I’ve made the case that a Mike Huckabee win in Iowa over Mitt Romney would benefit Rudy Giuliani. I still think that, but I’ll revise the prediction: It depends on how well Giuliani himself does. If Giuliani performs respectably in Iowa and South Carolina, and either wins or places a strong second in New Hampshire, Huckabee will probably doom Romney (and Huckabee and Ron Paul together may doom Fred Thompson). But if Giuliani can’t do better than a distant third in any of the early states, or manages to do worse than that in any of them, Romney may not have to run the table to remain competitive — or for the race to remain open.
