IMHO, Fred's doing the right thing. Not because Iowa is so grossly significant, nor to kiss the hindquarters of Iowans, but because other candidates that are more philosophically similar to him than Rudy are competing hard there. When he takes the wind out of their sails by doing well (and a win is not necessary), they'll begin to drop out, basically leaving the conservative wing of the Party with a choice of Fred or stay home. Most will choose Fred, esp. as he and his views become better known. New Hamphire is mostly about the same thing. After both of these primaries, folks like Tancredo, Hunter, Brownback and Huckabee will be out, and possibly McCain as well (and if he's not out by then, then for sure he will be by the end of Super Tuesday week). Most of those voters and their contributions will go his way, and THEN he'll go into Super Tuesday with the race being between Rudy, Romney and him - with most of those primaries being on HIS home territory. That is when he'll garner lots of delegates, and finally be looked upon as the front-runner, which will enhance collections, etc., etc. IOW, he'll have George H. W. Bush's famous "Big Mo."
Paul will stick around for a while - that's what gadflies do. Romney will drop out before Rudy, and probably never get more than 10% of the delegates. I think Rudy will get 20%-22%, no more, and Fred the lion's share of the rest, giving him the nomination.
BTW, folks, let's try to have a civilized discussion during the primaries - don't forget the 11th Commandment, given to us by Ronaldus Maximus: Thou shalt not trash thy fellow Republican. Talk issues, bring facts and non-trashing opinions to the table, and may the best person win the nomination. THEN we can start trash-talking the Dem nominee, if trash-talking is going to occur at all.
How about a new 12th commandment where everyone agrees not to put up gungrabbers, medicine socializers, and abortion advocates for the Republican ticket?
This new 12th commandment would make it a lot easier to follow the 11th.
I tried pretty hard to do that for a long time, even defending Mitt against what I considered scurrilous charges (the hotel PPV-porn thing), but the Mittites will have none of it. They behave like obnoxious little ^ssholes at every opportunity, so the hell with them and their plastic-haired gun-grabbing baby-killing magic-underwear-wearing effeminate metrosexual flip-flopping RINO jerk of a candidate. I'm hitting back hard and calling him on EVERYTHING from here on out.