ST. PAUL—Rudy Giuliani will finally deliver his keynote address tonight, marking his most high profile role in electoral politics since his own ill-fated presidential run.

The Giuliani campaign was done in by a variety of factors, not least among them a flawed strategy that put all its eggs in a Florida basket, an ability to assuage conservative concerns about his liberal positions on social issues, his unorthodox personal history, as well as this and this and this and this.

But the real death-blow to Giuliani’s campaign was arguably his association with Bernie Kerik, who Giuliani vouched for to be Secretary of Homeland Security, and who was later  read more »

Newt Gingrich walked into the USA Today/Gannett pavilion a little bit ago to talk to reporters as part of the paper's "Newsmakers" program. What he's saying in there-- and whether he's saying it on or off the record-- we don't know, because the event is distinctly not open to the public. Apparently, when Jimmy Carter paid his "Newsmakers" visit at the DNC last week, too many non-USAT reporters tried to sneak in and editors ordered a clampdown. According to one of the people doing scheduling and logistics for USA Today, there were supposed to be four or five other Newsmakers coming to visit over the course of this week, but at this point it's unclear which of them are going to come through. Haley Barbour was supposed to stop by yesterday but canceled.

I like Senator Lieberman a great deal. I admire him a lot. I think he'd be a great secretary of state. I think he would be terrific as an attorney general, but I think the idea of him being the Republican vice presidential nominee would split the convention, would probably mean that Bob Barr would get about 15 percent of the vote.  read more »

That was quick!  On Friday, we noted that NBC had rejected an ad from the conservative group Freedom's Watch that asked viewers to think of U.S. soldiers in Iraq over the holidays.  The network had said its decision was based on the fact that the ad contained a link to the group's Web site, which has explicitly political content, and therefore violaterd the network's prohibition on controversial issue ads.

But over the weekend -- after Newt Gingrich had taken to Fox News to urge conservatives to boycott NBC -- came word that the network had changed its mind.   In a statement released Saturday evening and reported by the Associated Press, NBC declared: ""We have reviewed and changed our ad standards guidelines and made the decision that our policy will apply to content only and not to a referenced Web site."  read more »

Once again, Newt Gingrich’s estimation of his own genius has exceeded reality.  read more »

President Bush's plan to boost troop levels in Iraq has run into opposition in Congress.

Charlie Rangel has some words for Nancy Pelosi.

Eliot Spitzer's right hand man, Lloyd Constantine, describes himself as the monster man of the administration.

Tom Suozzi is reconsidering running for a third term.

Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota is out of the intensive care unit and speaking a little.