You may not have gotten the memo, but it’s a two-way race now. Neither Mike Huckabee nor Ron Paul will be the Republican nominee for President. If you are still leaning toward supporting either of them as of this date, here’s what to do:

1. If you support Huckabee because you (1) are a RINO, (2) would like to see the border busted wide open, (3) don’t trust Mitt Romney on guns or abortion, (4) suffer from RDS/LDSDS to a degree rivaling Michael Moore’s BDS, or (5) can’t bring yourself to support anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line, vote for McCain.
2. If you support Huckabee because you have a soft spot in your heart for violent thugs who do vicious things to other people, don’t bother voting for either McCain or Romney, as both will sorely disappoint. Vote for Obama in the Democratic primary instead.
3. If you support Huckabee because you (1) are a social conservative, (2) support the First Amendment, (3) consider successful executive experience a prerequisite to a successful Presidency or (4) suffer from MDS, vote for Romney.
4. If you support Ron Paul because you support limited government, fiscal conservatism and/or border control, vote for Romney.
5. If you support Ron Paul for any other reason, don’t vote at all.

Via Uncly-Wuncly, Sebastian notes that while killing a woman doesn’t enrage feminists, endorsing a black man does. Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that. Per NOW, it is OK to endorse a black man, but only if he killed a woman.

Accident taxes.

Full disclosure: I work for an insurance company that has little choice but to pay for this bad idea, and pass the cost of this bad idea along to you. If that turns the bad idea into a good idea in your book, so be it.

The other day, I told Mrs. X about my brilliant new business idea: come up with a series of children’s TV shows that will actually make kids smarter, and name the series “Little Retards.” Mrs. X thought it was a horrible idea, but grudgingly admitted there are worse ones out there.

Trying hard to find a silver lining in the Florida primary, but not finding much. Here’s the best I can come up with.

• Guiliani had a nice concession speech, complete with one last swipe at the village idiot, who never had a chance of winning any elections, but whose spambots did a terrific job of ensuring that he won all the debates.
• Speaking of the village idiot, it looks like he got a whopping 3% of the vote. Granted, this comes as the price of knowing that 97% of Florida Republicans hate the Constitution, but I’ll take what I can get.
• Phuckabee did horrendously. Cutting against that is the fact that he’s running on a “Hate Romney” platform these days, suggesting that his 13% would go straight to McCain if he dropped out tomorrow.
• On the Democrat side, Shrillary’s electoral bait and switch became really transparent a week before Super Tuesday. Cutting against this is that this is the Democrat primary we are talking about. If eight years of Clinton Presidency in the 1990s wasn’t enough to turn them off to the sleazy duo, this lame stunt probably won’t be, either.

Time to hold our collective noses and get behind Romney. He’s far from perfect, but he’s a lot better than anyone else left in the race. And no, deliberately losing is not a strategy. When even Andrew Sullivan can attack you and make sense, that’s the signal that you’re drunk and it’s time to take a cab home.

UPDATE: Patterico agrees, while Uncle thinks I’m stupid. They’re probably both right.

It pains me to say this, but I think this brief pretty well puts a fork in the idea of linguistics as a science.

If your first name rhymes with either “racy” or “spacey,” don’t marry a guy named Peterson.

Ha, ha.

UPDATE: Ha.

What to do? I say, support Guiliani or Romney, in that order, as long as either is viable. If, God forbid, we end up with McCain or even Huckabee as the nominee, hold your nose and cast a vote for the guy who will suck just as bad as Hillary or Obama for the next four years, but appoint a Supreme Court that won’t for the next 20.

What say you?

The good: Michelle proudly announces the end of Huckabee. I think the statement is premature but the writing’s on the wall. If a Southern Baptist minister can’t win in South Carolina, where else will his support base come from? Also, while I am grudgingly evolving toward supporting Romney by default, it was nice to see at least one race where he placed too low to trot out his tired Olympics clichés. I suppose he could still say he’s collected a few golds here, a silver or two there, a bronze in that other place, and a scrap-metal in South Carolina. Also good is that Duncan Hunter has dropped out. Nothing against the guy - well, plenty against his protectionist policies, but that’s neither here nor there - but he never had a chance to win, merely to pull away a few conservative votes from other, more viable candidates. And given his dismal performance in SC, he didn’t even do much of that.

The bad: Fred? is toast. That plus the fact that McCain won. He’s better than the Huckster, and would surely make a better Prez than Billary III or Obama, but that’s not saying much. The best thing about McCain is that while he’ll never personally abandon his support for First Amendment Reform, at least there’s a decent chance he’ll appoint Supreme Court Justices who will do the job for him. Maybe. Also bad: Rong Paul came in second in NV. Now my crazy next door neighbor will probably go out and get five more Ron Paul signs for the few portions of his front yard that don’t already have them. Then, as a coup de grace, he’ll get one more sign with a big arrow pointing toward my house, saying “don’t even think of buying this house, or you’ll end up living next door to a kook like me!”