(To hopefully become a weekly column on here where I look back on the week and see who gained & who lost. Just have to remember each week to actually do it!)

Most of the attention this week went to Rudy Giuliani who has just been getting hammered for his stances on abortion, illegal immigration etc. Giuliani had an appearance this morning on FOX news (interviewed by Chris Wallace) where he was grilled over his stances and on past decisions he made while mayor of NYC. The transcript is now available.

Giuliani decided to come out this week with his true feelings on abortion after months of what many saw as “trying to have it both ways” on the issue. Giuliani admitted his own beliefs are different then those of Republican voters and repeated his message that national security trumps almost everything else. Sad to say Giuliani was one of the big losers this week.

It is nice to see the former mayor finally owning up to his abortion views and accepting that Republican primary voters might not go his way because of it. With that said, why didn’t he just do this from the start? Giuliani may not have run a national campaign like this but he has people around him who have, not realizing this fact was one of the biggest blunders thus far (and that is keeping McCain’s continued problems in mind) and I wouldn’t be surprised if it hurts him in the long run.

People don’t want to be lied too. You can argue whether or not Giuliani was being deceitful or clever but either way he tried to be something he wasn’t and it backfired.

There was, however, another candidate facing some hard luck this week and that was Senator Barack Obama who faced a bevy of criticm & some big gaffees.

First Obama saw his gaining poll numbers begin to shrink this week with Senator Hillary Clinton regaining her double digit lead over him in some polls. As Bob Novak pointed out in his column many see this as a delayed response to the Senators widely regarded poor performance in the first Democratic debate. (Most people didn’t actually watch but as word spread throughout the blogosphere, tv & newspapers it didn’t help the Sen or so the argument goes) These polls only hurt Obama more when you consider other polling that shows Edwards gaining a lead in some early primary states. Something that is hurting Obama more than Clinton right now.

Second came Obama’s speech in Detroit Michigan where he chastised automakers. The speech was initially covered as a positive coup for Obama who was seen standing up for the environment & labor. Reports then came out that those in attendence did not see it that way.

Obama made a major gaffee saying that Japanese cars averaged 45 miles to the gallon. In reality they average more around 30. This opened him up to criticism that he wasn’t educated enough on the issues. It also opened Obama, who was outed in 2006 for driving an SUV while castigating others on gas guzzling, to personal criticism about his environmental message as well as his mileage message.

It went further though, Obama now is reported to drive a luxury car that also gets poor gas mileage. The story was also covered on Political Lunch.

The speech may have given him political points with the left but it did ignore one glaringly obvious thing. Those big automakers employ thousands of Americans and they do so throughout the midwest. They along with other corporations who are feeling Obama’s attacks put money into the pockets of workers, who then go out and buy SUV’s or dream about V8 Hemi-powered Chrysler 300C cars just like the Senator has. Attacking them is a good political stunt for California, Vermont & others but it doesn’t equate to votes in midwest states for the primary.

Speaking of other corporations, Obama has also been known to attack Wal-Mart and its labor practices saying there was a “moral responsibility to stand up and fight” the company. However Obama’s wife sat on the board of an Illinois-food processing company, Treehouse Foods, whose largest consumer is, can you guess? Wal-Mart. Which means the Obama family, while the Senator attacks the company & his wife does business with them, makes a pretty hefty profit according to an article she received $51,200 along with 7,500 Treehouse stock options, worth a further $72,375.

As time goes on the calls that the one term Senator may be too “green” for the campaign trail intensifies. To further complicate things CNN ran a story that Obama made yet another rookie mistake in publicly blaming his staff for his inability to meet in person with a group (rather than leading his campaign and having a say in his schedule) and his campaign got a healthy dose of media attention as it fought with a former staffer over the ownership of a MySpace page with the Senators name on it.

It is a fight that John C. Dvorak & others on the popular podcast This Week In Tech made light of asking if anyone would actually want a president who actually wanted a MySpace page in the first place, especially that badly.

Meanwhile it wasn’t all bad for the candidates & the big winner this week, in my humble opinion, was John McCain who managed not to seriously damage his campaign any further this week by saying or doing anything wildly stupid. McCain had a decent showing at the first debate, has been rising in poll numbers and is actually getting a slight bit of traction.

Mitt Romney has gotten some steam getting on ‘60 Minutes as well as the cover of Time Magazine & John Edwards has been doing well in polling.