The White Stuff?

"A key supporter to former Sen. Fred Thompson joined a rival campaign Tuesday morning, telling The Hill that Thompson is clearly not intending to campaign seriously in the first-in-the-nation primary state.

"Former state Rep. Dan Hughes was in line to serve as Thompson's state chairman, but Hughes said Tuesday he is joining Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) campaign as state vice chairman instead. Thompson's apparent reluctance to campaign in the Granite State has rubbed many voters and officials there the wrong way, and it could get worse. One source told The Hill on Tuesday that Thompson is not planning to file to run there personally, sending a surrogate instead."

A surrogate? He can't be bothered to visit the first primary state?

The newly formed group Democratic Courage is planning ads that attack Hillary from the left. I may be wrong, but won't that make her look more moderate?

The Washington Monthly has a big piece on Rudy, and I'm getting the distinct impression that Kevin Drum is not a fan:

"Choosing the best presidential candidate among the 2008 contenders is a tough job. Picking the worst is easy. Rudy Giuliani is the guy you'd get if you put George Bush and Dick Cheney into a wine press and squeezed out their pure combined essence: unbounded arrogance and self-righteousness, a chip on his shoulder the size of a redwood, a studied contempt for anybody's opinion but his own, a vindictive streak a mile wide, and a devotion to secrecy and executive power unmatched in presidential history. He is a disaster waiting to happen."

Now is this a surge or what?

"Comedian Stephen Colbert is not a threat to win the presidency, but the odds are that that his satire will win plenty of laughs and maybe even some votes.

"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that Colbert is preferred by 13% of voters as an independent candidate challenging Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani. The survey was conducted shortly after Colbert's surprise announcement that he is lusting for the Oval Office."

Hey, they laughed at Ross Perot.

When it comes to backers of Ron Paul, the conservative blog Red State is saying thanks but no thanks:

"Effective immediately, new users may *not* shill for Ron Paul in any way shape, form or fashion. Not in comments, not in diaries, nada. If your account is less than 6 months old, you can talk about something else, you can participate in the other threads and be your zany libertarian self all you want, but you cannot pimp Ron Paul. Those with accounts more than six months old may proceed as normal.

"Now, I could offer a long-winded explanation for *why* this new policy is being instituted, but I'm guessing that most of you can probably guess. Unless you lack the self-awareness to understand just how annoying, time-consuming, and bandwidth-wasting responding to the same idiotic arguments from a bunch of liberals pretending to be Republicans can be. Which, judging by your comment history, you really don't understand, so allow me to offer an alternate explanation: we are a bunch of fascists and we're upset that you've discovered where we keep the black helicopters, so we're silencing you in an attempt to keep you from warning the rest of your brethren so we can round you all up and send you to re-education camps all at once.

"Hey, we're sure *some* of Ron Paul's supporters really are Republicans. They can post at any one of a zillion Ron Paul online forums."

Finally, a big setback for the New Republic in its effort to prove that the soldier once dubbed the Baghdad Diarist isn't a fabricator. And I finally find out why he canceled his interview with me.