Regarding Rudy, if you are his campaign, and you started 2007 as the prohibitive favorite, and you can’t even finish top 2 or 3 in IA or NH (and NH is next to your home state!), where do you go from there? SC, where you are currently fighting Fred Thompson for 3rd/4th? Nevada, where you are winning, but could change after IA/NH? This will be an interesting test of the new primary system, with NV and FL having moved up their dates. Rudy is winning both states, but the media attention that Huckabee (“he’s for real”) and/or McCain (“back from the dead”) will get if they win IA and NH, respectively, might offset any lead that Rudy has in those states. Plus, there will be the inevitable “What happened to Rudy?” stories. In politics, unlike sports, no one likes a loser. There is no equivalent to the Chicago Cubs.

For the GOP, Rudy is fucked. He’s polling just above Ron Paul in IA (read: next-to-DFL), and he’s a distant 3rd in NH to Mitt and McCain. Don’t buy the “resurgent McCain” story in IA – he’s 16 points behind Romney and 26 behind Huckabee. But if McCain catches Mitt in NH (only 11 points behind with about 10 days to go and trending upward), it’s a race. What’s amazing on the GOP side is that Rudy will likely have to drop out after NH (he won’t finish top 3 in IA and won’t be top 2 in the state), and Mitt might not win either state.