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Rudy Giuliani couldn’t even quit first.

So much for the know-it-alls who predicted big things still in store for John Edwards, whose small but solid support in the proportionally awarded Democratic primaries may have given him a powerful delegate voice at the national convention. Provided he pulled at least fifteen percent of the vote in any of Super Tuesday’s contests, Edwards stood to gain a noticeable slice of the pie—some suggested as many as 400 or 500 delegates—a bargaining chip to shop around some of his key agendas to the frontrunners if the Clinton/Obama race to the nomination remains close.

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Florida is where New Yorkers go to die.

Unsurprising, then, that Rudy Giuliani’s campaign, which had started in the grandeur of double-digit leads in national polls, would crawl from bungalow to bungalow on the I-4 corridor before unceremoniously collapsing in tatty defeat at his headquarters in Orlando. Reeling from a crushing 15 percent third-place finish behind $30 million ad-man Mitt Romney and undisputed frontrunner John McCain, and barely edging ahead of Mike Huckabee -- who grabbed 14 percent of the vote despite running his entire campaign on $17.62, a bass guitar, Chuck Norris’ soul-smashing fists and two hands on a Bible -- Mr. America’s Mayor radiated resignation in his concession speech. “You should be very proud of your participation in that process!” Giuliani gamely acknowledged his young supporters for their efforts in his campaign. That’s the new motto of the Join Rudy campaign: Proud Participant.

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Forgive the President for appearing exceedingly relaxed during his last State of the Union. Sporting the air of resignation that a student council president uses when reminding revelers to drive home safely from the prom -- long after the cool kids have moved on to hotel rooms and tomorrow’s conquests -- President George W. Bush struck both accusatory and pleading tones while addressing both houses of Congress in his bid to make the most of his final year in office. With no GOP presidential candidates in attendance (McCain didn’t bother to return from stumping in Florida), Hillary Clinton chumming with Senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, and Barack Obama sitting side-by-side with newfound cheerleader Ted Kennedy (and one seat away from Colorado’s Ken Salazar), all that was missing from Bush’s 53-minute lame-duck speech was Bob Dylan in the First Lady’s Box whistling “The Times They Are A-Changin.’”

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Mississippi

Total Number of Delegates: 40
Pledged: 33
Unpledged: 7

How to Recognize a Mississippi Delegate:
Due to a prolonged history of ill-timed natural disasters and social injustice, Mississippi today is the poorest state in the nation. Fortunately, that poverty has created a form of super-human state resident. Take, for example, Oprah and Elvis. She is the richest woman alive, and he's the richest dead man in the world. Both natives were able to harness their hardships and use them to become international inspirations. Mississippi is also the birthplace of the blues and the epicenter of the Southern Gothic literary style. Clearly, Mississippians can rely on intuition, irony and social events to transcend the underlying dreadfulness of the American experience! This phenomenon is best illustrated in the 1967 Bobbie Gentry hit, "Ode to Billie Joe." In the song, Mama states that the word from Choctaw Ridge is that "Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge." Then Papa dryly surmises, "Well, Billie Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please." Simply stated, matter-of-fact Mississippians ignore the unsolvable problems and get on with enjoying the simple things in life. It's the mantra of Elvis and Oprah. In Denver, look for Mississippi delegates wherever lemons are being made into lemonade. All Mississipians spend their summers in oversized T-shirts referred to as “Mississippi muumuus.” Favorite graphics will include single images, or combinations, of howling coyotes, Bible passages and patriotism.

Famous Mississippians:
Puppet masters Jim Henson and Oprah Winfrey; civil-rights activists Ida B. Wells and Medgar Evers; writers William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty and Muna Lee; musicians John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Bo Diddley, Sam Cooke, Bobbie Gentry, Jimmy Buffet, Lance Bass and Faith Ford; actors Eric Roberts, Sela Ward and (Mr. Delta Burke) Gerald McRaney; athletes Archie Manning, Walter Payton, Jerry Riceand Brett Favre.

Famous Democrats From Mississippi:
Former lieutenant governor Evelyn Gandy and former Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry.

Famous Mississippians With Denver Connections:
Regis College Old Main "Pink Palace" architect Henry Dozier; American Basketball Association Denver Rocket Spencer Haywood; former astronaut and current director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden Richard Truly; University of Denver creative writing professor Selah Saterstrom.

State Nickname: The Magnolia State (official); The Mud-cat State, The Mud-waddler State, The FEMA-trailer State (unofficial)
Population: 2,910,540
Racial Distribution: 59% white, 37% black, 1% Asian, 1% Native American, 2% Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $23,448
Unemployment: 6.6%

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As predicted earlier today, Fred Thompson is dropping out of the Republican race -- but sadly, his spot at Law & Order has already been filled by Sam Waterston, whose own foray into politics for Unity '08 has been less than overwhelming.

Too bad, because several other L&O cast-mates would make great candidates. Here's how the potential Rerunning Mates rated last spring. -- Patricia Calhoun

After his sad 16 percent in South Carolina, it looks like Fred Thompson will be calling it quits before closing arguments in the next real presidential trials: Florida, and then February 5's Super Tuesday. But he has only himself to blame. When former senator Thompson was playing district attorney Arthur Branch in Law & Order, his end-of-the-episode appearances had a certain gravitas. But by Labor Day, when he finally made official his long-rumored run for the Republican nomination, it was late in the game. Too late.

And now the verdict is in: Not only did Thompson blow his presidential chances, but his misguided run also hurt Law & Order. With Thompson removed from the cast, longtime star Sam Waterston finally moved up from deputy DA to the top slot -- which gives Jack McCoy some long-delayed recognition, but also gives Waterston less time on screen. The result is a show almost as dull as Thompson's presidential run.

Objection, your honor. -- Patricia Calhoun

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Minnesota

Total Number of Delegates: 88
Pledged: 72
Unpledged: 16

How to Recognize a Minnesota Delegate:
Most Americans' knowledge about Minnesota comes from the movie Fargo, which was written and directed by natives Joel and Ethan Coen. Actress Frances McDormand (real-life wife of Joel) won the 1996 Best Actress Academy Award for her stunning ability to portray character Marge Gunderson's personality trait of "Minnesota Nice." Minnesotans sure seem nice on the outside, but inside they are a lukewarm hot dish of passive-aggressiveness. Their smiles are just disguised resistance to the demands and desires of friends and family. And it's no wonder: 93% of all the people who are born in Minnesota die in Minnesota. They have an entire lifetime for their familiarity to breed contempt. Which also explains why state founders chose the gopher (over the beaver) as the state symbol. Like niceties, gophers are essentially useless, and the farther they burrow down, the more destructive they become. So keep that in mind when encountering the gopher-toothed grins of delegates from Minnesota. Females will tend to wear Isaac Mizrahi for Target blazers, skirts and pants that fit nicely and won't reveal any figure flaws. Males will wear the brightly colored yet long-suffering Zubaz pants with untucked Spam brand luncheon-meat logo T-shirts and leather fanny packs with the pouch in front.

Famous Minnesotans:
Land O' Lakes butter babe Minnehaha; Frostbite Falls duo Rocket J. (Rocky) Squirrel and Bullwinkle Moose; brawny Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe; tender, flakey Betty Crocker and the Pillsbury Doughboy; Peanuts gang Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, Schroeder, Snoopy, Lucy and Linus Van Pelt; WJM-TV's girl who’s “gonna make it after all," Mary Richards; Golden Girl Rose Nylund; professional wrestling governor Jesse Ventura.

Famous Minnesota Democrats:
38th vice president of the United States Hubert H. Humphrey; 42nd vice president of the United States Walter Mondale; presidential aspirant Paul Wellstone.

Famous Minnesotans With Denver Connections:
Colorado Avalanche defenseman Jordan Leopold; comedian Josh Blue.

State Nickname: Star of the North, The Gopher State, Land of 10,000 Lakes (official). The Yeah, Sure, Ya Betcha State, The Bread and Butter State, The Crapload of Bad Weather State, The Hot Dish State, Spamlandia (unofficial)
Population: 5,167,101
Racial Distribution: 86% white, 4.5% black, 3.5% Asian, 1% Native American, 5% Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $34,443
Unemployment: 5%

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Imagine yourself on February 5. It's caucus time in Colorado and you and your fellow Obama supporters have gathered at your local Democratic Party precinct and are ready to start making your argument for why the Illinois senator is right for Colorado, right for the Democratic Party, right for America.

The leader of your cadre of Obama supporters stands up and belts out the first line of the group's practiced call-and-response platform speech.

"Who's going titty fucking?" she shouts.
"We're going titty fucking!" cry the ardent Juggalos and Jugglettes for Obama supporters.

A Clinton supporter stands up, beginning to argue the virtues of his candidate, but the Juggalos and Jugglettes for Obama quickly interrupt with a rousing chorus of "Bitch, you's a ho! And ho, you's a bitch!"

It's a surreal scene, but one that someone at the Obama campaign seems to think might help their candidate on his way to the White House.

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No matter what you think about cute-as-a-kewpie-doll Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, you have to hand it to the former Arkansas governor for rocking out on the campaign trail. His classic rock cover band, Capitol Offense, has performed semi-regularly throughout Huckabee’s presidential run, caressing audiences with tunes like “Free Bird,” “Honky Tonk Woman,” and “Roll Over Beethoven.” Made up of former staffers, an Arkansas pastor, an investment banker, and an accountant and a math teacher that attend church with the candidate, the outfit will play again on Sunday at a barbecue on Chuck Norris’s ranch outside of Houston.

But long before Norris buoyed Huckabee as a Republican frontrunner, the band performed at Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

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Michigan

Total Number of Delegates: 157
Pledged: 128
Unpledged: 29

How to Recognize a Michigan Delegate:
Michigan has a lot to answer for. Two of the nation's greatest problems, aside from Mitt Romney and Madonna, can be blamed on industries based in Michigan. Global warming is the spawn of Detroit's auto industry, and America's obesity epidemic can ultimately be traced back to the unholy alliance between Monroe-based La-Z-Boy recliners and Marshall's Homemade Fudge of Mackinac Island. Clearly, Michiganders love to live life while comfortably seated, whether behind the wheel of an automobile or parked at the snack tray in front of their televisions. But that doesn’t mean they’re lazy: From their sedentary positions, Michiganders have created the American Autoworkers Union, the largest labor organization in North America. They are fully aware of the importance of the American worker and manufacturing to the United States economy. They always look for the "Made in America" union label when shopping for everything from cars to clothes. This is why Michigan delegates will stand out from the rest. They'll look vaguely like cable installers or warehouse counter help, because they wear American-made clothes from Dearborn-based Carhartt. Both sexes will dress in carpenter jeans and nylon insulated vests. Male delegates will tend to coordinate their look with a long-sleeved Tradesman Workshirt, while females typically pick the dressier Snap-front Twill Workshirt.

Famous Michiganders:
Automotive pioneers Henry Ford and John Dodge; furniture designer Florence Knoll; superstar Madonna and her sidekick, Sandra Bernhard; Motowners Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder; rockers Alice Cooper, Anthony Kiedis and Kid Rock; Insane Clowns Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler; singer-songwriters Glenn Frey and Sufjan Stevens; Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelly; GOP pop stars Sonny Bono, Ted Nugent and Mitt Romney; Saturday Night Live cast members Gilda Radner, Tim Meadows and David Spade; comedic geniuses Lily Tomlin and Andy Richter; Star Wars voice-over actors David Allen Grier and James Earl Jones; film director John Hughes; shockumentarian Michael Moore; cartoonists Windsor McCay and Craig Thompson; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jeffrey Eugenides.

Famous Michigan Democrats:
Current longest-serving congressman John Dingell; current second-longest-serving congressman John Conyers, senior senator Carl Levin; junior senator Debbie "D-Stabs" Stabinow; Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick.

Famous Michiganders With Denver Connections:
9News entertainment diva Kirk Montgomery; CBS4 entertainment dingus Greg Moody; News2 reporter Jann Tracey; Rattlebrainer Jeff Kosloski; chanteuse Dianne Reeves; ex-Broncos quarterback Craig Morton.

State Nickname: The Great Lakes State, The Wolverine State (official); The Frosted Flakes State, Pot Hole Paradise (unofficial)
Population: 10,095,643
Racial Distribution: 78% white, 14% black, 3% Asian, 1% Native American, 4% Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $30,439
Unemployment: 7.4%

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Get all the news you need, and more, from the New Hampshire primaries tonight at the Elephants In The Room blog of our Minneapolis sister paper, City Pages, as they liveblog all the ins and outs of this evening's masterpiece of political theater. Sure they're 1,000 miles away, but this is the digital age and you can travel at the speed of light on the information super highway of magical ideas and unicorns.

The choice is clear, New Hampshire. At least for those of you Granite State Republicans. Vermin Supreme. Vermin is officially on the primary ballot, and with such pledges as mandatory toothbrushes, time traveling to forceful abort Mrs. Hitler's gestating catastrophe, and no flying monkeys in the city of New York, there's really no option. Vote Vermin.

New Hampshire votes today, but Denver still has plenty of work to do before February 5, or Super Duper Tuesday as it’s known, when Colorado and 23 other states pick their nominees for president. The Democratic Party, especially, needs to build a massive base of volunteers, and not just wonks who can use the word caucus as a noun, a verb and an adjective. They need people to stuff envelopes, post signs and shuttle paperwork. And that's just the beginning, because by the time the Democratic National Convention rolls into town in August – along with 35,000 guests – the party will need a small city of 10,000 volunteers, according to Sondra Williams, volunteer for the convention’s host committee.

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Massachusetts

Total Number of Delegates: 121
Pledged: 93
Unpledged: 28

How to Recognize a Massachusetts Delegate: Massholes. It's the name that everyone from Maine to Maryland loves to call the residents of Massachusetts. Oh, sure, it's funny, but it's not entirely true. Well, it's true on weekdays during rush hours in Boston and every day during the month of August along U.S. Highway 1 in Maine, where everyone from Massachusetts is vacationing. Don't take their hoots and horns personally — Bay Staters just love to provoke people! Massachusetts is the most liberal state in the U.S., and it's just natural for its residents to favor their maximum personal liberty by reforming the behaviors of everyone else, from those in their immediate vicinity to the nation at large. They are easy to recognize because they like their clothes like they like their politicians: tight. Bay Staters have never let reality interfere with their idealized version of themselves or America. During the convention, look for Massachusetts delegates to be wearing their tiny-bit-too-snug 2007 World Series Championship T-shirts. It is as much a display of pride as it is an effort to provoke the locals.

Famous Massachusettsans:
Artists Winslow Homer and James Whistler; boxer Rocky Marciano; industry titan Jack Welch, actors Steve Carell, Matt Damon, Matt LeBlanc, Leonard Nimoy and Matthew Perry; actresses Jane Curtin, BetteDavis, Olympia Dukakis, Agnes Moorehead, Amy Poehler and Uma Thurman; writers Horatio Alger, Emily Dickenson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Dr. Seuss, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Sylvia Plath; surf guitarist Dick Dale; Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry; White Zombie lead singer Rob Zombie; and New Kids on the Block singers Jordan Knight, Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood.

Famous Massachusetts Democrats:
35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy; Senator Robert F. Kennedy; Senator Edward Kennedy; 1988 presidential candidate Michael "Tank" Dukakis; 2004 presidential candidate John "Swift Boat" Kerry.

Famous Massachusettsans With Denver Connections:
Indian activist/writer Helen Hunt Jackson; beatnik/writer Jack Kerouac; actor/writer Kurt Russell (Aspen); Denver Broncos center Tom Nalen; CBS4 weekend news anchor Alan Gionet.

State Nickname: The Bay State
Population: 6,437,193
Racial Distribution: 79% white, 7% black, 5% Asian, 1% Native
American 8% Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $39,815
Unemployment: 5%

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Maryland

Number of Delegates: 99
Pledged: 70
Unpledged: 29

How to Recognize a Maryland Delegate:
Chesapeake is the Susquehannock Indian word for "great blue crab bay." So when the land surrounding the bay was granted to Lord Baltimore in 1632, he wanted to call his new colony "Crustacea." But King Charles I of England had his own idea for the colony, which was created to keep Catholics out of Virginia. At the time, a Catholic person was known as a "Mary," so Charles named it "Maryland." Since that moment, Maryland and Virginia have been locked in the nation's most prolonged feud. The battle has raged over blue-crabfishing boundaries in Chesapeake Bay, extended through the Civil War (with Confederate Virginia "retroceding" on the land deal made with Union Maryland for the creation of the national capital at Washington, D.C.), and continues to this day as a Blue State vs. Red State grudge match. Predominantly Democratic Maryland has adopted the state motto of "Manly Deeds, Womanly Words" as a way of honoring its catholic pragmatism and differentiating itself from the selfish barbarism of predominantly Republican Virginia. Maryland delegates will dress the part, too, with males showing a preference for the pleated-front performance golf slacks by homegrown clothier JoS. A. Banks and females displaying a fondness for Under Armour Advantage skirts and polo sets. And nothing makes a Marylander happier than to find these items at a well-stocked Goodwill Superstore in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Famous Marylanders:
Jazz greats Eubie Blake, Billy Holiday and Bill Frisell; Good Charlotte twins Benji and Joel Madden; pop-rockers Cass Elliot, Ric Ocasek, JC (’N Sync) Chasez and Lisa Loeb; minimalist composer Philip Glass; father of trance BT (Brian Wayne Transeau); Mother ofInvention Frank Zappa; film directors Barry Levinson and John Waters; actors John Astin, Linda Hamilton, David Hasselhoff and Divine (Glenn Milstead); writers Tom Clancy and Leon Uris; journalists H.L. Mencken and Matt Drudge; world's fastest swimmer Michael Phelps; outsider artists Mama Girl and Dominic Farmer.

Famous Maryland Democrats:
21st ambassador to France, first director of the Peace Corps and father of California First Lady Maria Shriver Schwarzenegger Sargent Shriver; fifth lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; sixtieth Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi; former U.S. representative and former president and CEO of the NAACP Kweisi Mfume.

Famous Marylanders With Denver Connections:
Perky 9News morning anchor Kyle Dyer; quirky 7News sports anchor Lionel Bienvenu; murky Denver FBI office boss Robert J. Garrity Jr.; University of Denver women's lacrosse head coach Liza Kelley.

State Nickname: the Old Line State (official); America in Miniature (Unofficial)
Official Language: Balmorese, the English dialect of Balmer, Merlin (Baltimore, Maryland)
Population: 5,615,727
Racial Distribution: 59% white, 29% black, 6% Asian, 6% Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $37,331
Unemployment: 4.5%

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