A new Marist poll released yesterday suggests that a Rudy Giuliani vs. Kirsten Gillibrand matchup for a U.S. Senate seat from New York would go to the former New York City Mayor, by a hefty margin -- he leads her by 54-40 percent in a hypothetical 2010 contest, according to the latest survey.

Meanwhile, the same poll shows Giuliani trailing potential Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo by a margin of 53-43 percent in a hypothetical 2010 contest for governor.

This backs up the argument I made in this piece yesterday, that Giuliani's apparent decision to pass on the Governor's race -- and give up a chance at a job for which he would be well suited, to run instead for a job that would likely drive him crazy -- is largely a function of his belief that he would have an easier time winning a contest for the U.S. Senate than for the governorship.

Writing about a well-researched subject is a daunting task. How can you, as an author, find something new and/or interesting to say about something that’s been written about a dozen, or several score, or even hundreds of times?

Craig Shirley has definitively answered that question: Give them the back story — and the back story on the back story.

In other words, sometimes, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.

In “Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America,” Shirley goes where, at last count, roughly 900 authors — including Lou Cannon, William F. Buckley Jr., Martin and Annelise Anderson, Steven Hayward, Richard Reeves, Paul Kengor, Andrew Busch, and Peter Schweizer, among others — have already gone.

Responsibility without authority is a recipe for frustration. But popularity without power is a recipe for aggravation.

Consider Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States, a man who, by dint of his title, is deemed by the great majority of the population to have "responsibility" for the economy.

To any intelligent person, the notion of one man having "responsibility" over an economy the size of America's is a joke; and yet, a stunningly large percentage of the population will, nevertheless, grade Obama's performance as President largely on the basis of the performance of the economy over the coming months and years.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney -- who was governor in 2004 when the Massachusetts Democrats who controlled the state legislature changed the law to remove the power to make an interim appointment to the U.S. Senate in the event of a vacancy -- has been conspicuously silent since the passing of Sen. Edward Kennedy.

I can understand why Romney would not want to do the right thing, the "right thing" being defined as announcing his own candidacy for the open seat.

It would be a risky move, more likely than not to end in defeat and embarrassment, and, therefore, a hindrance rather than a help to whatever plans he may have for himself and pursuit of the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

Dear Flag@whitehouse.gov,

In re: your Tuesday request that I forward to you any information I might have on "fishy" emails or "casual conversations" that might come to my attention regarding President Obama's health care reform proposals, please be aware that on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 5, 2009, at 1:08 PM, I received an email from "President Barack Obama" -- the actual email address was "info@BarackObama.com" -- that made a couple of spurious (some might say "fishy") claims.

First, of course, I need to point out that the individual who sent this email may or may not actually be President Barack Obama.

As Barack Obama prepares to meet with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley for the purpose of quieting the controversy generated by his stupid comments last week -- a purpose which could be achieved more easily, as I've already written, if he actually came out and apologized to Sgt. Crowley -- he may find it useful to explain the evolution of his thinking on the matter of the relationship between police, and homeowners, and knocking on doors.

Last week, I recalled the story of Hale DeMar, the homeowner who used a hand gun to defend his children and his home against an intruder, and who was "rewarded" for his courage by being fined by his village for illegally possessing that .38 caliber Smith & Wesson pistol.

But I didn't write the other half of the story -- the half that makes Obama's views on policing and private property so much more interesting -- because I didn't have the requisite citation in hand.

Listening last night to Barack Obama tell the tale of the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. at the hands of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Police, I found myself lulled momentarily into the belief that Obama is a man who believes in the sanctity of the home, the notion that any citizen should safely and properly consider his home his castle, inviolate and inviolable.

But then I remembered the case of Hale DeMar, and I snapped out of it.

DeMar was a 54-year-old restaurateur whose home in Wilmette, Illinois was burgled on the night of December 29, 2003 by Morio Billings, a 31-year-old recidivist whose rap sheet included some 30 arrests, plea deals, and convictions for home burglary and the like. Billings was AWOL from the Army and in violation of his probation. On the following night, the burglar -- having stolen, among other things, keys to the house and a BMW X5 SUV -- returned, to continue his robbery.

By the way, arguing against my last post, there actually was a president who had less experience in major public office before winning the presidency than would Sarah Palin, were she to win the White House after only two and a half years as governor -- Woodrow Wilson, who was elected president in 1912 after having been elected governor of New Jersey for the first time in 1910.

Of course, Wilson benefited from the split in the Republican Party -- former President Teddy Roosevelt chose to challenge incumbent president/Roosevelt successor William Howard Taft for the GOP nomination at the 1912 GOP national convention, and, failing to win, had left the GOP to form the Bull Moose Party to contest for the presidency in the general election.

Mark Levin says she's "running for president, get used to it;" Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol says she could run for president; Charlie Cook agrees with Kristol that she could run for president; but Karl Rove says the decision to resign early would hurt her in a future run for president, and RedState founder Erick Erickson flatly declares "she will not run for any elected office ever again."

What's missing in all the instant analyses of will-she-won't-she is a rather more simple calculus -- not as to whether or not this move will hurt her chances should she choose to run for President down the road, but as to whether or not this move should hurt her chances should she choose to run for President down the road.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's admission of an extramarital affair has knocked him out of the running for the GOP nomination for President in 2012. The question now is, whom has his withdrawal from the field most helped?

Answer: Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

When Sanford resigns -- as he will most assuredly have to do -- the state's Lieutenant Governor, Andre Bauer, will ascend to the governorship.

Bauer, already an announced candidate for the GOP nomination next year, would become an incumbent running for election to a full term of his own in 2010.