Florida now looks like a TWO man race: The latest Poll taken on 1/22 and 1/23 shows Rudy decline:

Romney 30

McCain 26

Giuliani 18

Huckabee 15

400 likely GOP voters, surveyed 1/22-23, Margin of error +/- 5%

Polling Data

GOP campaign shakeups:

Fred Thompson sources say the actor and former Tenn senator may withdraw from the race. There are no plans to attend Thursday’s Florida debate.
Staffers have been on partial pay since the NH primary. The Senators plans are very fluid. As of 8:45 this evening, there are no plans for any announcement about whether he will stay in the race or not. The team is wrestling with very few options. The Senator is in Nashville visiting his mother (in her 90’s) who has been ill.
From THE FIRST DAY Fox News broke the story last March of his candidacy, Thompson has always had a vice presidential bid in mind. Today a top aide even mentioned the idea on Brian and the Judge on Fox News Radio.

Mike Huckabee, has also kept vice presidential options open by NOT strongly criticizing Giuliani or McCain. Huckabee is retooling his campaign to cherrypick some Super Tuesday states on Feb 5th (notably Ga and Alabama).
Huck bet the ranch on SC and coming in second did little for his weak Fla organization and almost NO organization anywhere else. Fla and Feb 5th are dauntingly expensive. Sources say Huck has money, but nowhere near what he’d like for the BIG states ahead.

Rudy Guiliani says he will continue to discuss issue differences with his rivals but will not go negative. Hizzoner’s team went into Fla a month ago prepared to spend more than $8 million dollars to win. Rudy does not have a lot of money left and he’s cratering in the polls. He may need to rethink playing nice.
A Fla defeat could effectively send Rudy from the big leagues to the Veepstakes as well.

John McCain is tapped out to. His early wins have not exactly created a firehose of cash. But what he lacks in web donations he will will try to make up for with a big fundraiser this week in NYC…right in Rudy’s backyard…where McCain now leads the polls. None of McCain’s rivals want to take the first punch (lest they suffer a backlash and lose ground too) in a multi candidate field. If he emerges the unscathed frontrunner from Thursdays
Fla debate, he will be HARD to beat.

Mitt Romney leads the estimated delegate count after 6 contests with three wins, two seconds, and a fourth. He has spent considerable time and money in Fla and is competitive (in the top 3) in every poll (even leading some.). Romney has no plans for attack ads, at this point.
Florida could be tough for Mitt, he has support but it is not firmly committed. Importantly, in this race there are no delegates for “silver or bronze”…the sunshine state is winner take all.

It can be painful to watch candidates make concessions speeches after a do or die situation.

Click here to see it:

Expect to hear something as early as Monday. Fredheads need and deserve to know what’s going on.

TEN DAYS IS A LONG TIME.

In fact there have not been ten uninterrupted campaign days in this entire campaign. The ten days before Iowa included Christmas and New Years.

Since August John McCain has been the come-from-behind-underdog. For the first time in the race he is going to get the full front-runner treatment: intense scrutiny and relentless criticism from his rivals.

Huckabee’s gracious praise for McCain in tonight’s concession speech smacked of a short list audition. He promised to remain in the nominating “process” for a long time, and said he still believes it will end “in the White House.” But there were moments when he spoke about his campaign in the past tense, and he didn’t say in what capacity he believed he would end up in Casa Blanca.

(more…)

He will make his departure from the race official tonight.

Mitt claims the pro-growth economic message with Michigan, NH solidified Mac’s strong security message and Huck in Iowa got the jump on social and religious conservatives…3 winners with distinct messages, and with strengths and weaknesses regionally and on core GOP issues…There is no front-runner.
SC was always THE state for southerner Fred Thompson to win…failing here could eliminate him.
But McCain has long viewed SC (with a high per capita population of retired and active military) as key to his long term viability.
And because as much as 60% of the South Carolina GOP vote is evangelical Huck needs to win here too!
A 3 way do or die???
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Now the race is about delegate counting with all the candidates planning for a long war of attrition beyond February 5th. When you look at the count and the map there is little incentive for anyone to bail out regardless of the outcome of South Carolina .

States allocating pledged delegates to date:
Iowa, Wyoming (GOP), New Hampshire, Michigan

Source: Real Clear Politics

Republican Delegates (1,191 needed to win nomination)

As for Giuliani, he put all his eggs in Florida’s winner-take-all basket. There are 57 delegates to be won there.

He is tied with McCain. If McCain wins South Carolina that could propel to a win of those 57 delegates.

Mitt Romney is bouyant tonite as the last Michigan polls prepare to close at 9pm eastern time. He is even going back on the air in SC -briefly- with an ad. But Romney is really eyeing Nevada for his next win and will
spend at least Thursday and some of Friday there before the caucuses Saturday.

Check out Shushannah Walshe’s update.

3 to 6 inches of snow fell around Detroit overnight.
GOP officials say light turnout so far is in keeping with forecasts of about a million votes cast today in the republican primary.
In 2000 when John McCain won, 1.3 million votes were cast- 17 percent of McCain’s votes were from indies and dems.
Light turnout and weather this time could mean fewer non-GOP votes. That could be good news for Romney.
If polls are to be believed ALL the trend lines are in Romney’s direction…albeit within the margin of error.
Romney went optimistic about Michigan manufacturing job losses saying he’ll lead the recovery. Initially McCain said those jobs are not coming back, he cast Romney as pandering. It wasn’t until a couple days ago that McCain too started cheering the recovery. If Romney wins, jobs and optimism V Realism V pessimism may be seen as the defining issues.

If Romney wins, the race in many ways, will be back to the beginning.

Thinkabout it; a Romney win evens the playing field. Huck, Mac and Mitt each have a “W” going forward.

If McCain wins we’ll have an indisputable frontrunner.
AGAIN…Mitt needs Michigan…McCain needs SC.
Tactically the best way to campaign in SC is to win MI.</

A McCain win slingshots him into SC where he has basically everything on the line.
As the most experienced ’security candidate” if McCain can’t win in SC where the military population is the nations highest per capita,,where (besides NH and AZ) might he win?
Conversely if Mitt can’t win in his home state, well, uh, what then?

Rudy gets a Newt shout out on the Today Show. Not an endorsement but praise for cleaning up the big apple.

Rudy needs all the good press and punditry he can get. Not competing is hurting him in the polls.

Skepticism over Giuliani’s finances dogged him for another day in Florida. He has spent the last few trying to reassure voters that he is not tapped out, even while some aides voluntarily give up their paychecks.

Rudy’s latest attempt to allay doubts came as he spoke to Wendell Goler aboard his campaign bus.

Click below to see Rudy explain in his own words.

http://embeds.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/rudygolerstrategy.mov

Can he convince reporters, bloggers and the public that his Florida must-win strategy is working despite most of the current polls showing him lagging behind McCain in Florida?

Real Clear Politics has the numbers.

Read Mosheh Oinounou, our embed producer’s full write up on this at embeds.blogs.foxnews.com