Here’s the thing about polling data - when you’re ahead they are prescient and when you’re behind, obviously there’s a flaw in how the numbers were crunched.

And that is how former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge found himself standing in front of the University of Tampa’s Plant Hall awaiting the arrival of John McCain as he tried to explain how some recent polling figures had showed former Gov. Mitt Romney with a thin lead over his man, in the run-up to Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary.

“Whatever the polls show,” Ridge argued, “they’re still so fluid.”

Besides, the former Homeland Security czar reasoned, look at how wrong the polls were in New Hampshire, in which Barack Obama’s lead evaporated into a Hillary Clinton victory, thereby raising a cautionary note in putting too much stock into polls. As well, Ridge proudly noted he is a veteran of eight political campaigns, so he ought to know a thing or two about believing in polls.

But Gov. Ridge, it was pointed out, while the advance polling data may have been wrong when it came to the Democratic race in New Hampshire, were not the same polling organizations dead on in correctly predicting John McCain’s New Hampshire victory?

“That’s true,” Ridge nodded.

And oh, by the way, just out of idle curiosity, of his eight campaigns for various offices, how close were the final election results to the polling figures?

Ridge smiled and shyly nodded his head. “Pretty close, pretty close.”

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Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was dead wrong during Thursday night’s MSNBC Republican debate when he insisted the “Wet Foot/Dry Foot” policy regarding Cubans attempting to enter the country has been U.S. foreign policy for the past 40 years.

Not so. “Wet Foot/Dry Foot,” which allows Cubans entering the United States to stay IF they can reach dry land began in 1995 as a provision of the Cuban Adjustment Act signed by Bill Clinton.

How can a candidate for the presidency of the United States be so ill informed on Cuban immigration policy, especially while campaigning in Florida? Amazing.

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Did you notice the moment Democratic vanity candidate, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich discovered he was facing a tough re-election battle back home in Cleveland, how quickly he abandoned his delusional presidential campaign?

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By Tuesday night, Rudy Giuliani will know if risking his entire presidential ambitions on Florida was a brilliant political strategy or a decision, which will be regarded as one the most boneheaded moves in the history of campaigning.

“He’s going to make history one way or the other,” laughed Tom Ridge.

Too true, too true.