It’s still a bit early, so the Republican result is not certain, but if Romney should lose it will reinforce the impression that, having tried to buy his way to a victory through massive ad buys (3x McCain’s advertising), he could not persuade most voters to bring themselves to vote for the man even though they probably saw his ads more often than almost anyone else’s in the last week.  There will be a temptation in the pro-Romney conservative media to blame Huckabee for a Romney loss, because he seems to have pulled away many of the same kinds of voters that backed Romney, but Giuliani’s role in siphoning off likely McCain voters will have to be kept in mind.  Huckabee’s result will hurt him, but he has a future at least through next week.  Giuliani has little reason to continue.  Certainly, Giuliani can help the establishment and keep holding down McCain’s vote by pulling away supporters, but so long as Huckabee ties up a sizeable part of the conservative vote it won’t do Romney any good.  Nothing compels Romney to withdraw, but he has few likely prospects for success next week if he loses tonight.

Wait a minute.  Why is Obama giving his own response to the SOTU?  Didn’t Sebelius already say everything for him?  He sounds surprisingly combative and not very “post-partisan.”  Obama pushes back on the rhetoric about the “surge,” insisting on holding the administration accountable for its claims that progress on the Iraqi political track was the purpose of the “surge.”  On this he is entirely right–it is the only thing he is right about–but he doesn’t talk about this nearly often enough.  The “politics of fear” also make a guest appearance.  He rehashes many of the points from his South Carolina victory speech.

In a couple months, I will be the best man at a friend’s wedding in Taipei and then turn around the next day and come back home to get back to work on Tuesday.  That old saw that the journey is what matters must be right, since I will probably be spending more time on the journey than I will in Taiwan.  Anyway, here’s the point of this post:  I have never taken a trans-Pacific flight before, much less taken two of them virtually back-to-back as if I were engaged in shuttle diplomacy with Japan.  Does anyone out there have advice for preparing for the insane jetlag that this will cause?  (I know what you will say: don’t fly back from Taiwan the day after you arrive.) 

P.S. If conscious and coherent, I will attempt to take some pictures of Taipei for the blog.

And isn’t that a fitting end for the Bush Administration: resurrecting the best of the Bob Dole 1996 campaign… ~Andrei Cherny

It is all the more fitting when you consider that McCain is on the verge of launching the Bob Dole Mk II down in Florida, and represents mind-numbing continuity with the administration on a host of major policies.

A final thought on the now-preposterous notion that anyone would select Kathleen Sebelius as a running mate: if Obama chose the female governor of Kansas, wouldn’t that be over-egging the Obama symbolic biography pudding just a bit?

The shameless insertion of the Kennedy line on the day of Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama is the epitome of a partisan argument: we are the New American Majority, we are the New Frontier.

P.S. Did she just wish the President a good night’s sleep?  That was weird.

Update: Word is that Sebelius is endorsing Obama tomorrow, which may help him a bit in Kansas next week.  For his sake, I hope that she delivers a better endorsement speech than she did a SOTU response.

“Caring for our children…is what grow-ups do.”  Apparently, grown-ups do this by passing federal subsidies.  This speech is a guarantee that no one will confuse Gov. Sebelius with a potential vice presidential pick ever again.

“Each of you is, above all, an American.”  I was wrong.  Sebelius is going to rehash Obama’s stump speech.  She’s right about the eye-rolling line.  The eyes are still rolling.