"One of the two great regrets I have in life is I didn't serve in the military. I'd love to have, but I don't believe that you have to have served in the military to be a great commander in chief or to be a great foreign policy expert."

In articles like this one 14 months ago (in which I mistakenly predicted that Rudy Giuliani would not run -- but really, what's been the difference?), I predicted in essence that Romney's path to victory, if there was one, was to solidify his role as the anti-McCain and then hope that the movement conservatives would move heaven and earth (and millions of dollars) to kill the Arizona Senator.

Is Ted Kennedy about to endorse Barack Obama? That's the rumor, being pushed particularly by Mark Halperin -- and there doesn't seem to be much denial from any involved parties.

The endorsement would be fairly surprising and extremely significant, it seems to me. And, it would certainly add intrigue to the "Can Obama Take Massachusetts?" storyline I wrote about in the current issue of the Phoenix

Check out the anger -- and lack of confidence revealed in this poll conducted for WBZ right after the announcement of the big settlement. Two-thirds disapprove of the settlement. Three-quarters think Big Dig contractors should be held criminally liable. Three-quarters think Bechtel Parsons Brinkerhoff should be banned from future state or federal contracts.

The other candidates laid off of Romney tonight, and it really helped him -- he tends to do very poorly under attack. I tend to agree to an extent with Chuck Todd, who said after the debate on MSNBC that the candidates were restrained because this debate was their introduction to most Florida voters, unlike IA/NH/SC, where the candidates had campaigned so long the final debate was more like a closing argument.

Rudy Giuliani, who led in the South Carolina polls as late as October, finished with a humiliating 2% there, and got just 4% in Nevada -- giving him four sub-5% performances out of five contests. (And probably five out of six -- Wyoming, where he got no delegates, doesn't seem to have released actual vote tallies that I can find anywhere.