There are several interesting nuggets in this piece in Tuesday's Post about presidential candidate spending. Obama, Romney and Giuliani each spent more than they brought in during the third quarter.

What really jumps out though is Romney. Romney spent a whopping $21 million in the 3rd quarter. That's three million more than he brought in. But, remember, Romney pulled in just under $10 million in genuine contributions. The rest of his $18 million came from an $8.5 million loan from himself. So really Romney spent twice as much as he brought in, though perhaps Romney's apparent and increasing willingness to self-finance -- even if in the form of never-to-be-repaid 'loans' -- makes the whole point moot.

Then there's this fun nugget ...

Giuliani's spending was elevated at least in part because he traveled in style. He often stayed in luxury hotels, spending $2,010 at the Greenbrier in West Virginia, $4,034 at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., and $5,370 at the Fairmont in San Francisco. He also spent more than $565,000 reimbursing various corporate supporters for private jet travel and an additional $800,000 on charter jet travel.

"We have said, at the end of the day, looking at the total that we have, it shows we're running a very efficient and effective campaign and are very mindful of the donations that we receive," said Maria Comella, a Giuliani spokeswoman.

Sort of recalls the Luv Shack Emergency Command Center at the World Trade Center with its "humidor for cigars ... as well as monogrammed towels in his bathroom."

At this point, on the Republican side, what really has me interested is Romney's effort to check Rudy on the evangelical front and make himself the candidate around whom religious right voters must coalesce in order to deny Giuliani the nomination. We mentioned this in last week's '08 election roundup. And just today Robert R. Taylor, dean of the college and arts and sciences at Bob Jones University endorsed Romney. As Eric Kleefeld points out here, as recently as 2000 the president of the place, Bob Jones III, was denouncing Mormonism as a "cult."

Despite the ridiculousness and humor of Romney (in fact, closest to Rudy on all the key social issues) trying to lock-up the evangelical vote to deny Rudy the nomination, I think it's probably a pretty smart move for him. And it may well be successful.

I know I've said before that Romney's profound and almost incalculable phoniness is a terrifying prospect to behold in a possible president. But the danger of phoniness, aesthetic or otherwise, cannot hold a candle to the truly catastrophic foreign policy Giuliani would likely pursue if he got anywhere near the Oval Office. Watching him campaign it's pretty clear that the guy has no real sense that posturing and pandering to ethnic paranoia in New York City simply isn't the same as running a national foreign policy. The people he's coalescing around himself as his foreign policy advisors are the ones who are going to help him learn as he goes. And they are simply the most dangerous, deranged and deluded folks you can find in American political and foreign policy circles today. It's really not an exaggeration. Scrape the bottom of the "Global War on Terror" Islamofascism nutbasket and you find they've pretty much all signed on as Rudy advisors.