WHEN Michael Moore leaves the scene:

Via

FRED THOMPSON: “Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.”

THE Republican contest in Iowa has gotten dirty.

With just weeks to the Iowa Caucuses on January 3, Mitt Romney’s campaign has launched a low blow against Mike Huckabee’s stance on immigration.

Could these tactics have anything to do with the fact that Romney has fallen behind the cherubic wonder preacher Huckabee in recent Iowa polls?

John McCain’s camp said the ad was an insult to Iowa voters. And as if by magic, pro Huckabee ads have popped up touting his hard-line on immigration.

Don’t you just love that message at the end - “Authentic Conservative” - as though Huckabee’s rivals are just cheap, Chinese-made, knock-off conservatives. (Though that might go some way to explaining Fred Thompson’s failure to live up to expectations.)

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani’s team are facing questions over their candidate’s stance on homosexuality. It appears the former mayor of New York thinks homosexuality itself isn’t sinful, it’s just homosexual acts that are a one-way ticket to hell.

And Ron Paul’s supporters are convinced that the boos their candidate suffered during a recent debate were a set up by the Giuliani campaign.

Are the conspiracy theorists right? Or is it possible that saying you want to bring the troops home is not the best way of appealing to a room full of Republicans?

IN a sign of just how close the Republican race for the nomination is proving the candidates in last night’s YouTube/CNN debate turned on each other with ferocity.

With less than six weeks to go to the Iowa caucuses and less than two months to the first primaries, Mitt Romney traded barbs with Rudy Giuliani over illegal immigration.

Romney accused Giuliani of being soft on illegals’ rights and Giuliani accused Romney of turning a blind eye to illegal immigrants employed by a landscaping firm that worked at his home.

That mud might stick, but so did the boos of the audience as Giuliani repeated his accusations.

Meanwhile, Fred Thompson went on the attack with a YouTube video of his own, highlighting Romney’s past support for abortion and Mike Huckabee’s support for taxes.

There was barely any time to devote to pillorying that old chestnut, Hillary Clinton, as the candidates turned on each other over abortion, guns and tax.

Romney and John McCain clashed over torture. And Thompson attacked Giuliani for his support of Bernard B Kerik, the former New York police commissioner whom Giuliani appointed and who has recently been indicted on charges of fraud and tax evasion.

All in all, it hasn’t been a good 24 hours for the Giuliani campaign. Yesterday Politico.com reported that Giuliani billed obscure New York City agencies tens of thousands of dollars for a security detail in the Hamptons during 1999 and 2000 when he was having an extramarital affair with a woman who lived there.

The only crumb of comfort for Giluliani may be that commentators appear divided on who came out on top.

The New York Times Caucus blog said it was hard to pick a winner for the evening “because the fur was flying in all directions.”

The New York Post declared it Thompson’s best debate yet with Giulani appearing too liberal.

But Britain and America chose John McCain as the winner of the evening, talking well on immigration, foreign affairs and torture while Thompson lacking fluency, Giuliani was off form and Romney couldn’t shake accusations of flip flopping.

Meanwhile, Redstate went with Huckabee and McCain, accusing Giuliani and Romney of being so so, and Thompson of failing to deliver anything better than a few good one-liners.

All eyes would now turn to the CBS Democratic debate scheduled for December 10. But the debate has been canceled because of the writer’s strike and candidates’ unsurprising reticence to cross the picket lines.

NOPE it’s not the title sequences for a new sitcom. It’s the promo video for the CNN/YouTube Republican debate in Florida tomorrow night.

And with less than two months to go to the presidential primaries the debate actually promises to be a tad more exciting than this dreary promo suggests.

While Hillary Clinton continues her runaway lead among the Democrats, the Republican field remains wide open, with Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney constantly at each other’s throats, Mike Huckabee champing at the bit and John McCain and Fred Thompson battling hard to stay in the race.

Oh, and did we mention Ron Paul? His name seems to evade the mainstream media most of the time, but Paul continues to attract vehement support and piles of cash online.

But ahead of the debate, Mike Huckabee is hogging most of the limelight.

Huckabee’s latest ad portrays him for what he is: a good Christian candidate for President.

The ad may also contain a number of veiled digs at Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith and his flip-floping on issues such as abortion, according to the New York Times.

Either way, Huckabee’s appeal among socially conservative Christians is sure to hurt Romney, and by doing so help Giuliani.

Indeed, Huckabee’s recent surge in Iowa polls and his strong campaign has set tongues wagging about a possible partnership with Giuliani next year.

The New York Sun points out that Huckabee and Giuliani have refrained from criticizing each other as the campaign has intensified and that Huckabee has even taken Giuliani’s side in his recent spats with Romney.

Certainly, Giuliani could do with the conservative street cred of a former southern Baptist minister who so appeals to evangelical Christians.

FORMER Law and Order star Fred Thompson has taken something of a drubbing in this presidential race so far, lambasted by commentators on the left and right for running a damp squib of a campaign.

Only recently, Democratic consultant Bob Shrum accused Fred of “running like a dry creek.”

Finally, Fred can take it no more. He’s come out fighting. And his surprise target is Fox News.

But Fred’s had enough of all the bad press, Fox included. He’s sick of people talking about the fact that even his aides and advisors sometimes doubt his commitment. He’s sick of talk of his falling poll numbers in key states like New Hampshire.

What Fred wants to talk about is how well he’s doing in the country at large, where he’s currently running second in many national polls.

But if this guy can’t even make an argument with Chris Wallace look interesting, what hope has he?

It’s a pity considering Fred had been having such a good Thanksgiving weekend, visiting Land and Sky Gun Show in South Carolina where he declared it “a beautiful day in paradise” between cooing over an assortment of firearms.

Or was that just a coded message to Wallace and his colleagues? That they could be visiting paradise shortly courtesy of a Fred Thompson over-and-under Winchester shotgun if they don’t get those conservative pundits to start playing a different tune.

RUDY Giuliani could have a couple of problems on his hands.

While millionaire Mitt Romney buys his way to the White House on one side, the New York Sun points out that a dark horse social conservative has emerged on Giuliani’s flank.

That outsider is former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, who has come from nowhere to tie Rudy Giuliani for second place in the latest Iowa poll, a crucial early state in the presidential primaries.

The University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll shows Huckabee (12.8 percent) and Giuliani (13.1 percent) statistically tied, while Romney sits way out front with 36.2 percent. Huckabee polled just 1.8 percent in a similar poll in August.

His surge is impressive considering Huckabee has spent just $1.7 million on his campaign so far, compared to Romney, who has spent $53.6 million, and Giuliani, who has spent $30.6 million.

Huckabee is one of the few Republican candidates who appeals to social conservatives. He is an ordained Southern Baptist minister. And he attracted more than half the votes of delegates to a recent Values Voter summit in Washington.

He is tough on immigration and tough on corporate pay. And he has the added advantage of being able to boast that he has fought the Clintons in their Arkansas backyard. Yesterday he told politico.com that he had beaten the “Clinton political machine” four times.

Nationally, Giuliani still leads the Republican pack with 20 percent in the polls. Fred Thompson and John McCain follow with 19 percent and 14 percent respectively.

But it’s Huckabee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney who appear to be gaining all the traction. Watch this space.

WITH less than three months to go before Americans decide which two candidates will square off in the Presidential election, all eyes are fixed on the Republicans.

It’s not that Hillary Clinton’s Democratic nomination is assured. It’s just the race between the Republicans is closer, and turning a little bitchier.

At last night’s Republican debate in Florida, Fred “Fading Fast” Thompson, John “Vietnam Vet” McCain, Mitt “Don’t Mention Mormonism” Romney and Rudy “9/11″ Giuliani exchanged barbs.

Thompson and McCain both played up their conservative credentials attacking Romney and Giuliani for their liberal records on issues such as gay marriage and abortion. Meanwhile, Giuliani played the “I Made New York a Safer Place” card while the telegenic Romney talked up his successes as a Republican governor of a Democrat-dominated Massachusetts state legislature.

When they weren’t bashing each other, the Republicans were attacking Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. McCain scored the biggest hit of the night, criticizing Clinton’s support for a $1 million museum to commemorate the Woodstock Festival that took place while McCain was a PoW in Vietnam.

“Now my friends I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event,” he said, before adding, “I was tied up at the time” to a round of applause and a standing ovation.

Whoever goes on to face the Democrats won’t necessarily be quaking in their boots if they face Clinton. A recent Zogby poll showed that half of Americans would never vote for her, compared to 43% who said they would never vote for Giuliani and 42% who said they would never vote for Romney.

At the other end of the poll, Democratic candidates Barack Obama (37%) and Bill Richardson (34%) fared much better. Richardson, who recently released a humorous video telling voters about his career, has turned to more serious subject matter. His latest campaign ad trumpets his success freeing a pair of American hostages in Iraq.

PRESIDENTIAL hopeful and former TV star Fred Thompson survived yesterday’s Republican debate. But he failed to make a big enough dent to emerge as a strong contender for the Republican ticket. That title seems firmly attached to frontrunners Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

While pre-debate attention had been all Thompson, post debate attention was firmly focused on a heated exchange between Romney and Giuliani over taxation and spending. The two have been engaged in a war of words over the issue via speeches and press releases during the past week, with each accusing the other of raising taxes during their respective administrations.

The majority of the US press pack couldn’t fault Thompson’s performance. But expectations were exceedingly low after a couple of campaign trail gaffes and a growing reputation for sending voters to sleep.

Thompson stood up to the test. He even managed to make light of a critique from Mitt Romney that he joined the race six months later than his rivals. Romney suggested the campaign was a bit like Law & Order, in that it has a huge cast, seems to go on forever, “and Fred Thompson shows up at the end.”

Thompson countered: “And to think I was going to be the best actor on the stage.”

But while Thompson will be happy that he didn’t attract the predicted headlines.He may also have been disappointed to be eclipsed by Giuliani and Romney, who dominated the debate according to the New York Times. Despite a gallant effort, John Podhoretz, writing in the New York Post, declared that Thompson simply lacked the energy to make it to the White House.

So with Thompson’s chances getting slimmer by the day, and Giuliani and Romney dominating the headlines, it’s looking increasingly like a two-horse race for the Republican nomination.