Guffaw!

Remember the farmer family that Rudy's campaign snubbed because they weren't rich enough to demagogue the inheritance tax? You knew it would only be a matter of time before he got hit on the issue, and McCain is the one taking the swing:

Senator John McCain put in a personal call today to an Iowa woman that was
snubbed by Rudy Giuliani's campaign, asking to meet with her and apologizing to
her on "behalf of all politicians," the woman told me this evening.

"John McCain personally called me -- today, this afternoon," the woman, Deb
VonSprecken, told me. "Wow. He said, `I want to come and meet you.'"

...

In his call to Deb, McCain apologized to her on the Rudy campaign's behalf and asked if he could come see her, the woman says. "He apologized on behalf of all politicians," she told me. "He just apologized in general. He was really sweet. I recognized his voice from TV. He was very, very polite, funny."

In asking to come visit with her, "He started teasing me and saying, `We're doing a security check. I'm homing in on satellite,'" Deb tells me. "I said, `No, no, don't do it.' We were laughing. It was incredibly nice."

McCain, that old charmer! Shameless flirt!

If McCain, the normally preordained GOP establishment candidate, feels the need to stoop to shots like this, you know the GOP nomination process is a mess compared to the orderly procession to coronation we normally see from the authoritarian party. If he can get this attack media play, maybe it will even buoy his campaign by sinking Giuliani's.