“Any idea on what’s with Guiliani? Will Fred supporters go to him or Romney?”
I think Romney mostly, here’s why:
Conservatives were supporting Thompson because he was the proven conservative. Thompson’s problem was his bad, disorganized campaign, which just projected the message that he wasnt an up-and-at-em leader. The people who stuck with Thompson are those who saw the ideological warts on the other candidates and didnt like them and so stuck with the *real conservative*.
Romney is running as a Reagan unified coalition conservative with the business/economy experience to turn around DC on economic issues. fiscal cons and prolife+fiscal cons who cant abide Huck’s populism moved into his corner.
Romney’s prolife and against gay marriage, but since he move d to be prolife in 2005, he social issues positions were attacked as insincere, So the social cons, especially evangelicals hit with a Mormon and a Massachusetts history, didnt accept that, so they split to go with Huck. THOMPSON’S BIGGEST ERROR WAS IN NOT GOING AFTER THESE VOTERS! LOSING THEM TO HUCK IN IOWA IS WHAT TRULY ENDED HIS CHANCES. I WAS TELLING ANTI-ROMNEY FRED-HEADS THIS IN NOVEMBER AND THEY WOULDNT LISTEN! But the numbers are plain: Thompson could have won Iowa if he made the case to them that he was the consistent proven conservative. He didnt, they picked Huck. The result was the “Clusterhuck”.
Rudy’s mini-scandal over NYPD guarding his then-mistress-now-wife Judith in early December sunk his candidacy and revived McCain. The national security cons flipped to McCain.
For national security cons, it was enough for McCain to say “Surge” and they were for him.
So right now Rudy has no natural base. McCain stole his voters. He’s done.
Romney has a base of fiscal/economic conservatives who recognize that McCain has really been wrong and/or nowhere on those issues, except to be against ‘pork’ (when its not in Arizona). McCain remains a nanny-state regulator and not a supply-sider (a la Club for Growth).
Romney is more conservative than McCain overall, so Thompson folks are switching from a proven conservative to an unproven conservative who would pretty much govern as President about as conservatively as Thompson would.
Some may pick McCain over particular nits on Romney side.
The small minority of Mormon-haters will slink off to McCain or stay with Huck. Any RINO in the White House is better than a Mormon, for them. The larger group of “electability” worriers might prefer McCain if the swallow the MSM bias that McCain is Mr electable (He aint and Romney will be as electable but you cant prove these things until you try it).
McCain otoh is a proven RINO. So for any “Reagan coalition” conservatives, it is an easy choice.
On balance, some may go McCain but it is an easy choice for conservatives: Support Mitt Romney.