The American Spectator

Rudy is at 29%, Thompson at 21%, McCain at 18% and Romney at 12% in latest CBS poll. The poll shows a drop from 47 to 30% in "strongly favor" Rudy but the rest is largely good news for him. Rudy is tied with Thompson with conservatives (Romney's fourth place finish at 14% shows he apparently is not yet regarded as representing "the Republican wing of the Republican party"), has a large lead with moderates and is just 3 pts. behind Thompson with White Evangelicals (didn't they get the Viguerie memos on either Rudy or Thompson?). One particularly bad number for Romney: he gets just 7% of the White Evangelical vote.(Again, aren't these people reading the memos from Bob Jones III et al?) On favorable/unfavorable ratings Rudy has the best split(48-20%) with GOP primary voters and with all voters (35-27%). McCain can also find some good news here- close to Thompson in overall polling and the second best favorable/unfavorable spread. Hey, if Kate O'Beirne can forgive McCain for immigration, anything is possible. (Seriously, he should abandon Iowa and roll the dice on NH where he could make some headlines.)

UPDATE: To be clear, I jest because we take very seriously what certain leaders and groups --everyone from Family Research Council to Club for Growth to the NRA -- say and they certainly have an impact on the race(especially groups like NRA which organize and mobilize literally millions of people). But voters have a funny way of making up their own minds. Thompson may have been on to something when he said to Dobson that he wasn't going to dance to his tune. He seems to be doing just fine with White Evangelicals.