[Brices Crossroads]

I fail to see how Romney’s declining poll numbers in these early states months before the primaries establish that he will be one of the finalists for the nomination. The fact that he retains slim facial leads convinces me of nothing. As has been reported, he has been the only one advertising and has spent $8 million on 10,000 ads. Still his lead in New Hampshire is 4 points and declining, and his lead in Iowa is 9 points and declining. His national numbers are, and have been, in the toilet, and they are beginning to exercise significant gravitational pull on his state numbers. People are not going to go out and freeze their tails off in Iowa and New Hampshire in January to vote for someone who is in 4th place and in single digits nationally. And the internals of the Newsweek Iowa poll released last weekend are even more ominous. Thompson’s voters are far more committed, with 39% strongly backing him. Only 26% of Romney’s voters strongly back him.

Intensity of support is key in a primary and even more key in a caucus. So the 8 point lead which Romney now enjoys in Iowa may well be a dead heat with Thompson given the fact that his support is so much more intense(and therefore more likely to show up) than Romney’s. And bear in mind as well that no comparison ads highlighting Romney’s past liberal stands and flip flops have yet gone up. When that happens, his declining lead will erode further.

[nathanbedford]

You think that the two last man standing will be Thompson and Giuliani with Thompson winning. I think the last two will be Thompson and Romney with Thompson winning.

Your argument that Giuliani will carry the Rockefeller wing of the party has merit especially when considered in the context of his national name recognition and claim to fame from 9/11 and crime stopping in New York City. If you are right it means that the states that cannot possibly elect a Republican presidents including California and the Northeast, will nominate a candidate unsatisfactory to the bulk of the Republicans in the states responsible for electing Republican presidents because they're the only ones who have the power to do so. Nevertheless, you might be right.

Strangely, the MSM pundits seem to believe that we have both done it wrong when we say that Thompson will get the nomination. They don't believe he has the stuff on the campaign trail and they don't believe he has the organizational ability to put together the kind of campaign that can compete with the organizational skills of Romney and the charisma of Giuliani. They haven't said so, but it is clear they see him as a kind of a doofus.

These pundits seem to have inconsistent positions. They will be among the first to say that it is the leaders in the early caucus and primary states who will be in the best position to win as the nomination process rolls out after Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and into South Carolina. If Romney can hold his position in the first three states is momentum will be difficult to stop. Recent polls have shown that Thompson is slipping in ahead of or right behind Giuliani in these states. It appears that Giuliani is slipping in these critical areas and Fred Thompson is making headway as we both predict. I believe that Giuliani will slip away to below Thomson and Romney by the time the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primaries are held. We both believe that Thompson will be ahead of Romney by then.

The pundits will not acknowledge Thompson's advance in these states-at least on the Sunday talk shows-and seem fixated on their "doofus" template.

I don't believe that our differences are greater than our common differences with the mainstream media. In any event, our differences are not that great. I am merely looking at this from an analytical point of view and have not expressed much of the desire in this exchange about whom I would like to see elected. That is a different matter.