Rudolph "Bialystock" Giuliani????

Well, I came across a blog posting from the marvelously named "Horse's Ass" blog (and the story behind that name is a hoot) has suggested that Rudy Giuliani is the "Max Bialystock of Politics".

If you've never seen Mel Brooks' movie, The Producers, or the subsequent musical, you need to understand that Max Bialystock is an unsuccessful Broadway producer who realizes that he can make money by selling a few thousand percent of a production, and when it fails, no one will expect their money back.

So he chooses the wrong director, the wrong lead, the wrong play (Springtime for Hitler), and, of course, it turns out to be a smash hit, and his deception is revealed.

David "Goldy" Goldstein posits that Rudolph Giuliani did the same thing.

But could Giuliani and his high-paid strategists really have been that stupid? Or, is it possible that the Florida Strategy has actually worked exactly as planned?

While the rest of the presidential field were trudging through the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire, trading rhinoviruses with voters in diners and VFW halls throughout the heartland, Giuliani and his team were leisurely soaking up the rays in sunny Florida, making a few appearances, playing a little golf, and all the while laying claim to the Sunshine State’s winner-take-all primary. While Romney, McCain and Huckabee were emptying their campaign coffers duking it out in Nevada and Michigan and South Carolina, Giuliani apparently spent his $50 million-plus campaign war chest on what…? Sunscreen and greens fees? Two percent of the vote, and a single national delegate? According to media reports the Giuliani campaign is so broke his top staffers have foregone their salaries, raising questions of how he could have spent so much money for such poor results? But perhaps the better question might be, did he actually spend the money at all?

Think about it. Giuliani may be arrogant and vindictive and ethically challenged, but nobody’s ever accused the man of being stupid, so perhaps he and his advisers knew all along that he didn’t stand a chance on the national stage once Americans really got to know him. But just because he couldn’t win the White House didn’t mean he couldn’t make a little scratch on the side, and taking a lesson from Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom in Mel Brooks’ legendary The Producers, perhaps Giuliani realized he could make a helluva lot more money from a presidential flop than he ever could from a respectable run?

Go read the whole thing, it's a hoot.