Rudy Retains Lead in Florida

Given the results of the Hawkeye Cauci, I was anxious to see what the polls looked like in Florida. And a new poll has Rudy still up by 5 points in the Sunshine State, and the RCP polling average has him up by 5.2 points there. And while McCain, Romney, and Huckabee move onto Michigan, Nevada, and South Carolina (joining Thompson in the latter state), Rudy can keep pounding the pavement and airing his ads in Florida with virtually no competition for weeks. I had projected that if Romney didn't win New Hampshire, he was done. But McCain beat Romney by only five points in NH, and has spent most of his resources there, while Romney still has the money to pose a serious challenge in MI, where he grew up and where his family had significant political power, and NV, which has a significant Mormon population. While I don't think Romney has a shot at winning the nomination at this point, he can act as a spoiler for McCain and Huckabee in the mid-January races, drying up their money and resources before Florida and Super Tuesday, which ultimately plays into Rudy's strategy.

Also, if this election has proven anything, it's that you can't trust the MSM punditry when they tell you that a candidate is dead. Hell, just yesterday, they were speculating big time about Hillary exiting the race and her staffers running away in droves to Obama's campaign, something I never believed (she would fight to the death before ever conceding). So nobody should think Rudy's out simply because the MSM "speculates" so.