Brumment does some ranking on the 10 White Men who participated in the Republican Party debate Thursday night.

Ten candidates for the Republican presidential nomination debated Thursday night from the Reagan presidential library on MSNBC. Here’s one man’s ranking.

1. Rudy Giuliani - Somewhere along the way, successful candidates manage to convey images by which voters can begin to envision them comfortably in the office they seek. Giuliani threatens to accomplish that by repeatedly citing his altogether impressive accomplishments as mayor of New York City, a tougher and more relevant job than governor of Arkansas or member of Congress. Giuliani is a social and cultural liberal with a checkered personal history. He shouldn’t have a snowball’s chance with modern Republicans. But he’s a strong enough political force to be a bona fide contender anyway.

2. John McCain - He is a celebrity, a hero, a power, a legend, perhaps a mystique, and still the strongest general election prospect. What he also is lately is weird. He smiled eerily and inappropriately after vowing to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell. He was trying too hard to recite over-prepared lines and appear tough and passionate. He may be going the way of Al Gore, meaning a victim of over-consulting. When he’s himself, independent and decisive, he’s fine. Asked if he believed in evolution, a dangerous concession to plain science for a candidate to admit in a sanity-challenged Republican primary, he simply said, “yes,” while scurrying to say he sees the hand of a God in a sunset. On funding for research using embryonic stem cells, he said yes, while most of the others, pandering to religious fanatics and burying their heads to medical advancement, said no.