new ad instead.

Rudy Giuliani

• While speaking to at a town hall in Iowa, Giuliani left the door open on waterboarding, questioning whether it really is torture.


• After bowing out of the race, Sam Brownback met with John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, however, Brownback says he is "more comfortable" with Giuliani's views on abortion.


• Giuliani is defending and protecting an accused child molesting priest that still works at Giuliani Partners.


• In August 2001, Giuliani reportedly told his gay roommates that if same-sex marriage became legal, he would marry them first. Earlier this month, when speaking to Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, Giuliani said he would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage if states started to legalize it.

Mitt Romney

• Romney employs about a dozen college-aged kids to sit at computers and watch a wall of television screens with news reports in a dark room for "rapid response." I call them the Mitt Floppers; An Army for One.


• A South Carolina baptist pastor retracted his endorsement of Romney. Pastor Don Wilton said he gave his support to use his name locally, and didn't believe it would be used nationally. (And by nationally, I think he means under the nose of the I.R.S.)


• In discussing Barack Obama, Mitt Romney nearly called the senator "Osama bin Laden." Romney's campaign maintains that the governor "misspoke" but anybody remember the sign Romney was holding up approvingly? It said "Obama Osama" and Romney was campaigning in South Carolina, the site of this incident.


• This is no surprise: Romney has no idea what he's talking about.

Fred Thompson

• FDT articulated "almost sane views" on executive power.


• Thompson dodged questions on the latest exodus of staffers leaving, to which FDT replied, those questions are for the campaign. David Dayen reminds him, "You ARE the campaign!"


• FDT locked up the Bill Frist endorsement, completing the "creepy doctor," "Klansman" and "global warming denier" trifecta. Fred Phelps' endorsement is in a league of its own.

John McCain

• McCain told a gun manufacturer that if elected president, he would "shoot bin Laden with your products." McCain later said it was a joke and he wouldn't personally shoot bin Laden. You call that leadership?

Mike Huckabee

• Ramesh Ponnuru is not sold on Huckabee.


• Read up on Steve Benen's incredible takedown of Jonathan Alter's whitewashing of Mike Huckabee's "wacky right-wing things."


• Huckabee is a smooth talker but is that all he is?


• At the debate, Huckabee said "most" of the founding fathers were clergymen. That all depends on your definition of "most." In actuality, only one of 56 was a member of the clergy. Using Huckabee's definition of "most," most of the U.S. Senators are independents, and most of the U.S. states are not part of the mainland.

Ron Paul

• Paul is moving up in New Hampshire and the campaign's increasing spending in the state shows they believe so, too.


• The debates among Republican candidates show the base to be adamantly opposed to any kind of withdrawal from Iraq as they incessantly boo Ron Paul's foreign policy views. However, polling shows that the majority of Republican Party caucus goers in Iowa favor withdrawing from Iraq within six months.

Tom Tancredo

• Tancredo wagered his presidential campaign against that of Mitt Romney on the World Series the day after Boston handed Colorado a 13-1 loss in Game 1. Makes you think, maybe Tancredo is trying to lose?