Matt Ortega

According to the Associated Press, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani pulled a Katherine Harris.

CONCORD, N.H. — Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani released his latest slate of New Hampshire supporters last week. One problem: Not all of them back the former New York City mayor.

Alongside a former state GOP chairman, a congressman and an executive councilor who do support Giuliani, a handful of people made the list of 125 supporters despite their objections.

Huffington Post, Yahoo and Slate Magazine will team up with PBS newsman Charlie Rose to conduct the first-ever web-only presidential debate. Reports are that the debates, one for both Democratic and Republican candidates, will be held following Labor Day.

The announcement is set for tomorrow, according to the Associated Press.

“It was clear to me, the 2008 campaign was going to be dominated by what’s happening on line _ new technologies, new media like never before,” Huffington said. She then contacted Rose and Slate editor Jacob Weisberg to form a partnership to produce the forums.

Yahoo Inc., the largest provider of online news, will host the debates and provide the technological expertise to produce them.

Candidates will be able to participate from far-flung locations, speaking and interacting with one another before separate video cameras. The video will also appear on the Slate and Huffington Post Web sites.

Mission accomplished. The Right’s Field and her allies have prevailed.

Has it crossed your mind that this may be an extremely rough primary in 2008? I asked him.

“It has, and it will be,” Giuliani replied. But he also said he did not think the attacks would come directly from other Republican presidential candidates.

“I think more of this comes from the atmosphere in the blogging atmosphere, in the instant news atmosphere, and the minute analysis atmosphere,” he said.

Thanks for reading, Rudy.

Bumped & Updated below

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) reported fundraising numbers of $12.5 million for the first quarter, behind the figures produced by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. (Read more figures here.)

Republican Q1 Fundraising Figures
Romney: $23 million (including over $2 million transferred)
Giuliani: $15 million
McCain: $12.5 million

With McCain’s front-runner status wrested away by Giuliani and lagging in the race for money, McCain did have a bright spot: he has nearly twice as many contributors than Romney — 60,000 to 33,000.

There are grumblings as to what McCain’s cash on hand is, given his all-start cast of GOP attack dogs.

[Updated by MBH @ 10:42, 4/3/07]:

The AP is reporting that Brownback and Huckabee have released there numbers:

Brownback: $1.9 million (includes $575,000 transferred from Senate account)
Huckabee: $500,000

Both Brownback and Huckabee were beat by Democratic Senator Joe Biden, a man who has zero chance to win his party’s nomination. I think Brownback and Huckabee are in danger of running campaigns that are a little too grass roots.

Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor, took the gloves off in speaking to Republicans on their disastrous personal lives:

“If Republicans in this election vote in such a way as to say a candidate’s personal life and personal conduct in office doesn’t matter, then a lot of Christian evangelical leaders owe Bill Clinton a public apology.”

(Hat tip: Political Wire)