Through the wide, night streets of Tampa came the pirates — tens of thousands of them, some in full regalia, tricorne hats and eye patches, plastic cutlasses and black velvet coats, girls in low-cut frilly white shirts and face paint.
Articles by Guy Rundle 
Guy Rundle: Emergency Republican scenario includes another Bush
So it’s on. And if Gingrich wins he’ll take all Florida’s delegates, 50 in total, which will put him way ahead in the delegate count.
Rundle12: down Florida way, Newt’s about to tear Mitt a fresh one afresh
They’re off the blocks in Florida today, for the fourth Republican primary (OK three primaries, one caucus) with a debate tonight in Tampa, and both Romney and Gingrich ripping each other new ones.
Rundle12: Gingrich’s secret weapon — Mitt Romney
This thing is absolutely on, and it may well go all the way to the last primary – June 26, Utah, which may well be Mormon Mitt’s ace-in-the-hole … or his last stand.
Rundle12: Mrs Gingrich throws campaign grenade at egomaniac man-baby ex
Newt Gingrich may not be able to get out of this one with his usual pious “I made mistakes” line, because this is so calculated in the telling that it reminds people Gingrich is a member of the elite he hates.
Rundle12: up close and personal with Rick Perry
Why is Texas Governor Rick Perry still in the Republican race? A campaign stop in South Carolina demonstrated why even the man himself doesn’t seem to think he can win.
Rundle12: Gingrich on points in latest debate, but Paul lit the room up
Mitt Romney has sailed about as close to defeat in South Carolina as he is likely to, with a disastrous performance in the first of two South Carolina debates.
Rundle12: the Redneck Riviera where there’s 2, 3, many Americas
Jesus, there are probably less appropriate places to spend Martin Luther King day than Myrtle Beach, a resort town at the northern end of the South Carolina coast, writes Guy Rundle from in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Guy Rundle: Pinch of piss in Sth Carolina as Santorum sells lunch pail nostalgia
There is something about Rick Santorum that gets under my skin, and it has nothing to do with his positions on sexuality.
Rundle12: ‘never has a victor (Romney) looked so utterly defeated’
Mitt Romney “won” the New Hampshire primary yesterday. But his now almost inevitable run to the Republican nomination has never looked less convincing, writes Guy Rundle from Columbia, South Carolina.
Rundle12: New Hampshire is Romney country, but not impressively
As the votes are being counted for the New Hampshire primary, the sentiment has favoured Romney, who has hustled the state like a dull man wearing down an exciting woman.
Rundle12: no place for a Huntsman in either the woods or a diner
We were all in the Puritan diner and ice-cream store when Jon Huntsman lunged towards me.
Guy Rundle: Romney fails to impress in New Hampshire
Republican Mitt Romney tried to be casual, relaxed and engaging in New Hampshire. It didn’t work. Crikey’s Guy Rundle begins his US roadshow in the bellwether state to report on this week’s crucial primary.
Rundle: goodbye 2011, and Knut who died from coke and hookers
Giffords, Zsa Zsa, Giddings, Merkel, ******, Moran, Osama, Obama, Mladic, Joyce, Winehouse, Rupert, Bolt, Hitchens, Kim … and Knut. Your handy reminder of the year that was.
Guy Rundle: Refugee debate dominated by compromise, not core promises
The anti-mandatory detention campaign, which came from the Left, has a simple demand — that the country live up to its freely taken-on treaty obligations. Why have commentators like Robert Manne lost sight of that?
Rundle in Nth Korea: Stalinist hermit kingdom meets dystopian science-fiction
Anyone who has been to North Korea will hope to Christ that some process, from the great Kim Jong-un liberalisation to a military coup against the family, will loosen the stays sufficiently so that people might be able to feed themselves.
Rundle's ruminations: The war decade, the Enlightenment armed, and 101 uses for a dead Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens was a well-known journalist, based in the US, and quite the bon vivant, or so I hear! He died last week. Perhaps some of you knew this already.
The number crunching that is Iraq is finally done
The whole process had been an imaginary projection of US power in any case — removing the Iraqi people from the picture meant that all attention could be focused on American suffering and the meaning of the war in American life.
Guy Rundle: How violence in Europe takes a hard-Right turn
How will the Liberal Right deal with the increasingly violent and racist trajectory of the hard-Right? Not well, one suspects on the evidence.
Guy Rundle: The email that could bring about James Murdoch’s downfall
James Murdoch has misled a UK Parliamentary committee, either deliberately or by being so indifferent to the truth-value of his testimony that he has been deceitful by negligence. That’s the only conclusion one can draw from the startling new revelations of a 2008 email.
Guy Rundle: Rundle: for Cameron, Brussells sprouts a sort of zen veto
The EU could have given the UK kittens, bl-wjobs and Belgium for free, and Cameron, on returning, would have still been portrayed as “the man who sold out to Europe”.
Guy Rundle: An unusual twist in the NotW phone-hacking tale
The Leveson inquiry into the UK print media has taken an unusual turn.
Rundle: NotW scandal widens, Mulcaire now has nothing to lose
December 7 — a day of infamy for an empire, its forces tethered and defenceless, the enemy coming out of the sun, laying waste.
Guy Rundle: Cameron’s bulldog image in danger of losing its balls
The problem for Cameron is that he’s dealing with a triple crisis — party, country and Europe — while his enemies have only one aim, to make the Tories over as a euro sceptic outfit.
