Apologies for the panic-inducing title, I just wanted start out with a bang…

John McCain proved Saturday that Republicans might forgive and forget everything: supporting a doomed war (Iraq), opposing the party's top goal (deporting brown people), and an offensively normal blond blogger daughter. (It's also apparently no big deal that the man will be older than Nostradamus by 2016.) And while only a few hours earlier, Mitt Romney had established himself as the man to beat, having won 51% of the Nevada caucus vote, he was soon overshadowed by McCain's upset victory in South Carolina, a state evangelical Governor Mike Huckabee had been long favored to win.

Former Clinton guru Dick Morris sent out a great quote in his daily e-mail this morning:

“The biggest loser in South Carolina was Rudy Giuliani. He now must face a resurgent McCain in Florida who steals his votes away.  Rudy is a bit like the guy who went away to college and came home to find that some other guy had stolen his girl.”

Ouch. But then again, who’d steal Judy Nathan?

What does all this mean for the future of our nation, which The Onion believes is in its final year? And more importantly, who do we have to see about banning Fred Thompson from ever running for office again? The guy is about as exciting as my last colon exam, and believe me, I was very much not aroused.

These and more questions will be answered by Yours Truly, the new National Political Correspondent for Nerve. We'll be concentrating on specific issues that have vaguely nothing to do with Nerve (but I'll throw in a crazy Mike Huckabee abortion comment every day or so, just to stay relevant.)

[Photo of the author and Dennis Kucinich by Mark Esper] 

[Photo of Judith Nathan and Rudy Giuliani by Joe Schildhron/PMc]