[2ndDivisionVet]

If Fred Thompson is “tanking” what do you call someone behind him in the polls? Hint: Mitt Romney.

Republican Presidential Nomination
Giuliani Thompson McCain Romney
28.7% 17.7% 14.3% 11.3%

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls

[Spiff]

Check my FReeper profile page. There you will see composites of early state polls and national polls. Romney leads in early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. Romney is within the Margin of Error of Fred Thompson on Rasmussen's daily national poll.

Romney is just on the edge of the MoE behind Thompson on an averaged composite of the last 5 national polls taken.

Giuliani 24%
Thompson 17.2%
Romney 13.2%
McCain 12.6%
Huckabee 11.2%

Note: 4 Rasmussen Daily Tracking Polls and 1 Quinnipiac Poll national polls used for the above averages.
Margin of Error for Rasmussen is +/- 4 points
Margin of Error for Quinnipiac is +/- 3.6 points.

The RCP average the you quote goes all the way back to 10/14 and is an average over 2.5 weeks. That's not a good way to deterimine where the candidates actually stand as of today.

More important than national polls are the state polls. Especially the early states. Romney is leading in nearly all of those. Remember that the primary is not a national primary run on a single day. It is a series of state primaries.

[WOSG]

Latest Rasmussen has Thompson only 1% above Romney.
You wont be able to hang onto even that irrelevent poll as a pro-Fred indicator.