As Bruce Hornsby sang, somethings don’t ever change. He could have been singing about Rudy. And not in a good way.

Having finished 5th in IA and garnering less than 10 percent in NH, Rudy took exception to John McCain taking all the credit for the success of the Surge.

McCain then fired back I was the only one who was pro Surge and anti Rumsfeld. Rudy had nothing to say.

Watching Rudy cowed is a rare occurrence. Watching Rudy not ranting 911 911 911 is also rare.

But here is the reality for Rudy. The Surge is today. 911, like it or not, is so yesterday. Also from the vantage point of his GOP competitors is “not one of us”. He may have served at DOJ under Ford and Reagan, but he remains an outlier

Yesterday a group of Reagan Alum endorsed McCain. Not Rudy. Folks like Geo Schultz, eagleburger, haig as well as anonymous wh staffer types rallied round mccain. Not Rudy.

For someone like mike huckabee those endorsements may impact in the upcoming primaries but they are not an indictment of the man. Indeed Reagans 84 campaign mgr is now w Mike.

But for Rudy it is a different story. Somehow Rudy failed to impress his colleagues much as he has failed to impress the voters.

As for MI and SC, it is all so fluid. I’m skeptical of Mitt in MI. Less so of McCain and Huckabee. They each have narratives with a proven ability to resonate in the here and now

As for SC, also fluid. It will be inteesting to see how the binary relationship between Huckabee and FDT plays out. Last nite FDT was feisty. And that isn’t good news for Huckabee especially if McCain wins MI. Under those circumstances a trailing but pugncious FDT could harm Huckabee most of all.

On the other hand, a Huckabee win in MI could make Huckabee unstoppable.

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