Continuing in our series of Pimp My Candidate: Herbal Remedies Edition...

Rudy Giuliani is maintaining his lead in the race for the GOP nomination. He's a stronger candidate than many expected.

I have always been a defender of Giuliani's tenure as New York City's mayor. His legacy is greater than any singular achievement - and there were many of those: reducing crime, cleaning up the city, revitalizing the tourist industry. But Rudy's grand legacy is that he showed that New York City could actually be governed. Make no mistake, this was in serious doubt before he took office. New York seemed to be in free fall in the early '90s.

That said, Rudy can be mean, divisive, vindictive. He likes to pick fights. And right now the United States doesn't need to be picking any more fights.

Rudy needs to find inner peace, tranquility. It's time to restore the balance of Rudy's mind, body, and spirit ... to right the flow of Rudy's chi... It's all about good energy... Watch and learn ...

Fred Thompson is off to a sluggish start. Perhaps he's being overly managed - with too many advisers giving too many prescriptions.

It's time to restore the balance of Fred's mind, body, and spirit ... to right the flow of Fred's chi... It's all about good energy... Watch and learn ...

Rudy Giuliani has a lisp. If he's elected, he will be our first President with a lisp. (Lincoln had a thin reedy voice. Chester Alan Arthur was a stammerer. Neither had lisps.) This is no small thing in a political culture in which the smallest flaws are magnified: Hillary's Cackle ... Thompson's baggy eyes ... Obama's mole ... Chris Dodd's James-and-the-Giant-Peach-sized head ...

Full disclosure: I have a lisp.

This week I sat down with eminent speech pathologist and accent coach Sam Chwat, director of New York Speech Improvement Services, to talk about Rudy's lisp. Sam is also known as "the Speech Therapist to the Stars": he helped Julia Roberts shed her Southern drawl and was dialect coach to Robert De Niro when he needed an Appalachian accent for Cape Fear.

Sam is confident that Rudy could eliminate his lisp in just a few sessions. He knows of what he speaks, I suppose, and Rudy has a legendary work ethic. Still, losing a lisp is no simple task ... (Don't ask me to say that last sentence.)

Now watch the video below!

There are several reasons Hillary Clinton has built what looks like an insurmountable lead in the race for the Democratic nomination: She's been a solid New York senator. She's got a great command of policy. She's got name recognition. And she speaks clearly and in complete sentences. (Sadly that has become a factor. Let's face it: Over the last six and a half years, the Bully Pulpit has been bullied to a pulp syntactically.)

It's also fair to say that hating Hillary is so last millennium. To still dislike her the way many did when she first burst on the scene seems irrational. Hillary is hardly a radical. Her problem with Democratic primary voters is that she's not ideological enough; that she's been too pragmatic.

Still presidential politics is often about the little things that add up to being likable ... or unlikable. And Hillary's still not quite ... likable. But there are things she can do.

First off: Fix that laugh!

Here's Hillary yesterday on Fox News Sunday, one stop during her talk show rounds, followed by an investigation into Hillary's laugh we did last June: