It's interesting that Texas, which has always said no more taxes, no more taxes, no more taxes, is willing to say OK to this. But you find this all over the country, that the one issue that will open up the pocketbooks _ and we all hate taxes _ it is education.

One of them has to break out, and people have to decide that if they don't want Perry, they have to agree on one of the other guys.

And that's a hard thing to do. This is New York; it's not that easy a job. It's certainly quite an achievement to get 70 percent approval in this town.

Republicans, not surprisingly, have more confidence in Giuliani's chances of becoming president than do Democrats, but a majority of groups actually think that Giuliani has a fairly good chance.

The miraculous thing about this mayor is not just that he gets high marks but that he gets them from everybody - every single subgroup of every kind thinks he's doing a good job.