It’s an editors advice for frontpage choices, but if you’re running a presidential campaign, you bleed before you’re stuffed, cooked and eaten. Nowhere is that more evident than in the case of the late, semi-successful Rudy Giuliani, who will never rise above his atation as a halfway decent big city mayor.

Everybody’s listing him as their choice for bridesmaid now but only Judi Nathan chose to marry him. His strength was always in the big three states of New York, Florida and California but now that he’s fallen to third in Florida, there’s simply no momentum left to sustain him. And to the left and right of him, more bleeders abound.

With Jeb Bush’s aspirations for higher office ruined by one of his corrupt brothers, he decided to go for the backroom kingmaker role, latching on to Mitt Romney and selling him to every CEO he could corner. Lots of circumstantial evidence since has accrued that he was the designated heir to the Bush family throne. But Big Dig Mitt has proven as warm as a nuzzle with a mountain lake trout and Mitt’s advantages everywhere have gone from sizzle to fizzle, except in tiny New Hampshire which means he only will carry half a delegate to the Republican convention, as soon as New Hampshire can find a suitable trout-loving dwarf.

While he’s shown some climb during Rudy’s fall, it’s clear that the South still prefers Southerners and the major momentum up north, even in his Daddy’s home state, is slipping away to others. Rumor has it he’s still confident he can carry Utah if he can persuade enough of them that Mormonism isn’t some freakish cult.

McCain’s performance remains too spotty from one state to the next to be considered a leading candidate. He could still pull it off, but only if the rest of the momentum candidates self destruct.

Two weeks ago, I said the polls this week would define who’s likely to be the nominees. And I’m ready to make the call on the Republican side. The Iowa Independent Power Rankings are closest to the mark… and a hat tip to Mark for that link.

This is Mike Huckleberry’s race to lose, and that Science Denier clearly has the credentials to prove to everyone yet that faith can triumph over provable truth if your nation’s public education has been sufficiently destroyed by Zombie Republicans who continue to thrive from eating brains. Romney will be able to stay in the race on the strength of cash from the Zombie Corporations who fear that Huckleberry’s anti-social conservatives will eat their children’s brains, too. Yet there’s still the no-longer crazy chance that Ron Paul’s economic libertarianism and anti-interventionism will even surpass Romney and land him in second place after the first two primaries.

If that occurs, the scramble for second place that follows could result in a rush to Romney or McCain by supporters of Rudy, Tancredo and Hunter, pushing Paul back to at least third place.

Unless Republicans wake up to the surreality of Huckleberry’s Anti-Reality campaign, he could pull off an outright win in the primaries. While the odds are high he’ll have a convincing lead by May, there remains a distinct chance that a brokered convention could occur with Huckleberry, Romney and McCain likely to provide both members of the eventual ticket.

That’s what the polls say to me. Next up: the Democrats.