THE NOTE: A Wedding and Some Funerals

Jan. 30, 2008 -- It's a day for at least one political funeral: Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani brings his campaign to a weary close in California.

Former governor Mike Huckabee limps on, though mainly, it seems, to play spoiler (and perhaps to audition for a spot on a ticket).

And former Senator John Edwards makes his way out of the race on Wednesday as well, with a speech in New Orleans, where he launched his campaign 13 months ago. (Finally, he'll get the media attention he's been craving.)

But at the same time, an uneasy marriage is coming together to define the 2008 race. The long, strange trips of Sen. John McCain and the Republican Party take them back to where they started -- into each other's arms. Mostly, they're smiling for the cameras.

Florida's thunderclap delivered McCain the biggest prize yet in the primary season, and the state's 57 (or 114) delegates are an afterthought. McCain, R-Ariz., is now the clear frontrunner in a race that's finally coming into focus, with former governor Mitt Romney, R-Mass., bringing his checkbook to a fight that could be settled Feb. 5.

"The results were a decisive turning point in the Republican race, effectively winnowing the field to Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney, two candidates with very different backgrounds who have little affection for one another but share a similar challenge in winning over elements of the party suspicious of their ideological credentials," Michael Cooper and Megan Thee write in The New York Times.

McCain won by nearly 100,000 votes, in a sprawling, unwieldy state where he was -- again -- badly outspent, and in a state where independents couldn't be his salvation. It was Republicans who chose McCain over Romney, even if they weren't happy doing it.

"Florida Republicans listened to Roberta McCain: They held their noses and voted for her son," Wes Allison and Jennifer Liberto write in the St. Petersburg Times. The victory gave McCain the "mantle of Republican front-runner and bath[ed] him in a glow of national electability only a week before 21 other states make their picks for the GOP nominee."

"Romney held an advantage over the half of voters who made their decision on the issues, but McCain countered with a strong showing among the remaining half who preferred leadership and personal qualities," ABC's Peyton Craighill and Brian Hartman write in summing up the exit polls. One particularly troublesome data point: "McCain did better than his main rival among economy voters, a group that Romney had hoped to dominate."

Giuliani, R-N.Y., plans to endorse McCain on Wednesday in California, and he'll get out of the race and behind his friend before Wednesday night's Republican debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., with a 3 pm ET event scheduled, ABC's Jake Tapper reports.

Rudy's concession speech Tuesday evening sounded every bit like the farewell it was: "We ran a campaign that was uplifting," Giuliani said. "The responsibility of leadership doesn't end with a single campaign."

Rudy's endorsement matters not just in parts of the country where he can be an effective McCain surrogate, but in echoing a Republican rallying cry. McCain can now consolidate his support in advance of Super Tuesday, with the growing perception that he will clinch the nomination.

McCain "took control of the battle for the Republican presidential nomination -- a prospect that seemed almost unthinkable just a few months ago," Dan Balz writes in The Washington Post.

The victory "delivered a 'take-that' message to naysayers who question the iconoclastic Arizona senator's acceptance by the Republican establishment," Beth Reinhard and Casey Woods write in the Miami Herald. Said McCain (seeming a bit astonished himself): "An all-Republican primary!"

After detours through a Huckaboom, a drafted Fred who went AWOL, and Ron Paul moneybombs, there are now two serious Republican presidential candidates left. The McCain-Romney battle will center on the same questions the race has struggled with for months: Who best represents the dispirited GOP coalition?

The attacks have been flying for months, and Romney offered a hint of what's ahead on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Wednesday: It's a battle over the conservative core.

"What will happen across the country is that conservatives will give a good thought to whether or not they want to hand the party's nomination over to Sen. McCain," Romney told ABC's Robin Roberts. "He has not been their champion over the last several years. I think there will be a movement within the Republican Party to coalesce around a conservative candidate."

Romney also raised the possibility that former governor Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., would stay in the race primarily to take votes away from him, in an effort to boost McCain's prospects: "Mike Huckabee, of course, might stay in, and that may be one of the reasons he does so, is to try and split that conservative vote."

The next battle is set: 8 pm ET Wednesday night in Simi Valley, at the Los Angeles Times/Politico/CNN debate.

"Republicans aren't often ones to fight over core party principles, but they do often feud over who is the more authentic conservative. That fight is likely to define the contests to come," Mike Tackett writes in the Chicago Tribune.

"That is why Romney will keep challenging McCain's front-runner status in the more than 20 contests on Feb. 5 -- and why the Republicans' race is only marginally clearer than the Democrats'."

This is Romney suffering for his pariah status inside the presidential field: Rudy gets out to help McCain beat Romney, and Huck stays in to help McCain beat Romney. (Who wants to kick whose teeth in now?)

Huckabee, R-Ark., is technically still a candidate, but a distant fourth is essentially fatal for a campaign that's flat broke. "Huckabee continues to siphon conservative voters from Romney -- and may be jockeying for a spot on the GOP ticket," the AP's Ron Fournier writes.

"It all adds up to front-runner status for McCain, the Vietnam War hero who was rejected by the GOP in 2000 and is only now being embraced --