Nicholas Kaufmann's Journal

Former Sen. Fred Thompson on Tuesday ended his run for the presidency, coming off the heels of a disappointing third-place finish in South Carolina's GOP primary and heading into the showdown state of Florida next week.

Good riddance. As I said before, this arrogant blowhard, who rode in late on a white horse and claimed to be the great political savior conservatives were looking for, brought absolutely nothing to the table. No new ideas, no plans for change, just toeing a party line everyone already knew was dead.

Look for him to cameo on SVU soon.

So now the Republican field has narrowed to McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Paul and Giuliani. Look for Giuliani to bow out if he doesn't carry Florida, whose primary is coming up on January 29. His odds for winning Florida? About 50-50. This could be really close. Personally, I'd love to see him fail, since he's toeing the dead party line as much as Thompson was. Plus, he's an asshole.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are bickering over stupid shit, like who dislikes Reagan more. Seriously, they think that will turn voters on?

The Preliminary Ballot of the HWA's Bram Stoker Awards was announced today, and I'm delighted, humbled and honored to see General Slocum's Gold make it this far. For those not in the know, the Preliminary Ballot is the intermediary stage between the free-for-all recommendations process and the Final Ballot, which is comprised of the actual nominees. Winners will be announced at an awards banquet at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City in late March.

Will this be the year I shed my Susan Lucci mystique to proceed from the Preliminary Ballot and become, for the first time, an actual nominee? Stay tuned!

I'm also pleased to see how well represented my writing group, Who Wants Cake, is on the Preliminary Ballot. In the Novel category are Lee Thomas' The Dust of Wonderland and Sarah Langan's The Missing. In the Long Fiction category are Lee's "An Apiary of White Bees" (from the also-listed anthology Inferno) and my own General Slocum's Gold. Next year I suspect there will be even more Cakers on the list, with Rhodi Hawk's novel coming out from Tor.

Who wants cake? They all do. They all want cake.